Another printer thread...

Hi, I know "I need a new printer" threads are not very interesting, but I could really do with some advice. Sorry if I have posted in the wrong section.

It is a birthday present for my dad, he wants a photo printer, personally I'm not sure that it is worth it but nevermind.

He prints prob 10 black and white sheets, a couple of envelopes and a couple of coloured sheets a week, plus some photos.

Ideally I am looking for a long term photo printer, decent quality and easy to get not terribly expensive inks for. Pretty open with the budget at the moment.

Anyone got any suggestions, or anything that is definately worth avoiding?

Thanks in advance!

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Originally Posted by emzallan

Anyone got any suggestions

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HP has always been good.

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or anything that is definately worth avoiding?

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Epson

How about something a little left field? I really like my Brother multi function printer. very reliable so far and it ethernet so just sits on my network waiting to be used by my desktop or laptop.

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Originally Posted by Andy3536

HP has always been good.





Epson

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as far as photo printers go epson reproduce very good photo prints with some of the best light fastness, up to 75 years on some models.

mines 4 years old and has needed the heads cleaning once.

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Originally Posted by GoNz0

as far as photo printers go epson reproduce very good photo prints with some of the best light fastness, up to 75 years on some models.

mines 4 years old and has needed the heads cleaning once.

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The inks they produce are the best in the business. And their really expensive printers are almost untouchable. But the printers that the 'normal user' would buy have a very bad reputation for reliability.
It is all down to the heads though, if you use the printer regulary, then it'll probably be fine. It's when the 'normal home user' that might go for a flurry once in a while but then doesn't use it for a while where the Epson printers clog up and fail.
My 2 didn't make the second year.

i must admit i dont use mine enough, but i try to print at least an expenses sheet every 2 weeks, the only time i had to clean the head was after a 6-8 week period of no use.

the 6 ink and up ranges are top quality :)

both dads and me use epson and so far have not had issues.

It's all down to personal experience, asking a question like that. For example, I'd swear by HP...my multifunction broke down last year after about three years of fairly heavy use, and the Brother multifunction I replaced it with doesn't even come close. It's slower, noisier, poorer picture quality, and although it costs the same to run I'm seriously considering binning it for another HP.

My first Epson lasted years of infrequent use, before the head clogged up and I deemed the ink too expensive (having to run maintenance on the to clean the head eat the ink). I was going for another brand but ended up with yet another Epson because it was really cheap.

Print quality's fine, but I am having this weird problem where it doesn't load the paper consistently well (straight), meaning that sometime the print would be 'slanted' relative to the paper. Bit annoying, and I would not be happy if the printer was used for much more than the odd maps/boarding passes and such.

Next time, I will most definitely give another brand a go. Well, having said that, the scanner is pretty good and easily make up for what I paid for the whole thing.

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Originally Posted by TooNice

Print quality's fine, but I am having this weird problem where it doesn't load the paper consistently well (straight), meaning that sometime the print would be 'slanted' relative to the paper. Bit annoying, and I would not be happy if the printer was used for much more than the odd maps/boarding passes and such. .

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clean the loading rollers, there should be one mounted on top of the other on one side of the printer where you stick the paper. its the usual cause of that (yes i fix the damn things for a living as well as using them)

i always tell people to keep the doors closed on printers as its the most common reason for loading issues.

HP is pretty good but my 8450 which has had light usage since 2006(it was a very expensive A4 printer at the time) went kaput recently. It seems there are no parts or repair manuals available for older Photosmarts unlike some other even older HP inkjet ranges. HP customer service and their own support forums are just absolutely pointless. OTH, my Canon i550 is still going strong and I bought it refurbished in 2004!

The sad thing is that the HP had excellent print quality(especially with black and white) and I have pictures printed 4 years ago which have shown no fading at all.

Hence I may switch to Epson and they seem quite reliable from what I have seen(apart from some issues with clogging in models like the R800).

