opinions on printers

[homi1ife]

my espon C 86 has been having issues lately and i cant fix it. So i have decided to buy a new printer but i dunno which one to get. i was wondering if some of you guys can suggest some printers that are :

#1. Cheap
#2: Dont waste alot of ink
#3: Good Quality prints
#4: has Printer, Copy, Scanner abilities too

i know this sounds kinda demanding and stuff but im short on money. im willing to pay what i have too.

Thanks for all the help

[glc]

I have a C86 and it's a piece of junk - it's always been a huge ink hog. The only good thing about it is the print quality. The cheapest printers to keep in ink are Canons, but in my opinion HP's are the best compromise between print quality, ink costs, and reliability.

The Officejet 5610 is $99.99 with free shipping from Newegg. Save your USB cable, it doesn't come with one. It's also a fax if you care.

[TwoRails]

I'll second HP printers. The print head is in the cartridge, so they *seem* to be more expensive, but if you figure in that you get new print heads with each cartridge, it a good bargain. If the print head fails (or just wears over time) with other units, you have to replace the whole printer instead of just a cartridge.

[Stuey]

I've got a Canon MP800 and maintain an MP600 for my parents. I think that the MP600 is a great machine for office printing, scanning, and photo printing. Canon multifunctions separate the printhead from the ink tanks, but that's not necessarily bad. I've abused my printer for 20 months now and have yet to need a replacement printhead *knock on wood*.

[homi1ife]

thanks for some of the suggestion. let's say i print alot of stuffs, (docs, pictures, etc) for like 1-3 weeks then stop using it completely without turning it on. by the time i turn it on again lets say 1-3 months later will the ink be where it was or will it be gone, etc

[glc]

The only thing you may have to do is run a head cleaning cycle to get the ink flowing again - it doesn't just evaporate. That's one of my other complaints about the Epson - the heads dry out and clog easily. With a HP, you can pop the cartridge out and clean the tip with a Q-tip dipped in hot water if you have to and put the cartridge back in.

[XenaWP]

Originally Posted by homi1ife thanks for some of the suggestion. let's say i print alot of stuffs, (docs, pictures, etc) for like 1-3 weeks then stop using it completely without turning it on. by the time i turn it on again lets say 1-3 months later will the ink be where it was or will it be gone, etc

All the inkjets I've had do that. Usually printing a draft page unclogs everything.

I've had 2 HP inkjets with paper feed issues (problems taking a single sheet, would feed clumps of several pages at a time then jam) . I had a Lexmark with paper feed issues. I won't buy either brand because of this.

I like Canon, and I would buy Epson too. That's about it.

[homi1ife]

thanks alot these are all precious advices.

[homi1ife]

Originally Posted by Stuey I've got a Canon MP800 and maintain an MP600 for my parents. I think that the MP600 is a great machine for office printing, scanning, and photo printing. Canon multifunctions separate the printhead from the ink tanks, but that's not necessarily bad. I've abused my printer for 20 months now and have yet to need a replacement printhead *knock on wood*.

i have try searching for canon MP800 and MP600 through newegg but i didn't find a atch. sure that's the mdel #? and what do ppl thnk of canon MP 830?

[XenaWP]

That looks like a nice printer -- great resolution, pretty fast, duplex scanning/printing.

I searched for replacement cartridges, and you can get a color 4-pack for $40. Not bad.

If you ever print photos, spring for the glossy photo paper from Canon ... the quality will blow you away.

[TwoRails]

Yes, the brand of paper can make a big difference. I've tried at least 3 or 4 brands and for my setup, Kodak works the best. And that is literally putting them under a magnifier. What I do, however, for my "better" photos is upload them to Costco for "real" prints that are even better. And heck, it's hard to bet the price of under $2 for a 8x12!

[homi1ife]

is it me or does newegg does not sell those 2 printers?

[TwoRails]

I've having trouble getting into Newegg so I can't look... - but if you can't find them, they don't sell them. Have you looked at ZipZoomFly or even BestBuy.com ?

[Tithis]

My only advice is don't go too cheap. You get what you pay for, and dirt cheap printers are very unreliable. My cheapo lexmark didnt last month.

[juppy]

Originally Posted by homi1ife is it me or does newegg does not sell those 2 printers?

They may have updated those models, because Newegg has an MP610 and an MP810 (as well as the MP830 you mentioned earlier). Sometimes when they update a previously existing model for the new year, they just change the model number slightly, so those two might be the most recent rendition of the printers Stuey was talking about. I don't have either one of those, so I don't know what they looked like or what features they had, but maybe someone else that does have them can check out those other two models to see if they're similar.

[homi1ife]

I was looking at the Officejet 5610 glc recommended. it looks Ok. what do u guys think of it? the highest i can pay is around $100. How much would the ink be for Officejet 5610?

[glc]

http://www.shopping.hp.com/webapp/sh...#defaultAnchor

[glc]

Not to hijack the thread, but I just threw my C86 out the window. I ran it out of ink trying to clean the heads so it would print. Just got back from Best Buy with a brand new HP Color Laserjet 2600n.

[Icyman23]

i got a photosmart C4180 ($119) from newegg about a month ago....1 jam, but well worth the quality.

lol i had an epson stylus 4600 before which had nice quality for about 2 months, then degraded to nothing(litterally). $80 worth of ink was fun to throw at a brick wall...

I LOVE my HP....

[TwoRails]

glc, just curious, but how are color laser's cost-per-page now-a-days? I know it's dropped a lot, but do you have an idea how close it is to ink jets?

[glc]

I expect this thing will still be running on the original toners long after an inkjet will be in the dumpster. HP ships the printer with FULL toners, not starter carts. New toners are 80 bucks each, there are 4. Refurbs are about $60. The black is advertised as being 2500 page, each color as 2000 pages.

[TwoRails]

eeoowww! You sure could look at that two ways, but it is intriguing. Maybe you'll do a Hardware Review after you use it for a while (hint hint ) and give us a nice real life comparison to an ink jet on quality of photos and the like.

[glc]

I can already tell you that the quality of photos is nowhere near a good inkjet. However, I don't print my own photos except for proof sheets - I take my photos to Sam's Club for printing, 4x6's are 15 cents each. There's not an inkjet or laser in the world that can match that price in ink or toner, never mind the paper.