[HM] Re: printers: photo or resolution?

[cheshirekat]

On Sun, May 04, 2003, Richard Clark mawgadog at tin.it, invoked powers
within the internet realm, to proclaim ...

>I have always used epson printers and think they print great BUT i have 
>now bought a hp 920c which i find better than the epson it prints great 
>is silent compared to the epsons and also it is more protected from 
>dust because it pulls the paper from underneath instead of the top.

I've only had two Epsons, but both came down with the same illness. As a
home user, I just didn't need to print daily, but if I didn't the
cartridges would gunk up or dry up. My last Epson, I ended up replacing
the ink carts 3 times before realizing that it just wasn't going to print
again. I cleaned the carts each time I printed for many months and the
last time I tried to use it, I used up two head cleaning kits, hoping to
get it to print again.

I can't make myself buy another Epson. This time, I bought a Lexmark
because it had built-in network capabilities out of the box. The print
quality has been better than my Epson's and HPs. I've only printed images
and graphics - not photos. I've heard very good things about the mid-
range HP photo printers. Everyone I've talked to, pc and Mac, like the HP
photo printers when they have digital cameras. I print more text, so
currently the better text quality the Lexmark provides is more important
and with Epson, I had to replace the color ink cartridge each time I
changed the black - wasn't supposed to happen that way since I rarely
used the color. The Lexmark is much more quiet than my Epson was. We have
a bunch of HP printers (non-photo) but I don't think they are all that quiet.

If I didn't immediately need inexpensive network capabilities, there's no
doubt I would have bought an HP. I couldn't tell you the model numbers I
was looking at, as it was 4 months ago. Check www.dealtime.com for
prices. But, make sure you stop by Epson's support page as they don't
have OS X drivers for all their printers, especially if you are
considering a refurbished one. You will probably have better luck finding
X drivers for the newer printers, but no matter which brand you go with,
check the site for current drivers and note whether there have been
support issues for the model of your interest.

HTH

cheshirekat