I should have bought an Epson R800 in hindsight!! It is still being made today and AFAIK is still being supported. Both the R800 and 8450 were over £300 when they were launched over 5 years ago.

Got a couple of Epsons here . One that i've had for years is an Epson stylus photo 895. Print quality on good Canon photo paper is excellent and the 3rd party ink for it is real cheap . Other Epson is a Stylus DX 8450. For B&W I would recommend a small laser jobbie - very economic to run. Also used a couple of 'Panasonic' lasers in the past - great economic printers also. I get my 'ink' locally but try 'ink n stuff' as a 'web' alternative.

Thanks so much for all the replies! I didn't exactly expect a definitive answer but I think I am more confused than ever now!

Canon Pixma iP4700 (or whatever the latest is) is a pretty universal choice.

Combined with some Ilford Gallerie paper (and the colour profiles they provide on the Ilford site) it makes for a pretty formidable budget combination.

For the record, I know you mention cheap inks, but steer clear of the non-genuine manufacturer ones (unless you go for a decent continuous ink system, which is unlikely for this number of photos) as they're generally pretty crap, don't last any length of time before becoming discoloured and often have a tendency to block inkjet print heads.

I have to say that if you want a top quality photo printer you could do a lot worse than the R800 and while the ink quality is very likely the best on the market trouble is Epson know it and charge accordingly (about £85 for a full set of originals a deal breaker really).

I bought mine not long after it came out and in terms of support (it's still going for £240 that last time I looked, make that £262, only £8 less than what I paid for it four years or so ago) and wear and tear it's certainly lasted longer than my old Stylus Photo 700 (which it replaced, it had died a death when the print head started going haywire).

Really the only time I've had trouble with it was when I was using cheap compatibles (inkrite) as it used to block more often (haven't had any of that since reverting back to Espon ink though). Print quality is excellent (certainly good enough for both the passport office and the DVLA to accept without question) more so if paired with Espon paper hence the 75yr light fastness claim on gloss (when using Epson paper ;) ), and I'm sure I read it was 120yrs when used with the matt archival stuff (also Epson brand, this was when I was buying it so I may remember wrong) I dare say it varies paper brand to paper brand though.

Alas as an alternative I can only suggest keeping and eye on the reviews though by all accounts Espons new PX650 produces high quality photo's and isn't too bad at £100 for the printer (all-in-one) and about £39-£40 for a full set of inks (according to prices on Amazon).

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Originally Posted by this_is_gav

Canon Pixma iP4700 (or whatever the latest is) is a pretty universal choice.

Combined with some Ilford Gallerie paper (and the colour profiles they provide on the Ilford site) it makes for a pretty formidable budget combination.

For the record, I know you mention cheap inks, but steer clear of the non-genuine manufacturer ones (unless you go for a decent continuous ink system, which is unlikely for this number of photos) as they're generally pretty crap, don't last any length of time before becoming discoloured and often have a tendency to block inkjet print heads.

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^^This.

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Originally Posted by emzallan

Thanks so much for all the replies! I didn't exactly expect a definitive answer but I think I am more confused than ever now!

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I suspect that comes from not being quite sure what you want. For a high-end A4 photo printer, for someone for whom photo printing is THE point of the printer, you'll be hard-pushed to beat the Epson R800that Cat mentioned. But you'll pay for it, both to buy and 'feed' with inks.

If you want a general purpose printer that's reasonably economical to buy, and reasonable to run, and is still capable of photos that'll probably be perfectly adequate for anyone buy a photo enthusiast, then the Pixma range that Gav and Phage mentioned would be at the very least where I'd start looking. They have an impressive reputation, especially for value for money. Alternatively, maybe one of the MP6x0 series of multi-functions if you want scanner, copier & printer all in one.

Another approach is to look at low-end lasers, some of which can do a respectable job of photos, and don't have the problems of clogging some people have with some inkjets. They may be a bit more expensive than the Pixma range, but you can get them for around the £100 mark, and of course, they come with enough toner to do anything from several hundred to several thousand pages. but where it is in that range varies hugely, so check carefully before committing. But wile that photo quality from these is decent, it;s not going to match a good inkjet.


