Which inkjet photo-printer?

[Taz]

I want to replace my trusty old (very old in fact) Epson Stylus Photo 750. I've got a small Canon Selphy CP600 photo printer for 4x6 photos, an HP PSC All-in-one but I need a larger dedicated (or specialist) photo-printer that can print out up to A4 photographs on photo paper at very high quality. The printer should preferably use a minimum of 5 ink cartridges and be able to do normal print duty for documents when photo-printing is not required, all at a reasonable speed.

[Woodchuck2000]

I can highly recommend the Epson R200 (or whatever the current 2-series model is.) I bought one a couple of years ago when it was fairly new and am still amazed at the print quality.

Even at medium quality, quite a lot of people I know can't tell prints apart from proper photos.

[Waka]

Canon Pixmas get consistantly good reviews - having seen a couple in action I'm also amazed at how fast they are compared to Epsons.

I'll be replacng my Epson soon and another reason I won't be replacing it with another Epson is their scummy attitude towards compatible ink manufacturers - total running costs is a major consideration in buying any printer.

W.

[Koolpc]

I have a Canon iP4200 and it is an awesome printer! Highly recommend it.

[Taz]

Thanks for the recommendations so far - i'll be checking those out during the week. I've got a budget of around £300 to play with (that's for the printer and cartridges). This printer will be mainly used for producing A4 photographs that will be framed and end up on a wall so the photo printing quality has to be up to lab standards. I'm not overly concerned about running costs as it'll only really be used for photographs 2-3 times a month (around 5-6 A4 photos per month in total) so it won't be a heavily used printer. As long as the total cost of all the cartridges is below £100 I can live with that.

The ink that's used in the cartridges is particularly important as well and should not fade after a few years.

[BSKueh]

you can go for R800/R1800/R220/ R320, and a continuous ink supply system (CIss) for them if you're heavy user.

[Woodchuck2000]

A complete set of 6 genuine Epson cartridges for the R200/220/230 is about £35 from eBuyer (or was the last time I bought one!) when bought as a set.

[Taz]

The Epson Stylus Photo R800 looks like a pretty good photo printer. It uses 8 separate ink cartridges and a cartridge set is £84 from E-Buyer. The printer itself is £220 from Scan so fills the £300 budget reasonably well.

I think i'm right in saying that supplied printer cartridges are usually nearly empty (i.e. those that come with the printer)?

[Koolpc]

Epson are pants. Go for Canon.