Printers

[Jimmy Little]

printing directly onto CD's and DVD's - how do you mean?

[nichomach]

You can buy printable CD and DVD media, i.e. media with blank labels on the actual disks on which you can print from a printer that's designed to handle it, like Dabsvalue printable DVD

[Jimmy Little]

^

wow sounds cool,

So which canon shall i go for under £100?

[nichomach]

Well, if the budget won't stretch to an i865, PC Pro 5-starred the i560, and Dabs have that for £89.30 inc VAT:

"VERDICT: A good-value and versatile printer, but it's too closely priced to the excellent i865 for an award.

Canon's i560 bridges the gap between the budget and top-end printers. Its grey and beige styling is a little glum but it's well built. Both input and output trays fold into the body as protection from dust, while power, paper feed and job cancellation buttons adorn the fascia. A PictBridge port enables direct printing and USB and parallel ports are also on offer.

Unlike HP's 5150, which uses a six- colour system, the i560 has four ink tanks. Text in normal mode was crisp with only a slight blockiness in draft prints. Respective rates of 4.2ppm and 10.5ppm were faster than most, but the regular pauses in normal mode, due to a lack of memory, annoyed us.

In our quality tests, the i560 only once scored below 7 (due to poor reverse text), although fonts and photos were well produced on coated paper. The photomontage was superb, with natural skin tones, good detail and uniform transitions and fades. Grain was only visible close up in lighter areas; our main grumble is that it was very noticeable in mono photos and graphics.

The i560 took second place for overall speed. Its production of a 6 x 4in photo in 78 seconds and three minutes for our A4 photomontage is outstanding. Other Canons managed to produce faster photos, but all except the i865 printed text a lot slower. It might be impressive, but the i560 is hard to recommend when the better-quality i865 costs just £23 more."

In fact, the price difference is somewhat wider now, so it's arguable that given the difference between £90 and £140 (approx) the 560 makes more sense than before.

[Rabs]

My Epson 880´s dieing slowly, I think I might have a look at a canon.

My Epson is really cheap to run but the heads get blocked easy and Im not buying original carts.

[Flibb]

Cheapest place i can find for the I865 is £116.42
http://www.nomatica.com/index.asp?De...pricerunner_uk

[nichomach]

Good one, Flibb; at that price I have to say, it's worth stretching the budget to go for the 865; it's such a good printer.

[Jimmy Little]

wow thanks nichomach & flibb - you guys get some rep points bobby style!

[Flibb]

Am very tempted to get one myself at that price. Would need an excuse to get rid of either my old and trusty HP laser, or my HP inkjet. Might sell the laser as the inkjet has a duplexor on it and the wife would be able to print in colour. Hmmmmm.

[Jimmy Little]

i still use a HP 930c which works fine for me, but my misses needs something a bit better - great price though!

[Jimmy Little]

Cheapest place i can find for the I865 is £116.42
http://www.nomatica.com/index.asp?De...pricerunner_uk

just ordered this today! - thanks for the link,

[Howard]

That's better than mine

[Kumagoro]

I read in Julys PC Format last week a comparison of the newest printers.

The I865 got a top buy. the Ink costs (quoted from manufacturer) 2.5p for mono
and 7.5 for colour mix... photos i dont remember. They said the cost was £135

The epson R200 was also rated a top buy too and it was listed as £90. Mono was 2p
and colour was 10p. This was calculated from 5% coverage. just under £85 at ebuyer.
and its 6 colour and higher res then the canon.

I wish i had known this before I went out and bought a canon BCI-24 cart printer.
They were at 5.7p for mono... which is what gets used most buy me, the buggers.

[Flibb]

Check to see if your print heads are user replaceable, if they are use 3rd party catridges, as if you do have problems just replace the heads.

[turkster]

Just to say it again DONT get a cheap epson printer! The cheaper ones are damn annoying to use and IMO produce very dubious quality prints.

Canons are good but for a cheap printer the HP 3820 is very good. You should be able to pick one up for £70 and mine produces very impressive prints. Of course yopur probably better going with the more upto date and slightly more expensive canon although it depends what you want it for.