Okay, it's time for a new printer...

[jimbo]

My Cannon crapped out on me about 8 months ago, and I've been printerless at home ever since.[nbsp][nbsp]I've finally decided to take the plunge and buy a new one, so I figured I'd come here and get the opinions of y'all.

These are the things I'm looking for:

Color Inkjet
< $175
8+ PPM B/W
5+ PPM C
1200x1200 (though I'm not picky about that)
2MB+ of RAM

There are a bunch out there that I've found that fit this list; have any of you had any experience with any printers in this range?

Thanks :)

-jim

[PaulKroll]

I had an Epson color 400... still do, actually... and it just didn't like being left to sit for a month between printing jobs.[nbsp][nbsp]On the other hand, I didn't use it much because A) the cartridges were stunningly expensive and B) output was slow and not really very good looking.

Got a laser printer. $300 or so.[nbsp][nbsp]Black and white, but beautiful.[nbsp][nbsp]Far, far cheaper price per printed page. Very fast, by comparison to the old Epson.[nbsp][nbsp](It's Brother's 12 ppm critter.)

I know that doesn't fit <$175 nor color, but I just had to say it. :)

[Bob]

Funny you should ask Jim ;)

As I just took my lunch break[nbsp][nbsp](Yeah Deb does allow one or two a week :P ) and went and bought a new printer as mine crapped out this morning as well :(

I had added an Epson 777 to my wife's setup a month or so ago and for us it's working like a champ!! So that's what I got![nbsp][nbsp]Plus it was only $79.00 at Office Depot,[nbsp][nbsp]$99.00 and they give you a $20.00 Office Depot card which my Office Depot let me apply to the printer :)

Specs:[nbsp][nbsp]
2880 X 720 dpi
up to 8ppm black printing
USB and Parallel connectivity

Does a Great job on Pictures as well as documents.[nbsp][nbsp]For the average home I would highly recommend it, even for small businesses.

Hope this helps :)

Have a Good One
Bob

-[nbsp][nbsp]Ever notice everything breaks just when you need it really-really bad :P -

[jimbo]

Wow - the one I was leaning towards was the Epson 880.[nbsp][nbsp]It's about $150, and does all sorts of cool things.[nbsp][nbsp]I have an Epson scanner, and I love it.[nbsp][nbsp]I've always been an HP man myself, but I've heard that their Inkjets aren't as good anymore.[nbsp][nbsp]I think I'll head over to Best Buy and turn on the fun - oh, and also to see what kind of printers they have ;) .

Thank you both for your input!

-jim

[jimbo]

Oh - forgot to add something...

The Epson 880 only comes with 128KB of RAM, I was a little put off by that.[nbsp][nbsp]I hope it's expandable...

-jim

[sheila]

We used to have a Cannon something or other. At work, we mostly have HPs. At home we bought, last year (Xmas 1999) an Epson 850. I like the Epson best.

[jimbo]

Well, I went to Best Buy, and was all set to buy the Epson 880, but I wanted to see it print something.[nbsp][nbsp]The store demo was out of ink.[nbsp][nbsp]The clerk said &quot;we only have one cartridge left for this model&quot; - I said &quot;do you want to sell the cartridge or the printer?&quot; - he actually said &quot;the cartridge&quot; - so I left.[nbsp][nbsp]I went to Office Max where I was able to see it print.[nbsp][nbsp]I liked it.[nbsp][nbsp]Took the little card to the check out, but they were out of stock.[nbsp][nbsp]Stopped at CompUSA, and decided the previous events were an omen that I shouldn't get the 880, so I opted for the 777.

When I got home, I realized I had grabbed the 777i by mistake, and it's one of those nasty Imac-like things, with semi-transparent casing and a turquoise paper shield.[nbsp][nbsp]Ich!!

I'll have to exchange it tomorrow.

Thanks again for your input, everyone![nbsp][nbsp]:)

-jim

[sheila]

jimbo,

Try going to outpost.com and ordering it there. When we have ordered from them, we usually get next day delivery.

Just a suggestion. YMMV, but we've had excellent luck with them.

[koala]

Bit late now, I guess, but here's my 2 cents :)

As I'm in Australia, the models and prices will differ, so I can't comment specifically, but we have owned and used the following:

Canon - ptooie :(
Epson - OK for a while . . .
HP - they just simply work, work, work and keep on working - faultlessly :) :)

We're an all-HP house now - and loving it :)

Simon

[Tatu]

I'm an Epson man...

I started with (if I remember correctly) the Epson Stylus Color I or something, now I run an Epson 850 and 900 simultaneously for large projects. The 850 takes at least 10 minutes to print large high-quality photos... it drove me crazy so I got the 900 which isn't too much faster but eases the pain. Epson is the way to go, though.

-Tatu

[Brian]

he actually said &quot;the cartridge.” Not from a customer service standpoint this was good to say, but from a bean counters perspective he was correct as they probably make a very very small margin selling that printer and I would venture to say a lot more for selling the ink..[nbsp][nbsp]So they probably would make same amount selling the ink cartridge as the printer.. But as the more important of the two is customer service he obviously did not make the correct decision.

On the note of printers Epson has great graphics but mine wastes way to much ink :( The newer ones I am sure are better at this though..

-Brian

[Jeff]

Actually, I have the Epson 1270 and it is the biggest ink waster I have ever owned.[nbsp][nbsp]It was better when it was brand new (May 2000) but now it requires a cleaning about once a month to keep printing on photo/glossy without lines, and this consumes about 1/5 of a cartridge.[nbsp][nbsp]

Also, when a cartridge is low (about 20% ink left) it will no longer allow you to do any cleaning cycles, so if the heads get clogged after that, time for a new cartridge.[nbsp][nbsp]And once I tried to swap out low cartridge so I could print something important with a full one, and of course, I could not put the low one back in later (seems the chip on the cartridge does not allow this).

