[Archived] Printer / All In One Recommendations

[Shaun]

Looking to buy a new printer. Preferably an all in one printer/scanner/copier.

Anybody got any good or bad reviews.

Dont want to buy trhe cheapesat only to find im shafted on refills of ink

Thanks in advance

[AndyH16]

Well supposedly Epson's are better when it comes to buying inks as you have individual cartridges for each colour. But I've never really used Epsons.

Personally, I have a HP PSC 1315 and it's great, with a built in 4-in-1 memory card reader. But I'm not sure it's sold anymore. My sister recently purchased a 1510 PSC and that was awful, it couldn't feed paper to save it's life, so don't get one of them

Edited March 10, 2006 by Hainesey

[Paul]

We run Epsons and HP at work. The Epsons are cheaper to run and the seperate ink cartridges are certainly more economical. For colour work, especially photographs, the HPs produce better quality, significantly better quality. Saying that with neither make have I tried to tinker with the settings to improve quality - this judgement is based purely on the default settings for Photo.

Having said that my advice would be don't buy a multi-function machine. I have yet to meet someone who is happy with what they have. IMV a printer is a printer and a scanner is a scanner. Ask yourself what the main purpose is for the machine? Copying is dirt cheap virtually anywhere and to a very high standard. How often do most people scan?

We have four offices in our business, three of them insist on buying multi-function machines. They always end up cursing them. My office has sepeartes for everything and we rarely have a problem, plus once one bit of the multi-function packs up you're stuffed.

[AndyH16]

I agree with that on business use, we do this ourselves at our offices. But for home use I'm guessing space could be an issue.

[Hasta]

I've used a couple of all in ones and as Paul says there not any better than average at either printing or scanning.

I work in a graphics department at work and have always found Epsons to be of a superior quality to HP. However I've not used many HP's and the ones I have were over 2 years ago.

All our Epsons are £200 and upwards though so can't really comment on their cheaper models.

[Rovers Air Force]

I have a HP PSC 1610, cost £59 and does what it said on the tin. Scan quality is very good, and it can fax as well, the only bad thing is that the paper feed is ###### and I am always having to mess with the paper to get it to work, a constant feature of HP's in my experiance!

[dave birch]

RAF, more likely to be the paper you are using. Try a paper that cost a bit more and is made in the location you are using it.

[jim mk2]

Listen to him RAF: he's an expert on copying machines.

[dave birch]

What do you want to know, Johnboy

[ihtd]

I have i think the Epson Photosuite printer, its a beast of a printer and prints excellent quality photo's on most paper types.

Isn't there a really smart Cannon printer about to come out that can make high quality photos from crapply taken pictures. A mate of mine was telling me about it, is he talking absolute Bullsh!t, if he isn't i might have to invest in it when it comes out.

[Rovers Air Force]

cheers dave, will bare that in mind next time I buy some! what is best?

I was using Xerox Premier at 90g per square meter

[dave birch]

RAF, the machines are usually made to take paper between 80gsm and 120 gsm.

If it carries too much moisture it can cause pick up problems. Next time it happens, take the paper out and put 50 or so sheets in the microwave for 4 or 5 secs on high. That sometimes does the trick.

IHD, if you buy a printer today, it will be superceded tomorrow. It depends what you use it for. If it's for home use, the cheapest is usually the best option, unless you're really into printing things. I drop my photos onto cd rather than print them.

[Paul]

IHD like dave we put all our photos on CD but we also print some. I've found the cheapest method, with outstanding results, is Boots internet service. All you have to do is upload the files to their site, create an order and 2-3 days later the photos arrive. Quality is better than anything printable on a home PC/printer and at around £20/100 for 7x5 and £12/100 for 6x4 very cheap - I doubt you could buy the ink cartridges for that. Personally I wouldn't bother buying a top quality photo printer unless it was a hobby.

http://www.bootsdigitalphotocentre.com/wpp/boots/welcome.jsp

[dave birch]

Spot on there Paul. Down here, Woolies et al have been advertising prints for as little as 15c a copy.