Printer recommendation?

[Bert Coules]

Only peripherally DIY I'm afraid, but there's a wealth of knowledge and experience here.

My printer (Canon Pixma iP4850) has just expired beyond hope of resuscitation and though I find I need a printer less than I used to, I do still have to have one for black and white text printing, decent quality colour photos and blank CDs and DVDs. I don't need extras like scanning or copying.

So: any recommendations, either for particular models or simply makes? I've almost always had Canons and found them excellent, if heavy on ink - but isn't that true of pretty much all printers?

Many thanks.

[Davey]

There is a thread started on 20/05/2020 about laser printers you might find helpful.

[Andy Burns]

lasers not so useful for CD printing, unless you can still get A4 cut-out adhesive labels and a "CD Stomper"

[Bert Coules]

Thanks, but as Andy said, lasers aren't useful (as far as I know, at least) for printing on blank CDs and DVDs. And that is still a major reason for my needing one.

[John Rumm]

[John Rumm]

Only those that use ink... and typically the cheaper printers with small ink carts, cost more to run than larger ones. However any inkjet tends to be pricey against a mono laser. Colour laser is still cheaper per page than inkjet, but up front costs to replace a full set of toners can still be pricey.

You can print labels to stick on CDs with just about any printer. If however you want to print direct to CD, then inkjet is your only option, and IME, the Canon Pixma range were among the best for that.

[The Natural Philosopher]

i've been an HP laserjet man since forever.

something like the home office sort - I've a 252n - is a good compromise between pricey and plasticky

[Bert Coules]

Thanks for that. Yes, I want to print directly onto the discs (though come to think of it, I believe I do still have a Stomper label-aligner from way back in a box somewhere). And apart from its ink-guzzling and eventual breakdown (though to be fair I had used it pretty hard for a good few years) I found the Pixma iP4850 to be excellent. I have no real qualms about getting another Canon.

[Bert Coules]

Mm. Way back when, I had an HP Laserjet lll: a splendid printer (for which I paid well over a thousand pounds as I recall).

I have wondered about a colour laser instead of an inkjet, but the CD/DVD requirement makes it a bit of a non-starter, sadly. Unless there's such a thing as a dedicated disc printer which I could use just for that purpose? A quick Google suggests that there isn't, though.

[The Natural Philosopher]

I use the laser printable disc labels

[Bert Coules]

Do you align and fix them by hand or do you have a Stomper or something akin to one?

[The Natural Philosopher]

i just did them by hand.

[Martin Brown]

+1

I have a Canon A3 printer and a Canon multifunction A4 both taking the same ink cartridges. I have had Canon inkjet printers for a long time and find they are less inclined to gunge up the print head than some other brands. Inkjets are very handy for printing directly on CDs and thick materials.

I do print a fair amount of stuff (though not recently since there is no need to print posters for events which cannot take place in lockdown). It will be interesting to see how well they restart when lockdown ends.

Almost any new printer will do a better photoreal image than one from the previous generation so my advice would be to pick a model where decent quality cloned cartridges are readily available.

[Bert Coules]

Thanks for that, Martin. Is there a particular brand of cloned cartridges that you would recommend? I've never stuck to any one make in the past, possibly to the detriment of my late printer.

[John Miller]

I've got a Canon IP7250 - second one, which I'm very pleased with. Prints directly onto CD/DVDs. I think it has been superseded by the Canon TS705 which will also print directly onto disc. No experience of that model. John M

[Bert Coules]

Thanks.

I'll check out both. Canon is certainly emerging as the front runner.

[Martin Brown]

I have tended to find a third party one that gives me almost photoreal quality (the OEM ones and matched paper are invariably slightly better) and stick with that for as long as they continue to make them.

If you choose a printer that is too new or with very tricky to make pigment inks then you might be locked in to OEM inks for a while until someone breaks the way the unit detects its own cartridges. Some warn when you put non-Canon or non-Dell cartridges in that it voids the warrantee but my printers have been out of warrantee a long while now.

The ones I'm using now are 525 & 526 from one of the Amazon suppliers - not quite the cheapest but still pretty cheap from Premier Cartridges. I try to find one supplier and stick to them for as long as I can. I tend to buy a big multipack to get the unit price down once I'm sure they are OK. I use a fair amount of ink and paper in normal times but store them in a nice cool dark place until they are needed.

I toyed with the idea of getting a bulk ink printer but the initial cost was a bit on the high side and I'm not in the market for a replacement at the moment. My previous printers have given me a decade of service before the magic smoke finally came out.

[Figaro]

I've been using compatible cartridges for a Canon inkjet from

for many years and have had no problems. Though I wouldn't use them for archival photos.

Every day dawns with opportunity

*****************************

[Martin Brown]

Even the original Canon inks on their best paper don't produce archival quality prints. The only way to get true archival quality prints is a wet print process like the Fuji crystal archive - displays I made using that are still as good as new whereas the ones I printed on my Canon using genuine Canon inks required replacement every 5 years or so. The yellow ink fails first followed by the magenta leaving a cyanotype look.

There is a visible difference if you print a pair of identical images and leave one on a sunny window ledge for a month in summer. It is much worse if they are in direct sunlight outside with so much more UV about.

[Bert Coules]

Thanks for that.