Printer Brand Question

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Kelden21

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Dec 8, 2005
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Our HP all in one printer recently went to hell and doesn't work at all anymore. So now the question comes of what brand to get. From my work at tech support i've come to detest hp printers, if for no other reason than their annoyingly bloated drivers. So my question to you all is what printer would you recommend. I want one that will photocopy and scan as well. Share your good/bad experiences. Thanks much.
 
Every Canon I've had in recent years has been great. Economical (for an InkJet) to run, individual cartridges, no head clogs, no problems.

I have an i950 that is several years old and it's sit as long as 6-8 months without use and printed the first page perfectly.

I have a newer Pixma IP8500 that is great as well.

If your usage is intermittent I recommend you stay away from Epson. Every single Epson I've owned, including some expensive large-format inkjets, has died because of clogged print heads, apparantly from not being used constantly.

I don't care for HP's these days either. Lexmark has expensive consumables.

-Larry
 
Just out of curiousity, how good are Kyocera printers in terms of reliability and price/performance? Woolies had 'em for $160 NZD for a while.

Laser printers do niiiice output...
 
Canon i860 here, been great last 6mos even who photos thrown in.
 
I agree that the drivers that come packaged with HP printers are some of the most intrusive bloatware in the industry.

However.....with some digging on their web site, you can find "basic" drivers that don't "phone home" every so often and just enable the printer. The bad news is that's all they do....can't monitor ink levels or do some of the other trick things that you can with the bloatware drivers. I'm running the basic drivers here and are perfectly happy with them.

The printers are darn good hardware....just wish the software was better thought out.

My $00.02 - B.B.S.
 
Do you need color? If not you are much better off going laser. I swore off of inkjets long ago, no matter what the brand, they will clog, smear, make that awful screeching noise, and in general be as much of a PITA as they can.

I have a Samsung ML-1710 laser printer and I couldn't be happier with it, it works when I want it to, and never gives me trouble, the essence of what a printer should be.

If you do need color, I had the best luck with Epson back in the day, but it has been around 10 years since I've owned an inkjet, a lot has probably changed. A friend of mine has a large format HP professional inkjet, and she seems pretty happy with that. I never had that much experience with Canons as their print quality was awful back in the day and I didn't bother.
 
Canon's print quality certainly isn't awful these days. They are among the highest rated.

-Larry
 
Canon or Epsons are great for photos. For all-in-ones I actually like the HP photosmart 2+++ and above...
 
i got an epson r200 refurb from epson website for 50 dollars. then use www.meritline.com to get some cartridges and youre set. I print photos and they turn out great.

for normal printing, i got a laser brother printer, it was 150 on newegg and its fast, reliable, cheap, and great with text.
 
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