Need to replace my 20 year old HP Laserjet printer and although I have a scanner it's so old it only works with Windows 95 or 98 and not XP. A three in one ink jet machine looks like the best option so any recommendations?
Definitely not! Inkjets are a PITA, heads clogging and small capacity cartridges. Laser printers just work, and are a lot cheaper to run. Not sure what is a good one ATM, my last one is 2005 vintage, but has cost next to nothing to run, and always works, unlike its inkjet predecessors. Initial cartridges can be reduced capacity, just like the inkjets, but hasn't been a problem.
Current printers are HP1100A and magicolor 2350n. Will probaby see me out, but an all in one (lasejet) would be nice.
One slight problem with lasers ATM is that Canon's main toner cartridge manufacturing plant was in the path of the tsunami. Canon, of course, also supply a lot of other brand names with their cartridges. Shortages are already being reported in the USA and it is far from certain that other manufacturers will be able to keep up with demand as people switch to them.
Colin Bignell
I second the advice to avoid inkjets. They were a big move forward from dot matrix in their time, but really should be obsolete due to unreliability and the low cost of lasers. If you dont need fancy graphics, even a basic laser printer has almost all the advantages.
NT
Others have said it on printers. On scanners, if you do not intend to switch from XP soon then there are a lot of basic scanners going cheap which are not compatible with Windows Vista/7. Eg I picked up a Canon Lide 35* a couple of years ago for under £10 for SWMBO to use on her travels.
*And I picked that one 'cos you can in fact use it with Vista/7 with the Lide 60 drivers :)
Indeed HP seem to be using Win7 as something of a culling-point for printers they consider to be "too old" and not releasing drivers for them, when in fact the Vista drivers work just fine ... given how many years and Windows versions they've supported HP LaserJet III and above that's pretty shoddy.
Before Vista, Windows printer drivers were implemented in 'kernal-mode' and now for security and stability they have to be 'user-mode' framework compliant.
So some drivers for some old printers got rewritten when Vista launched. Yeah, these should be OK on Windows 7 if they live bug free.
Panasonic gave up supporting my KX-P7510 laser after Windows 2000, though the drivers did work OK'ish on Windows XP and Server 2003 (with some adjustment to allow the kernal mode use).
I'm now using Xerox's Global Print driver on that for XP and Windows 7.
-&-
My Umax 1200S scanner is the oldest bit of computer kit still in regular use here. 13 years, still scanning...
Bought for WinNT 4.0 in April 1998 with its own crappy ISA SCSI adaptor (replaced by an Adaptec 2940) and a very earth leaky SMPS (ditched), I massaged it though Windows 2000, XP, and Windows 7. The last official driver release for that was for XP, it wasn't too hard to get going on 7.
Which is good. I'd hate to see it go!
Nothing wrong with their reliability, providing you use them properly. They don't like being left unusued for long periods of time. If you do, it can be necessary to run a few head cleans to get them going again. In the case of HP and some others, a new cartridge will give you a new print head.
Inkjets also have a wider range of colours - up to 10 - which gives much better images. For now, they also have the advantage that their consumables are not made on the Japanese coast.
Colin Bignell
In message , snipped-for-privacy@privacy.net writes
Concur on the running costs. I have an Epson Photo RX420 Does photos well, scans/copies OK, eats Epson cartridges and is very fussy about compatibles. Head cleaning is OK but the m/c would be better for more use.
It is just hitting the *needs service attention* barrier! ISTR someone posting a workaround and I would be grateful for a link.
regards
>
Also make sure the ink reservoir isn't soaked to overflowing!
It's easy to work around that using a Linux box as a print sever. With CUPS and ghostscript there is support for antique laser printers. You may then use Samba to present the printer as a postscript printer to Windows computers. Even windows 7 will print to a generic postscript printer.
A cheap atom based SFF PC will cost about £240, uses very little electricity and can have several other uses such as wireless hub, web proxy and file server.