I really love the quality of the Epson printers, but they are not made for the long haul, and they use a lot of cartridges.

--just sent in 36 ink cartridges for recycling and got $12 back...

[Tatu]

On the note of printers Epson has great graphics but mine wastes way to much ink :( The newer ones I am sure are better at this though..Well kinda'... two words: bigger cartridges. :P

-Tatu

--
They are actually better at this, but I couldn't help but indulge myself in my own stupid remarks...

[colulus]

This is not in your price range, but I'm very pleased with my HP Deskjet 970 Cxi.[nbsp][nbsp]Still not as nice as a laser printer for bw output, but it prints on both sides automatically.
[nbsp][nbsp]Saves paper, weight, and space.
[nbsp][nbsp]The only laser printers that can do this are Very expensive.
[nbsp][nbsp]Great color prints.

[Keiphus]

We have 3 HP's in our company and they are the most ill designed printers I've ever worked with. Why in the world would you have paper fed from the bottom? This has caused no end of problems with the paper not feeding correctly (though in fairness the printers are heavily used and a couple of years old).
I have an Epson at home that I've never had a bit of problem out of (it's three years old), so I convinced the boss to purchase three 777's to replace'em.:D
Allowing gravity to help feed your paper is pure...genius?;)

[YFS200]

Me like HP printers. At the homeoffice, I have 2 HP550c. They had problems with picking up paper, but a wheel grinding kit fixed that. One still works, the other, needs to be cleaned. Not used much anymore.

Next on the list is the old HP1600c. This thing would pump out great graphics are high speed. Still does. It will rock the table it moves so fast. After about 30,000 prints, it also had a paper pick up problem. But I think that was a batch of over &quot;baby powder&quot; paper as it works fine now.[nbsp][nbsp]Works fine with Linux across the HP print server. Still used weekly.

Next on the list in the Desk Jet HP2500C &quot;speedy&quot;. 3 Paper trays, JetDirect card (with remote printing over the web server built in). Unlike the other HPs, the ink carts and head are two differtent items that can both be replaced. The heads last for about 5 ink carts.[nbsp][nbsp]It prints fast and quiet with great quality.[nbsp][nbsp]The click to print time is slow as it take about 30 second before anything happends.[nbsp][nbsp]But this one does stop printing before it runs out of ink. Nice when you just sent over 5,000 prints.

Next is Printzilla. A DesignJet 2500cp. Full 36 inches wide.[nbsp][nbsp]Does down right stunning work.[nbsp][nbsp]Really picky about the inks. Everything has to be perfect or it grips like mad. Real pain, but when it works, WOW.

I have has other HP printers along with other brands. Including a Epson Stylus Color. The none replaceable print heads drove me nuts.
Had to clean it 5 time in a row before it would sort of work.[nbsp][nbsp]Had a few other types of printers too. But the HPs just keep going. I have a HP2601A largeformat dasey wheel printer. Picked it up at a school auction for 10 bucks. Dusted it off, got details on how to make a serial adapter from HPs site, and got it powered.[nbsp][nbsp]It's loud, and big, but prints on anything and still works perfect.

About any printer will work for the home user. And I am sure you will like whatever brand you get.

I just happen to like HPs. :)

YFS200
[This message has been edited by YFS200 (edited 01-30-01@02:23 am)]

[Taelon]

I have an epson 850 at home and I haven't had problems with it. I mostly use it to print b&amp;w though, so I haven't noticed a problem with it wasting ink - I replace the b&amp;w ink cartridge about every 3-4 months. From all the comments praising HP I'll keep it in mind for a new printer, because my other one a lexmark is not working. I feel like I wasted money buying it because it's only been a few months since I got it versus the epson which still running probem free for about two years now.

[Tibbits]

We had an end-of-line 550C, and we blagged a free grinding kit from HP as well:)

Not a bad printer, but a lot noisier than our lovely new 970cxi. Problem with it was that something went badly wrong, and every time you switched it on you'd have to reset halfway through the warm up or it'd jam with a raelly nasty noise:\ We'd already got it replaced on warranty once when it spat something important out at my sister.

I have to say that HP lasers are better than IBMs, the big expensive IBMs took sooo long to warm up and the HPs were always ready instantly. They didn't jam as much either.

The front loading system is ideal for those without much vertical space, i.e. the printer is under a desk or on a shelf and it keeps the paper flat. It does give a more contorted paper path though, but I've not had problems with jamming except when the old 550C did it's 'lets feed all the paper at once, print a line at the top of each page so you can't reuse them then jam solid' trick.

[YFS200]

The 550c are know for the jamming noise problem.[nbsp][nbsp]It's the tracker head strip that gets dirty. Behind the bar and head, is a small clear strip of plastic with a gray line on it. Look closely, and you will see that line is really a lot of tiny bars.[nbsp][nbsp]When dirt get's on this and the reader on the head, the printer makes that noise and flashed all the lights.[nbsp][nbsp]The plastic strip will come out and can be cleaned. The reader part located on the head is harder to clean. But maybe cleaning the strip will do the trick. Worked for me.

YFS200[nbsp]

[BOF]

I agree with Colulus - I have an HP 970Cxi and it's a very good machine.[nbsp][nbsp]The two-sided printing feature is particularly good, and the colours are first class.

I do a fair amount of printing photographs from a digital camera, and on the HP photo paper it's hard to tell the difference from a photographic print.

Best regards to all.


------------------
Chris
Hong Kong
www.simplyaromatics.com (http://www.simplyaromatics.com)
www.plainwebdesign.com (http://www.plainwebdesign.com)