OT: Any printer recommendations?

My wife needs a new printer for her computer. Her ageing Canon Pixma iP4000 has finally given up printing colour - and would need a new print-head, which costs more than most new printers!

I've read the Which? reports, but they ain't a lot of help. In particular, the user reviews seem to suggest that many of the 'best buys' are a load of crap! [And that's a consensus view, not just one odd one]. Amazon tend to provide only a very sketchy functional spec. for the models they offer.

Which? also seems to suggest that there are very few pure printers on the market now - and that nearly all are all-in-ones, which also scan and - photocopy without needing the computer to be turned on. Scanning would be fine, because she could do with a new scanner too, and it would save deskspace!

We are looking for a printer which:

  • Does decent black & white and colour (including photographs) printing up to A4 size [Borderless would be nice for photos, but not essential]
  • Can also do automatic duplex printing, and booklet production
  • Doesn't waste a lot of ink initialising itself before every print job
  • Will work on Win XP (as well as more recent versions of Windoze)

It doesn't need to be wireless or connectable to a network - although that just might be useful as long as it can also be connected directly to a single computer. Similarly, it doesn't need to print direct from iPads and Android tablets but, again, that just might be useful occasionally

If it also includes a scanner, this must be the flat bed variety to allow scanning from books - although a sheet feeder (as well as, rather than instead of) might just be useful.

Can anyone nominate any models which might fit the bill from their own experience, so that I can narrow the field to a few which are worthy of a bit more research?

Many thanks!

Reply to
Roger Mills
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I would definitely try and get an old ex-company GOOD HP laserjet. I'd say what I have here - laserjet 5P- except that doesn't do duplex.

you may need a parallel port top get older printers to work though, if they dont have network support.

The good things about HPs is that spare drums are still avialable tend to come as part of the toner pack, and the pro stuff last and lasts.

the downside is it will be big heavy and use juice when on, so turn it off between print jobs.

The upside is that 5 year old plus laserjets are cheap as chips.

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

That would be good for colour?

Reply to
dennis

sorry. I missed the colour. serious multitasking going on here - still same applies - best value second hand refurbed office workgroup laser printer.

I prefer HP but Ricoh also great workhorses.

Dont buy silly domestic class kit even with HP on the front. plent on ebay.

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

Though beware that HP used Windows7 (and 64bit OS) as a convenient excuse to drop support for older models, some can be persuaded to work, others won't work with newer OS.

Reply to
Andy Burns

Do you need glossy photo feel photos, or would estate agent style good quality plain paper colour do you?

Does that include folding and stapling, or just printing?

You potentially have some conflicting requirements. The ink saving, good quality B&W, duplex, and booklet stuff suggest entry level workgroup laser. Samsung do some MF devices with scanner etc that would fit the bill.

For higher volumes then the Ricoh colour lasers are hard to beat.

The borderless printing however favours inkjet. Some of the canon pixma range are not too scary on consumable prices.

If you go with a laser than can speak PCL5 or PS then finding a driver is easy even if there is no specific one for the machine (a generic driver may lose control of some features though)

Reply to
John Rumm

Which reviews are aimed at home users but your requirements suggest that you are looking for one aimed a business users. This is unlikely to come cheap and may well be laser only. Drivers could also be an issue as XP may not be supported by drivers. Perhaps looking at the PC Pro reviews might be a better source of help.

Reply to
Peter Crosland

IIRC teh OP specified XP...

anyway latest LINUX has support for older HPs.

Time to change?

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

How high a quality colour are you looking for? Near to optically produced glossys or just good photo reproduction in a regular news letter? Inkjet will do better glossys than laser but at a cost. If you only need standalone prints probably better to use an online photoprint service(*), like photobox, for those and have a colour laser for normal use.

As some ones else has said folding and stapling as well? That'll bump the price (and physical size) up. Wonder if you can get a desktop auto duplex, folding and stapling machine...

Lasers don't. Toner carts can be expensive and a fullset for a colour laser can really make your wallet squeak. But overall cost per sheet will almost certainly be considerably lower for laser compared to inkjet.

If it's on the network you wouldn't need it connected to a single computer, unless you are in a habit of not having the network active

24/7.

That opens another can of worms. Android apps tend not to have a "print" option but you can get printer apps that will render common file formats and print them over what ever connectiveity the device has. Not being a worshiper of Apple I could be wrong in saying that iThingies will only print to other iThingy printers, not those from other makers.

Reply to
Dave Liquorice

FWIW.. We used to have a Canon MG-6150 I think I was but the costs of the cartridges was eating us out of house and home. We have for sometime been using a HP K8600 Office jet Pro over our LAN which does up to A3 which you may not want but 'tho I cuss about it from time to time provided that its fed half decent paper the running costs are very low using locally re filled carts...

And thats the problem these days running costs..

Reply to
tony sayer

Yes, she wants to be able to print the occasional glossy photo. [When we want a lot doing, we upload them to Snapmad - but that's a faff for one or two]

Just printing. She tends to produce one-off A5 booklets (printed double-sided on A4) for her own use. So, low volume, so that manual folding and stapling isn't a problem - but she likes the convenience of not having to print all the even pages and then turn the paper over, etc.

Not necessarily. The Pixma iP4000 really did it all - but may have been a *tad* heavy on ink. A new one of those would be fine, but things have moved on!

I hadn't really considered laser printers. What sort of colour rendition for photos can modern ones do. Can they do the duplex/booklet (no folding and stapling) stuff? How about scanning?

Reply to
Roger Mills

We're not really looking for a business printer. As per my reply to John Rumm, booklet printing is very low volume - and it doesn't have top be able to fold and staple.

Reply to
Roger Mills

The better colour lasers are pretty darned good. In my work I see the output from lots of them and you have to be into high quality photography to really need to go down the multi-ink, top-end inkjet routes.

