# Printers



## tspear (Sep 21, 2016)

My venerable Brother MFC and my wifes HP Photosmart have finally bit the dust. (The same week no less.)
So looking for some basic knowledge on printers, the last time I looked for a printer was about six or seven years ago. 
Besides not liking HP due to the cost of the ink cartridges, and having a good perspective on my requirements (below); does anyone have a suggestion?

We print about 1000 regular pages a year, of that ~900 are my 12yr old daughter doing school projects.
In the summer we can go months without printing (not good for ink printers). However, I can put an event in my calendar to print something once a month to prevent ink drying.

I print about 50-100 photos a year for family (calendars, one off collages, and school projects); so professional grade is not required.
For professional grade, I use online printers and have it mailed to me.
I do not need a scanner/fax or any of the multi-function aspects. I have a dedicated scanner and no longer fax anything.
I have had good luck with Epson and Brother printers in the past and I am considering the EcoTank line from Epson.

Any thoughts? Does resolution really matter that much anymore? What about dot size? Is it worth jumping to laser for such a low volume?


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## clee01l (Sep 21, 2016)

Cartridge costs are always going to be an issue. Third party ink supplies make it a little cheaper If memory serves, HP just killed third party ink use in their machines. 
Your best choices are Canon and Epson. Do you want a dedicated photo printer or a printer that will print everything including photos?   Another option is an All-In-One device that prints, copies, scans  and optionally faxes also.   Canon makes some reliable AIOs  with their MX series.  As of ink supplies, Look for a printer that uses individual colors  with 5-7 cartridges including two blacks.  This way you can replace individual colors and not have to replace a combination cartridge when only one color is empty.


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## PhilBurton (Sep 21, 2016)

clee01l said:


> Cartridge costs are always going to be an issue. Third party ink supplies make it a little cheaper If memory serves, HP just killed third party ink use in their machines.
> Your best choices are Canon and Epson. Do you want a dedicated photo printer or a printer that will print everything including photos?   Another option is an All-In-One device that prints, copies, scans  and optionally faxes also.   Canon makes some reliable AIOs  with their MX series.  As of ink supplies, Look for a printer that uses individual colors  with 5-7 cartridges including two blacks.  This way you can replace individual colors and not have to replace a combination cartridge when only one color is empty.


Cletus (and everyone else)
A local camera store is having a sale on printers.  However, I don't need one until next year.  What is the risk of buying a Canon or Epson photo printer now and seeing it replaced with a newer model by this time next year?

Phil


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## tspear (Sep 21, 2016)

Cletus,

Agree on HP. I will not buy a HP printer anytime soon. I have not looked at Canon, I know nothing about them. I like the single color per cartridge model also, my last Epson had 8 cartridges, the Brother had 4. For normal printing, the Brother actually came out better, for photos, the Epson was better and the prints lasted longer.
I am looking for a single printer to handle all the basic chores, when I want "professional" grade photos I have ordered them from print houses. Usually because I am doing larger prints...

Tim


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## clee01l (Sep 21, 2016)

PhilBurton said:


> Cletus (and everyone else)
> A local camera store is having a sale on printers.  However, I don't need one until next year.  What is the risk of buying a Canon or Epson photo printer now and seeing it replaced with a newer model by this time next year?
> 
> Phil


How do you know that you will need one "next year".  My experience with printers is the they work until they don't.   If you don't need one, wait.  Prices will be about the same even if there i s a newer model. 

I've had Lexmark, and many HPs.  All of these have been AIOs.  I can't complain about AIOs for general printing and having a scanner is a nice accessory for photographers. 
Almost two years ago I bought a Canon PixmaPro100  for about $400 to get large Photo prints (13"X19") It does an excellent job with photo graphic prints and can also print text documents though not as fast as some AIOs.  Shortly after that my wife's HP died and it was replaced by a CanonMX922 AIO.  It print create and is reliable although my wife has difficulty getting it to wake up to print from her Windows computer. I have no problems accessing it from my Macs across the network.  And this includes the scan function.


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## PhilBurton (Sep 21, 2016)

clee01l said:


> How do you know that you will need one "next year".  My experience with printers is the they work until they don't.   If you don't need one, wait.  Prices will be about the same even if there i s a newer model.
> 
> I've had Lexmark, and many HPs.  All of these have been AIOs.  I can't complain about AIOs for general printing and having a scanner is a nice accessory for photographers.
> Almost two years ago I bought a Canon PixmaPro100  for about $400 to get large Photo prints (13"X19") It does an excellent job with photo graphic prints and can also print text documents though not as fast as some AIOs.  Shortly after that my wife's HP died and it was replaced by a CanonMX922 AIO.  It print create and is reliable although my wife has difficulty getting it to wake up to print from her Windows computer. I have no problems accessing it from my Macs across the network.  And this includes the scan function.


Cletus,

I have a Canon AIO that honestly doesn't do a great job.  But I figure it will be "about" a year until I have developed my Lightroom skills to the point where I will want to do "serious" printing. Before I get to that point, I have to import/cull and catalog thousands of digital images and scan many thousand Kodachrome slides and B&W negatives.

I've learned through experience that with tech, it does not pay to buy equipment before it's needed.  YMMV.

Phil


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## davidedric (Sep 21, 2016)

Another route, which I followed almost by accident, is to buy an inexpensive laser printer for black and white,  and a colour inkjet for photos and other colour stuff.  I have an hp laserjet and I chose one of the Canon photo all in one's and I am very happy with it.  It's certainly saved me a lot of money compared with just an inkjet.

Dave


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## PhilBurton (Sep 21, 2016)

davidedric said:


> Another route, which I followed almost by accident, is to buy an inexpensive laser printer for black and white,  and a colour inkjet for photos and other colour stuff.  I have an hp laserjet and I chose one of the Canon photo all in one's and I am very happy with it.  It's certainly saved me a lot of money compared with just an inkjet.
> 
> Dave


Dave,

I too have a laser printer (HP 401 dn) for my normal "office printing" needs.  Also, for a lot of material, particularly discussion threads, news items and articles from the web,etc., I just "print" to PDF and file the PDFs accordingly.  Saves a lot of space.

Phil


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## Gnits (Sep 22, 2016)

I agree with the idea of a black and white cheap laser printer for general office and non photo printing and a dedicated photo printer for image printing.  I opted for a Brother and use generic toner replacement at half the price.  Delighted.   The All In One solutions is also good, but a disaster when the ink jets clog as the ink is so relatively expensive. I have a big chunky A3 sized Epson AIO taking up a large amount of space, whose only function now is as a scanner.


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