Colour Printer

BenJ · 4 Jun 2007 at 13:26

Not sure if this is the correct section,

Im looking into buying a colour printer (Inkjet or laser) to print off photos.

I have no budget as such and was wondering whats the best out there, in terms of print quality, build, customer support, cartrige/toner availiability + prices.

Thanks

Phate · 4 Jun 2007 at 13:37

I have a Canon i865 - quite old now but it cost me £150 2nd hand and it's simply a fantastic printer.

The print quality is extremely high, it's very efficient, nice and quiet, prints on CD's and proper sized photo paper if you wish!

I would recommend looking at what they currently offer

Also Canon ink cartridges aren't expensive so a full set only costs me £35 tbh.

Shoei · 4 Jun 2007 at 14:33

Canon Pixma IP4300. Cracking printer and Ilford Profiles for the IP5200 work fine on it.
Very frugal on ink. Ive printed gawd knows how many A4 prints, CD's, pages from ceebebies, 6x4 and 7x5 photos and its only used about half the ink in the carts.

BenJ · 4 Jun 2007 at 14:52

I have had a look on which.co.uk and neither of these printers have undergone the experts testing, so im not sure about them.

The top 3 according to which are:

-Canon Pixma IP6600D
-Canon Pixma IP6700D
-Dell 3010cn

Still not to sure, what I have learnt is that inkjet is the way to go for picture prints.

Messiah Khan · 4 Jun 2007 at 15:16

Canon Pixma is the way to go tbh. Ive got a Pixma IP3000, my parents have a Pixma IP6700D and I use an Pixma IX4000 at work, all of which I love. The IP6700D is very good, and produces very nice prints with good, accurate colours. The cartridges are however relatively expensive, and to use third party ones, you have to steal the chips out of genuine ones.(or at least you did when I checked.) The IX4000 is again very good and can print A3, although isn't quite as good as the IP6700D for colours.

Phate · 4 Jun 2007 at 15:25

BenJ said:
I have had a look on which.co.uk and neither of these printers have undergone the experts testing, so im not sure about them.

The top 3 according to which are:

-Canon Pixma IP6600D
-Canon Pixma IP6700D
-Dell 3010cn

Still not to sure, what I have learnt is that inkjet is the way to go for picture prints.

DO NOT GET A DELL

Seriously....WORST PRINTERS EVER

unknowndomain · 4 Jun 2007 at 15:42

Dont get dell = dont get lexmark (dells printers made by lexmark)

I seconds the iP4300, bought mind for £61 and a few pennie sweets

BenJ · 4 Jun 2007 at 16:20

Ok I will probably go with the Canon Pixma IP6600D or Canon Pixma IP6700D. they both got similar scores on which.co.uk (Only 1% difference). Just have to shop around a bit and find the best price.

Thanks for the help guys.

J1234 · 4 Jun 2007 at 16:24

Sorry to hijack your thread, but on the topic of printers can someone recommend me a photo printer that can be networked (via ethernet) Fed up with my rubbish Dell AIO printer and having to switch it in between PC's.

ShaunB · 8 Jun 2007 at 10:38

Ethernet photo printers are a rare bread at consumer level. The HP B9180 is a semi-pro model that has ethernet (awesome printer btw) but I don't know of any cheaper ones.

Alternatively just get yourself an ethernet print server. Note that photo printing over ethernet is generally slower than than via direct USB2 connection.

J1234 · 8 Jun 2007 at 10:49

ShaunB said:
Ethernet photo printers are a rare bread at consumer level. The HP B9180 is a semi-pro model that has ethernet (awesome printer btw) but I don't know of any cheaper ones.

Alternatively just get yourself an ethernet print server. Note that photo printing over ethernet is generally slower than than via direct USB2 connection.

Cheers mate, I think i'm going to stick to USB for now until ethernet printers become more popular/cheaper.

Sol · 8 Jun 2007 at 12:20

I'm thinking about a printer myself at the moment but my budget is looking a bit nuts, the four I'm looking at are:

Epson r2400 and r1800
Canon 9500
HP B9180

Looks like they all have pro's and cons. Canons prints are generally assumed to have psycho saturation applied while the Epson's and HP are more natural looking (from what I've seen), although people prefer the saturation. Also the fading problem exists more with those. Epson has head clogging problems in places and ink is expensive (although you get more in a cartridge than Canon). HP has a couple of issues too.

Generally they all look good printers but I'm leaning towards the r2400 (or nothing at all).

If I was in the hunt for a standard media printer I'd probably just get a Selphy or whatever and use that for smaller print sizes.

Phate · 8 Jun 2007 at 13:32

Personally I would avoid HP's as the cartridges from what I remember are silly expensive.

Sol · 8 Jun 2007 at 16:12

Well expensive they might be (haven't looked) but you get more ink in your cartridge = it's all relative. It's like Canon's ink being cheaper but you end up having to buy two BCI6's for each Epson inks if you go by manufacturer specifications.

gt_junkie · 9 Jun 2007 at 18:24

I have a Canon i965 and it is simple awesome although there's presently no vista or x64 support.

6 ink system and flawless A4 copies!

Got it for £90 too which was a deal!

gt

Mohain · 9 Jun 2007 at 22:09

I've got my eye on the HP B9180. Pigment inks, connects to the network via ethernet, A3+.... The Canon 9500 uses pigment inks too but seems to be a tad more expensive. The clogging head/cleaning cycles problems reported on the Epsons put me off.

I'm very tempted by the HP B9180 ...

Tripnologist · 10 Jun 2007 at 00:15

Justin said:
Sorry to hijack your thread, but on the topic of printers can someone recommend me a photo printer that can be networked (via ethernet) Fed up with my rubbish Dell AIO printer and having to switch it in between PC's.

As someone already mentioned, networkable photo printers are rare. Print servers are fairly inexpensive though. OCUK has a few of them in both wired and wireless flavours.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/search_results.php?sortby=&groupid=&string=print+server

Slinwagh · 10 Jun 2007 at 12:21

Shoei said:
Canon Pixma IP4300. Cracking printer and Ilford Profiles for the IP5200 work fine on it.
Very frugal on ink. Ive printed gawd knows how many A4 prints, CD's, pages from ceebebies, 6x4 and 7x5 photos and its only used about half the ink in the carts.

I have just bought the Canon iP5300 and also use the Ilford paper, the quality of the prints is outstanding.

I just need to sort out colour profiles as there is a noticeable difference between on screen colour and print colour.

dayloon · 12 Jun 2007 at 10:15

gt_junkie said:
I have a Canon i965 and it is simple awesome although there's presently no vista or x64 support.

6 ink system and flawless A4 copies!

Got it for £90 too which was a deal!

gt

Yes there is ! I've got a i965 and vista picks it up no problem.

Sol · 12 Jun 2007 at 11:40

Mohain said:
I've got my eye on the HP B9180. Pigment inks, connects to the network via ethernet, A3+.... The Canon 9500 uses pigment inks too but seems to be a tad more expensive. The clogging head/cleaning cycles problems reported on the Epsons put me off.

I'm very tempted by the HP B9180 ...

I've looked at all the printers I've mentioned before in depth over the last couple of weeks. The HP suffers from "tire marks" supposedly. I'm pretty sure I'm gonna go for the 2400 epson at some point although I'm gonna hold off for a month or two I reckon. The colour on the 9500 to me doesn't look as good as the HP or the Epson so I think I've ruled that out.

iphoto has a good comparison and decent printer review system which I keep looking at.