[X4U] What printer do YOU use?

[Keith Whaley]

Hah! I just ordered out a Canon PIXMA IP3000. What can I lose?
And, there sure are some happy customers!
One of them did mention the separate print head. I guess I'm going to 
have to contact Canon about that item, but for now, I'll be putting it 
into service in a couple of days.

Thanks for the reasoned response.
I'll report back...

keith whaley

Stroller wrote:

> 
> 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.