We love duplex. Simply being able to print off articles which have been set-up for 'proper' printing without them dodging left and right page by page. And that when filed away they occupy less volume.

Unfortunately our HP laser is crap. Looking for a new one but the replacement cartridges costs are crazy. If disregarding costs (both initial and ongoing), we would probably have ended up with a Konica Minolta Magicolor such as the 3730DN. But at £350 for replacement cartridges (and £306 for printer with half-capacity carts) - it is expensive.

Reply to
polygonum

first class. Most modern brochuire printing is laser printng. It produces a glossy surface. In fact if you want lmatter you have toi use oiffest printing with ink..

Can they do the duplex/booklet (no

yes

How about scanning?

yes but, there are issues with the same device doing both if you are actually using it intensively. They tend to be compromises. ================================================================= I'd say less than a run of 50 units, a domestic or workgroup color laser is the way to go. 50-500 copies then a print shop can take a PDF and do the job up to and includng all the stapling and guillotining at a lower cost.

Our 'home color laser' came out over a run of 50 units A4 double sided at around a cost of 65p per page in terms of toner.

IIRC the cost for 1000 units digitally printed and folded was around 30p a double sided page.

A workgroup printer would be somewhere in between.

Over 1000 copies offset litho is probably the cheapets method. And you have a wider choice of papers and inks and finishes to choose from.

If a photo finish is required, then send the image to a photo processing shop where they will image it onto photographic paper and develop it properly.

What we do here is use the home laser for printng off proofs BUT its color rendition - particularly with 'third party' inks - is well off.

You can by trial and error correct that. But its a long and tedious job.

So any booklet or brochure gets done professionally on calibrated laser printers at the print shop.

Or by an offset litho process for longer runs.

Any photos to be put in frames for 'family presents' go to a local photo lab. where the color is likewise professionally balanced by the operators.

We do but little scanning, and although Id like to do more, the chief thing I want to scan is a few hundred WW2 120 film negatives. and thats requires a special scanner.

======================================================== A refurbished professional or semi-professional laser is infinitely better for this work than a new 'home' laser.

Ive seen stunning results fromn a Ricoh A3 duplex laser bought for 500 notes, although getting it to work on linux was 'interesting' - had to edit a similar PPD file to get the features needed. And it f***ed up on

3rd party 'cheap' toner and needed serious maintenance. I did warn him..

I'm very happy with our little CP1525n laser. Duplex is done by reloadng the tray and then printing the other side, but the toner cost is massive. kiss goodbye to 60 quid every 100-200 full color sheets and thats '3rd party ' costs. But it only cost £200 or so. And its small and neat and now we realise its just for 'proofing' it does the job perfectly. It has to be sent RGB ratrher than CYMK tho - which is silly beacuse the inks are CYMK and the translation loses something..

Once we know the job is right we email the PDFS to the print shop, (Moreton hall press/Colchester print group in Bury St Edmunds) and they spit out the final thing.

A lot better/cheaper than the Sprint type shops.

Sorry this has been a long post, but it seemed worthwile to show how we arrived at where we are, and why. I hate inkjets. They clog, the ink fades and the colors facde in sunlight IME. And they cost a packet to run.

Laser is ten times better, and pro laser is used across the world to produce brochures on short to medium runs.

Upowards of that dont f*ck around, Go to a shop that does offset litho and let them handle it.

The greatest advance has been the ability to send PDFs with encapsulated fonts..no more Quark 'collections' of images fonts and layouts!

This reduces the options of the print shop to totally f*ck the job up.

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

+1 on all of that.

Except our HP laser is not *total* crap. Just limited.

In the end you need to do proper cost benefit analysis on what quantity and what quality you will need and how much your time is worth.

formatting link

looks like HPs current duplex A3 is getting on for £350 plus to buy.

Ricoh is a lot less.

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

Ouch! That would be about two complete CYMK sets of toner for our HP CP1515n but maybe you get twice as many sheets per set...

Reply to
Dave Liquorice

I have laser printed photos (including B/W and 'sepia') framed behind glass and people do not believe they're laser printed on copy paper. This is on a 5+ year old Konica Magicolor still on its first toner set, and from a 2Mp camera.

If you want glossy then perhaps a quick puff of spray varnish / fixer over the prints?

If you pay for it, yes.

Owain

Reply to
spuorgelgoog

I recently bought the HP 8600 Plus (£180), which I think does everything on your list.

I bought it mainly for the automatic document feeder, to scan 500-ish recei pts, and for its linux compatibility, two factors that may not matter to yo u.

However it's also a perfectly decent colour printer, though I tend to use m ono HP laserjet for most of what little printing I do. So I can't really co mment on cost and longevity of ink cartridges.

Seems very good at connectivity, wired, wireless, card slots, standalone co pying etc. Has automatic document feeder for stacks of up to about 20 A4-is h sheets, and the flatbed. Has duplexer unit, but never used it even once.

There's also a more basic version, £120, without the automatic document f eeder.

Reply to
dom

Personally I prefer separates, and I have an Epson scanner and a Xerox printer.

I chose my printer by looking on a website like Ebuyer, and went down the list of colour laser printers in order of price, and then found the price of a toner replacement.

In other words the cost of replacing toner primarily dictated the printer I bought.

For me it was a toss-up between a Brother or Xerox but that was a few years ago.

Reply to
Fredxx

Yup its the consumable cost where inkjets tend to lose in a big way.

Colour is better than newspaper colour photograph quality - approaching semi gloss magazine depending on model and paper choice. They can do duplex. Scanning also.

Costs per page should be well under 1p for mono, and under 10p for colour. Inkjets can often cost in excess of 50p / colour page.

Reply to
John Rumm

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