[X4U] What printer do YOU use?

[Stroller]

On Feb 22, 2005, at 6:30 pm, Keith Whaley wrote:
>
> I want a printer that is more forgiving of my forgetting to shut the 
> printer off and parking it's jets!
> I'd rather have the more expensive cartridges of the H-P (I used to 
> have a couple of H-Ps) and if it can't be cleared, replace the 
> cartridge. Viola! New orifices!  (I'm ready to trash my Epson 820 for 
> that very reason!)
>
> Now, realizing I don't need a top of the line "photo" printer, per se, 
> I do need color and a decent B&W, mostly for prints. "Ordinary" B&W 
> would be acceptable otherwise, but I do like the capability of once in 
> a while making B&W photo prints, so I want that.
> One black cartridge plus a multi-color (4 or 5 well?) color cartridge 
> ought to do it.
> I don't think I want all separate cartridges, and I probably don't 
> need any archival anything, probably no gray cartridge...but, I'm 
> willing to listen to all possible suggestions!

If you were buying a laser-printer then I would agree absolutely with 
you that HP is the way to go - indeed, if you have the space then you 
could do far worse than buying a secondhand Laserjet 4 or 5 just for 
your B&W printing. The cost of having a second printer would pay for 
itself within the period over which you'd consume just a few black 
inkjet cartridges.

As far as colour inkjet printing is concerned, I'd urge you to look at 
the Canon Pixima range. I did a lot of research before buying my first 
colour printer last fall & ended up with an IP3000. I paid c £80 for 
mine.

It has one black & three separate colour cartridges, each of which can 
be purchased & replaced separately - ink levels in the clear-plastic 
cartridge are detected optically, so there is no electronics in them 
preventing you from using unbranded replacement refills.

The heads are not in the cartridge, and I had believed that they're are 
also a separate component & separately replaceable, but I am unable to 
find references to verify this. However I don't think the Pixima will 
clog the way your Epson has - it can be set to sleep after 5 minutes 
without use, and it'll wake automatically when you start to use it. 
Mine must easily go for 2 weeks at a time between uses, and the forums 
at <http://club.cdfreaks.com/> are full of disappointed Epson users 
raving about these Canons.

All the Pixima range do duplex printing, although if you're US-based 
Canon have disabled the ability to print directly on CD due to patent 
issues. If you want better photo quality the IP4000 has a fifth 
cartridge with a second shade of black; personally I'm quite happy with 
the quality of print from the IP3000 - I'm probably not very demanding 
about colour photos (they look great to me!), but I'm happy enough with 
the black text & colour letterheads when I print business letters.

Whilst I salute you for being prepared to pay extra for quality - I 
wish more of my customers were the same - this is stunning value at 
$62.95 from Newegg.com. If you need any more convincing, read Amazon's 
customer reviews <http://tinyurl.com/5qzyh> where it gets an average of 
5/5 stars.

Stroller.