My opinion? There is no perfect, all-round, low-cost cheap-to-run general purpose printer with top quality photo capability too. It simply doesn't exist. So you've got to compromise somewhere, which means working out what's important to you, and hat you'll compromise on.

Lasers have many advantages over inkjets, but they aren't ideal as photo printers. Also, the more you pay for the printer, typically the less you pay per print for toner.

Inkjets can be very cheap to buy, but the real price you pay is generally in ink, and working that out isn't simple. To get a full picture, you need to compare not just ink price, but cartridge capacity ... and if you're really going to be fussy, you need to know how the actual algorithms in the print driver use ink, to know how many pages you'll get out of a given capacity, because it isn't necessarily obvious. The only way I know to do that is to run exhaustion tests on a full set of cartridges, under controlled conditions, and that means having access not only to the printers, but being prepared to burn though a complete set of cartridges for each machine under consideration. I've done exactly this several times in the past, but not recently enough to give you any guidance that would help with today's machines.

And finally, of course, the lower the cost of the machine, the less rugged the build is likely to be .... and that may well have implications for long long the machine lasts. For general purpose printing, I've usually has good experiences with HP OfficeJet machines, and with the larger, usergroup-oriented machines especially. And they can be built like the proverbial brick outhouse. But even there, I've noticed that sometimes the design of bits that aren't visible, like internal cartridge housings, have weaknesses that could be put down to poor design, or perhaps to cost-cutting .... or if I was being particularly cynical, I might suspect designed-in obsolescence.


I think you need to sort out quite what you want. If you want a high quality photo printer that can be used for general purpose, you'll go one way. If you want a general purpose printer and the occasional 'decent' photo, you'' go another. In that, a lot depends on your required standard for photos.

If running costs are prime, you might be looking at laser, but if initial cost is key, it'll probably be an inkjet.

If you're looking at the total cost over the life of the machine, i.e. purchase costs, plus consumables for x pages per month over y months, then you have some research and maths to do, and a lot will depend on what "x" and "y" are.

Good luck. ;)

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Originally Posted by Saracen

I suspect that comes from not being quite sure what you want.

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I think you might just be right! An Inkjet is prob the way forward, for photo quality and also because rapid and high quality black and white printing isn't really a priority, and I'm not sure it will be used enough to justify getting a laser printer.

Might need to investigate a bit further... Thanks for your help though- informative as ever! :)

I wouldn't go for a laser. AFAIK their photo printing doesn't match a reasonable inkjet yet.
I have had several HP printers. All have been good, but raw resolution has always been a little behind what Epson has to offer.
My in-laws tried getting a Lexmark when their HP ran out of ink, the Lexmark went wrong after a week, based on that I have since avoided Lexmark, and Which? recently found that Lexmark is really expensive for ink costs.

I've never forgiven Canon for the Bubblejet that we had at school *cough* years ago. Stupid thing wasn't properly compatable with its own sheet feeder.

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Originally Posted by emzallan

.... and I'm not sure it will be used enough to justify getting a laser printer.

Might need to investigate a bit further... Thanks for your help though- informative as ever! :)

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You're welcome, Emz.

But re: the laser being worthwhile, it might be interesting to compare the £100 or so you can now get colour lasers for, with a cartridge life of about 1500 pages included, with the cost of buying an inkjet and then buying enough cartridges to give 1500 pages.

If you buy a laser and it costs £100 and does 1500 pages over two years, it's about £1 per week for about 15 pages per week. How does an inkjet stack up?

If you're doing a lot more than that, then the £100 laser would be the wrong choice, because generally the cost per page goes down on the more expensive machines ... as it does for inkjets, though often at a different price point.


