printers!

[shiato storm]

so, I have been using my bro's old Canon bj-2100. it does the job in terms of printing out letters on paper BUT its cr*p at pictures. So, whats worth getting? I wont be printing reems and reems of pictures day after day but would like something decent quality yet non-bank breaking. what sort of thing is worth going for/spending ?
I've seen HP, Epson and canon all have 'decent' printers just wondering if anyone has specific opinions or things to avoid. I had a lexmark once and although the quality was good it - as a printer - was pants; it pulled paper in wonky and ran out of ink in no time, ok so printers run out of ink its not great when they cost £35 a time! I despise printers that print wonky and are expensive to run...
p.s. printing up to A3 isn't a requirement but willing to explore options if cheap-ish...

[aidanjt]

http://www.dabs.com/uk/channels/hard...linx=34JJ&mc=6
while not initally cheap, you can't go far wrong, very flexible printer, very cheap per page printing.

[shiato storm]

not cheap! you're telling me its 280squid! I was looking at around £100 max!!
that said I do appreciate it is probably very good quality - my dad uses a b&w one...HP i believe, great quality - if only it were color

[aidanjt]

yea, but you'll make up for it in saving a fortune in ink cartridges.. laser printers are an excelent long term investment.

[Flibb]

Canon IP4000, you can get them for around £90 (ebuyer). This is the best all purpose printer I have used, had duplexer built in (2 sided printing), can print direct to CD/DVD and has a nice photo mode. I find the 2 paper feed options to be great, have A4 in one and photo paper tucked away underneath away from dust sunlight. Also has individual ink tanks for each colour, and 2 black (1 is dedicated for text). Seems to be cheap to run as both photo and as a standard text printer.

Would be a good option if you print a combination of photos and text. Possibly the perfect home / office printer.

[ed^chigliak]

I just got the Canon IP4000 from comet £89 which arrived on Monday. Photo quality is excellent on the gloss photo paper supplied. I run several Canon printers and never had any problems with Print-rite inks making them cheap to run. Duplex 2 sided printing is great for saving paper when I print game walkthroughs and the likes. Printing on CDs works well for me since I can never find a CD marker pen when I need one. It's basically an update of the canon i865 which I have been using for the past year.

[BlueMagician]

SS, IIRC you have a Canon Digital SLR, do you not? In any case, NO £100 inkjet is going to print pictures you'll be happy with.

For my major photographic output, I save to TIFF on my CF card, and run down to my local Asda. Asda, among others use Fuji minilab setups (managed by Fuji), which deliver stonking quality prints for next to nothing: 10p per 7x5, and only £3 for a 8x12..

Short of that to keep something that you can just quickly slap a good print out on, I'd look at the top-range Canons. These maybe out of your price range, but their mid range is also very good. Multitank colour inks too, so you only replace the colour that needs it.

STEER CLEAR of sub-£100 Epson and HP inkjets!! The amount of units we go through at work, due to mis-feeds, springs pinging off, cartridge cradles snapping is UNBELEIVABLE!

Also, forget Lexmark. Printers £30. Ink £40. Lol...


HTH,
S.

[turkster]

The Canon IP 4000 is very impressive and I would certainly recommend it for photoprinting although I still find my old HP 3820 slightly better for b&w text and general printing on plain paper.

[Nick F]

I was looking at the ip4000 myself as it looks great but I would like a all-in-one printer as a scanner and a photocopier would also be great.

Anyone got any good ideas of a all-in-one system for the home!

[da_ging]

if you want affordable A3 then the epson photo 1290 (£220ish) is a beauty as any 1 will tell you, couple it with a cheap CIS system off of ebay and its a perfect printer

otherwise stick to the canon ip4000 , cant go worng with that at all

[Tom]

grab an epson r200, £65 and a friend of mine with a 300D swears by it, bloody great quality as well...if you need any better www.photobox.co.uk

lookin on many photography forums the r200 / r300 (same printer with card reader and photobridge) is a firm favourite I'm goin to grab one soon.

you can get good quality replica inks dirt cheap, and it uses 6 cartridges so you only need replace the colours you run out of

[da_ging]

grab an epson r200, £65 and a friend of mine with a 300D swears by it, bloody great quality as well...if you need any better www.photobox.co.uk

lookin on many photography forums the r200 / r300 (same printer with card reader and photobridge) is a firm favourite I'm goin to grab one soon.

you can get good quality replica inks dirt cheap, and it uses 6 cartridges so you only need replace the colours you run out of

if you get an r200/300 also make sure you download the proggy here http://www.ssclg.com/epsone.shtml so you can reset the waste counter after 6 months also if you use the cd printing function expect it to fail within a year of fair usage

still it is a good printer and does do good quality prints

[shiato storm]

if you get an r200/300 also make sure you download the proggy here http://www.ssclg.com/epsone.shtml so you can reset the waste counter after 6 months also if you use the cd printing function expect it to fail within a year of fair usage

still it is a good printer and does do good quality prints

hmmm...that can't be very good...and whats the waste counter?

[da_ging]

hmmm...that can't be very good...and whats the waste counter?

every time the printer does anything head cleaning related the ink that it sucks through goes through a pipe into the dark and dingey depths of the printers inner bowels where it meets some giant wonder pads that absorb all the waste ink it also increases the number in a counter and when the value reaches a certain number the printer flashes all its lights and says it needs servicing.

thing is epson are a bit cautious with the counter value and set it way too low ,especialy on cheaper models tbh