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In addition to the excellent suggestions already mentioned, you
should look at a printer that uses separate cartridges for each color.
Any printer that uses a single cartridge for the colors means a waste of
money and ink: when one ink runs out, you have to replace the entire
cartridge, even though the other two still have ink. Single-color
cartridges remove this problem.
Also, as Al hinted at, be careful with off-brand inks. Sometimes,
these inks will clog the printer heads and cause serious problems.
Printer makers usually (if not always) say this is now your problem and
won't honor any sort of warranty when using other inks. Also, with the
advanced ink heads and the extremely small sizes of ink put out by these
heads, they can clog quite easily. If you don't plan on printing at two
or three pages, using each color, at least once a week or so, the heads
can easily clog. Some of the other brands, those by reputable,
well-known manufacturers, probably don't have this problem.
Also, depending exactly on your needs, you might want to get a
printer that uses more than four colors. Some of the photo-quality
printers now have black, an off-black sort-of color (can't remember the
exact name for it), light cyan, cyan, light magenta, magenta, and
yellow. These are designed to produce the most accurate color renditions
possible. And some of them also have multiple "blacks" designed to
replace the colors for outstanding B&W prints. Again, Al can probably
tell you more about these.
Once more, depending on your needs, you might look at a decent color
laser printer. These have come down quite a bit in price and now a
decent model can be had for a relatively low price, under $500. B&W
laser printers are considerably cheaper than inkjets in price-per-page,
but I'm not sure if that still holds true for color. However, you
wouldn't have to worry about the clogging issue, either. Considering the
costs of some of the inkjet cartridges out there, I'm thinking that it's
a good possibility the color lasers are still cheaper, considering just
how many more pages you get out of a cartridge compare to an inkjet.
I have an old HP LaserJet 4MP that I'd like to get going again. It
needs a new cartridge, but otherwise is still an excellent printer and
has held up well. However, the cost of a new cartridge is quite high
(~$90) and a new printer is, at times, only about $100. From what I've
heard, though, new laser printers tend to have cartridges that have only
about half the normal lifespan of a cartridge. I'm guessing that's so
that the manufacturers can price them low to hook you in and then price
the cartridges higher and make up any loss on the printer by making you
buy a new cartridge sooner than you really should need to. The only
exception to this, that I've heard before and it now may have changed,
is Brother, who puts a full cartridge in their printers.
Good luck and I hope you get a printer you're happy with!
Samuel I. Beard, Jr.
Technical Writer
OI Analytical
979 690-1711 Ext. 222
sbeard -at- oico -dot- com
-----Original Message-----
From: techwr-l-bounces+sbeard=oico -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
[mailto:techwr-l-bounces+sbeard=oico -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com] On Behalf
Of Cardimon, Craig
Sent: Monday, February 18, 2008 2:32 PM
To: Techwr-l
Cc: Craig
Subject: Need printer suggestions
Techwhirlers,
Our old HP d135 All-In-One is dying. It isn't pretty. The scanner is
dead and the rest of it is looking a bit pale. The colors are way off,
as well.
We have two computers. An old Dell from 2002 (5300?) that keeps on
ticking and a newer Sony Vaio. When our printer gets a bit more pitiful,
I'm going to get a new one and try, again, to rig up a home network.
I have tried before, without success, to create a network. I think our
Dell is just too old. I tried making a network disk using its 3.5 slot
(!). The Sony wouldn't read it and said the disc needed to be formatted,
which I already did in the Dell.
We need a decent home office printer that produces good text and good
photos. High output is not necessary. We have a "home office" but no
home business or anything like that just yet. Reading from camera memory
cards would be nice, but we don't need it. Network ready would also be
nice.
If anyone has an opinion, I would love to hear it. No, really.
-- Craig
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