Obviously, only you know if it'll be used enough to justify. Up until fairly recently, when the cheapest colour lasers cost several hundred pounds, I'd have agreed with you for low volume usage. But with the advent of the £100 price point, I'm not so sure. You do have to be careful with the maths on these machines though, because the cost of a replacement set of cartridges can come eerily close to the cost of a new machine, though careful selection of the source of replacement cartridges can drive that down a fair bit. But .... even if you ditch the machine and buy a replacement, it would still make sense if the cost of doing that undercut the cost of doing the same amount of printing on an inkjet .... and it might well do so.

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Originally Posted by pipTheGeek

I wouldn't go for a laser. AFAIK their photo printing doesn't match a reasonable inkjet yet......

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Oh, I agree. But the gap has narrowed a fair bit.

One place where inkjets still have a huge margin over lasers is on media choice. The range of gloss, matt, lustre, "art" and other papers, not to mention transfers etc, is still vast. But .... that depends on what the expectations of the user are.

For photographic purposes by an enthusiast or a pro, then laser is the wrong technology. It may always be. But for photos in promotional material, reports, etc, it may actually be better because the implication of an inkjet is that text is also inkjet, and typically, that's better handled by lasers.

As a photographer, I would not buy a laser for photo printing. Instead, I've got A4 and A3 photo inkjets, and an A4 dye-sub. I've also still got three Alps micro-dry machines which are great for cards, etc, and for printing gold and silver using special cartridges.

But for (low volume) leaflets, reports, etc, I'd now go laser.

It's all about horses for courses, the right tool for a given job. The tricky bit is deciding on priorities when you want it to do several jobs with different implications. Then, something has to be compromised.

Wow, colour laser for £100? It wasn't that long ago that I thought £500 was 'cheap' given that I still remember when they were the size of photocopier machines and costed 10 times the £500! I thought that the reason for not going laser is largely due to costs (and size). Isn't that what they use for magazines and such? So what makes inkjet better for photographic purpose? And are laser colours fairly immune to printing head clogging up?

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Originally Posted by TooNice

Wow, colour laser for £100? It wasn't that long ago that I thought £500 was 'cheap' given that I still remember when they were the size of photocopier machines and costed 10 times the £500! I thought that the reason for not going laser is largely due to costs (and size). Isn't that what they use for magazines and such? So what makes inkjet better for photographic purpose? And are laser colours fairly immune to printing head clogging up?

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Indeed. When HP introduced the first Colour LaserJet, I had one of the pre-production models here for a couple of weeks, at a time when (according to HP) there were two of them in the UK. ;)

IIRC, and I'd have to check to be sure, it was about £7000, and the cartridges (four of them) were about £200 each to replace. And now, one of those £100 machines I referred to is an HP.

As for what makes an inkjet better ..... well, the results they produce, I guess. The ability of many inkjets to vary the size of the printed droplet rather than just placing a blob in a grid, as lasers do, gives them an ability to produce very fine detail.

Also, the use of light toners. If you have to produce the whole colour gamut by dots of just four colour inks/toners, then when you try to reproduce lighter tones, you have to do it with white space, and in very light areas, that leads to the dots being visible unless they are very small. That leads to the next point .... droplet size can be much smaller than laser pixel size. So photos, especially of light skin tones, are less grainy. And in addition to smaller droplet size, the use of light magenta and light cyan gives extra control over those fine tones.

Then, you have the ability of the media to be varied hugely, because of the way that ink and the paper it's printed on react together. It's not just the fairly crude process of plopping a blob of plastic on a paper and melting it to lock it in place, but the way an ink is absorbed onto and even into the paper, which gives far more versatility in what the surface of the paper can be. You need a pretty smooth surface for accurate laser dot positioning, which means some of the paper types used with inkjets just wouldn't work, like the textured "art" papers, because the toner wouldn't adhere consistently.

Unless you want to pay for a premium printer, the cheaper models are always a compromise. I have favoured HP recently but my current HP photsmart multifunction has developed a feed problem after a couple of years of light use. Maybe a solution is to buy at the lower end of price scale and replace at first sign of trouble, having photos printed online or on high street.