I am shopping for a printer/scanner/copier. I am operating a Macintosh G5 and would like to hear some opinions on compatible printers from you all. I am not one of those electonics kind of guys, but would like to succede in acquiring a nice printer for a decent price. I have looked at some Epson, Canon and HP printers and from what I have heard: the Epson has a great value as far a quality of photo print is concerned; HP is reliable; Canon is way up there with Epson for quality.
Any input would be great.
Thanks, T

 

We bought a Canon recently, primarily because the generic printer cartridge refills are readily available and cheap. With two kids and a teaching wife, that's the real expense of a printer.

 

A concern of mine as well, you know, the re-charge thing. The Epson has choices of either 4 or 6 (depending on which printer) separate color cartriges. This would help as just one color is rather inexpensive. And if you only need one color, it's only about 13 bucks.
Are you satisfied with the Canon? Quality of photo prints, dependability, bang for the buck?...

 

Been very happy with it. We used to stick with HP's, but the cost of ink finally made me start looking at other brands. It was a toss between a Canon and an Epson. Picked the Canon because it was on sale (there are worse reasons to buy things). This printer has 4 colors, and it's a lot cheaper it keep in ink. compared to the HP it replaced, I think it's about paid for itself.

 

I like HP. Yes, the ink is expensive, but the print head is built into the cartridge, thus a new print head with ever cartridge. Their quality is good, reliability excellent, and they have lots of nice features. Plus, they just look better all around IMO.

 

When my wife was looking for a printer about a year and a half ago she talked to the guy that runs the local cartridge refilling/printer service place. He highly recommended the Canon Pixma IP3000 because of the speed, print quality and cost of use.
My wife bought one and I was impressed enough that I bought one too. It is lots faster than her old Epson was, way cheaper ink, and print quality, especially for photographs is great. That model is a bit older now but seems to still be available. I don't know anything about the newer versions.
We have a couple HPs at work that aren't much good at all. They really don't seem to be very reliable but part of that might be just the drivers.
I had a cheap Lexmark which didn't work too bad until the print head died which is apparently a common problem on them. On the Lexmark the ink cartridges cost almost as much as the printer cost.

 

I've had an Epson CX6600 for a couple of years and I'm very happy with it. I chose it mainly because of their DuraBrite ink which is supposed to be very fade and water resistant. That said, I don't use it for photo printing. I don't think there is any price advantage over just having them printed at Walgreen's etc. The copier function is very convenient though. You don't even have to turn on the computer to make copies.

 

I just purchased a cheapo HP PSC 1500 a month ago. I have not used the copier function yet but the printer and scanner work well. It is faster than my old HP820 or HP500C.

 

we have a Lexmarx 1100 copier scanner printer and have been very happy with it it's has operated over a year without any problems.

 

I use an HP (Deskjet 940) I bought about 4 years ago, and have been very happy with it. The ink is rather expensive, but it lasts a very long time. The only complaint I have about it is with HP's customer service. When I bought it, one of the features it was advertised as having was "two sided printing." (It would print all the even numbered pages, then pause and instruct you to reinsert the sheets in the feed tray, and print the odd numbered pages on the back.) I liked that feature, and used it regularly in Mac OS 9. Now that I'm using OS X (the latest version), that feature doesn't seem to be supported. I e-mailed the company to see if a newer driver was available, and reinstalled the latest driver they had. When that didn't work, they replied that the only way to use that feature would be to reboot in the older OS every time I wanted to print a two-sided document. They also offered to send me information on the latest HP printers...

I've had two bad experiences with Epsons. Both were owned by people who didn't use them too often, and they found that the ink would dry out, and they had to replace the cartridges very frequently, even though they hadn't printed many pages with them.

 

My wife is a printer nut so we now have 6 different printers including 2 all-in-one. I like the HP the best and the Brother the least.
If I had read the support documentation before buying, the Brother wouldn't be in my house. I suggest you read the documents before you buy Documents for the Brother read like a never ending mystery novel.
Unles you run an office, cost of ink/toner cartridges shouldn't be a factor. I have a HP 2600N and the toner is 80 dollars per cartridge. But the thing lasts forever.

The documents for the HP 61 something are very clearly written and easy to understand. And the support is always available.

 

I bought a Canon i850 a couple of years ago for my wife, so that she could print photos, etc. This printer is nothing short of fantastic!!!
The down side. . . . cost of ink cartridges.

When she started back to college, she was using ink like crazy.
I then bought her an HP 1320 laser printer. The toner cartridge lasts for 5,000 sheets. (She has gone through 2 and is on her 3rd toner cartridge!!) $40.00 per toner cartridge.
The HP was $299.00 after rebate.

I was recently given a new Canon Pixma iP6000, by my former VP. (He had 15 of them that he purchased for a conference, and was giving them to the people that worked on the project, instead of 'pitching' them.)
I have printed several photos, and am very happy with the results.

There is a company (near DC) that buys up PCs and printers and re-sells them at a fraction of the original cost.
You might look online for one of these places. An HP 4050 laser printer can be had for less than the HP 1320 that I mentioned, above. (The 4050 will hold 500 sheets of paper, where the 1320 holds 250 sheets, or so.

EDIT:
If speed is a concern. . . . I can highly recommend the HP. IF black and white copy (laser) is the only concern, go HP. You won't be sorry. Color printers (ink jet) are (in comparison) slllloooooowwwwww.

 

I wouldn't buy anthing but an HP.
The ink is non-soluable.


Canons may be cheaper for ink but the head that usually needs replaced after 3 ink cartridges costs $100.00.
Soluable ink.

Cheap Lexmarks suck big time.
Soluable Ink

 

I have two HP Laserjets (6L I've had since 1997 and a 1012 I've had for about a year), and both are great. Of course they won't do color, but I don't print much in color anyway. I think total I've gone through 4 or 5 toner cartridges for both printers, and I've printed lots of stuff. At one point I also had an Epson inkjet. After many battles, I finally went Office Space on it.

 

NASA_HOKIE, We have a 6L also that my wife was able to get through her school during an upgrade. After 9 years, it still works great but I would like to be able to add memory to it. It has 8Mb installed, but on the printer properties, under memory, it seems we can up it to 64Mb RAM. Do you know if this is true? And if so, how do you add memory to it?