I use an Epson BX300F running on unbranded cartridges I buy from a stall on our Friday market, at £4.00 each for black and £4.50 for colours. I print at least 50 B&W A4 pages a week and having used the machine for three years it never gives me any bother. Its a 4 in one machine, printer, scanner, copier and fax. I chose this one because it has 3 separate colour cartridges which suits me as I tend to use more blue than the other colours and got fed up with replacing tri colour HP cartridges which had only run out of blue ink.
Mike Just back from a dirty long weekend! Did anyone miss me?
hmmmm, i have a lexmark all in one jobbie, wifi connected inkjet, cost me 50 quid from morrisons a few years ago,
few minutes to set it upto the wifi network using the usb cable (can be connected via usb if you dont want the wifi bit) it does a print head excersise manouver every 4 or 5 days, and i've not noticed it having any troubles printing cleanly when i need to use it, which ranges from printing out 20 sheets a day, to one sheet a month,
the one i have is 3 colour and black, but you can get another 3 colour cart that replaces the black one to give full 6 colour photo printing, and they do standar and high capacity carts for it, of course i dont use the genuine lexmark carts, as they are about 30 quid a set, but some no name ones from tesco, the high capacity ones cost me about
17 quid a pair,no stupid fake ink usage chips in the carts either (like epsons had, not sure if they still do, but i got fed up of epsons clogging all the time and having to buy a cart chip resetter to allow the full capacity of the ink to be used, most carts i reset twice before it really ran out!!!)
I keep a Windows '98 machine just to keep a couple of old HP scanners running. The additional depth of focus of an old scanner, compared to a more modern ultra-high resolution(sic) model means that they're far better at scanning from books, close in to the spine. Especially if you lay the scanner on top of the book. Even better is to modify the scanner to lose the lid and saw the side off the case as close as possible to the scan window.
I'm no fan of combined machines. If you do a lot of fax or direct copying, then perhaps, but even then I'd keep another printer for "main use". For one thing, a cheap laser (HP 1300) has bargain running costs compared to any inkjet.
Linux support from HP? You've got to be joking! Even when I worked at Labs, using official HP RedHat (yes, not HP-UX), HP's driver support was pitiful for anything that needed more than a basic port.
LJIIIs will work for ever, and on anything, simply because they don't need much. If you can shove Postscript or PCL to them, they'll take it. Although it might become harder to generate suitable PCL from within some apps, Postscript will still be workable.
I'm actually finding Win7 to be less trouble than XP or Vista was. You have to fiddle compatibility settings, but I've had several W2K drivers for weird stuff that are now working happily again under Win7, when XP & Vista just didn't want to know.
In article , Dave Baker scribeth thus
We bought a Canon MG6150 a couple of months ago. OK machine sure does what it claims except we've almost paid as much for cartridges as we did for the machine.
They are very small tiny things and don't last the proverbial 5 minutes. Furthermore our local refilling place can't do them as yet.
We're seriously thinking of off loading this bit of crap and getting a Laserjet before long..
And I thought the HP K8600 we had was a pain what with it paper jamming every other time we use it, but the main reason for that was it does do A3 size.
So anyone recommend a Colour Laserjet that works well and doesn't cost its purchase price to run in a few months?.
And we'll get a separate scanner instead of the combined unit..
As others have said -- avoid Inkjets, especially cheap ones. They clog up and the cartridges can cost more than a new printer.
If you've got room get a separate scanner & printer (laser)*.
I have had equal problems with HP and Epson Inkjets that have not been solved by any amount of head cleaning. I've also had to chuck out almost new cartridges that don't work.
One of the advantages of Lexmark printers is that the print head is in the cartridge, so you get a new print head every time you replace the cartridge.
That is the disadvantage of putting the print head in the cartridge.
Refilling yourself would be even cheaper and, if you buy the right kit, not difficult or messy. However, they work best (i.e. more refills) if you start out with a manufacturer's original cartridge, rather than the recycled ones that you are probably buying from Tesco.
These days, Epson cartidges, or the G&G compatibles I use, carry on until they run out (the G&G have a clear side so you can see), although you will get low ink warnings from the printer.
Colin Bignell
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