Recommend a printer
- Thread starter derm
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Soldato
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I highly recommend the Canon pixma series. Not sure if they go that low though.
when i look for a printer i usually get one which has a good price on replacement inks. Dell printers are cheapish but the inks cost a lot.
The Brother all in one printers are pretty good plus you can get a set of replacement inks for around £10
The Brother all in one printers are pretty good plus you can get a set of replacement inks for around £10
derm said:
Epsons are usually pretty cheap to buy and you can get plenty of 3rd Party Inks from fleabay. Some Inks have been rated by Computer Mags as being almost as good as the originals. 3rd Party Inks make for good economy.
http://www.epson.co.uk/products/product_hub/Product_Listing_Inkjets_General.htm
i put cheap ink in my old epson printer that i use for general printing... used it maybe once a week max.. Ink dried up, stuck in another colour cartridge.. hmm still not printing.. nozzles blocked. I couldn't be bothered to clean it so i just binned the printer...
I gotta say, my R220 epson photo printer uses only genuine epson ink and i printed out 3 A4 photos last night, and thats the first time i've used it in about 4 months and the pictures came out perfect, like the printer and ink were brand new.
So I wont be buying cheap ink again.
I also won't buy another lexmark printer, both of them that I had used to suffer from that "don't use for a while, ink dry's up" problem.
My vote's for epson, and use genuine ink. It's only £20 for my 6 cartridges from flea bay.
I gotta say, my R220 epson photo printer uses only genuine epson ink and i printed out 3 A4 photos last night, and thats the first time i've used it in about 4 months and the pictures came out perfect, like the printer and ink were brand new.
So I wont be buying cheap ink again.
I also won't buy another lexmark printer, both of them that I had used to suffer from that "don't use for a while, ink dry's up" problem.
My vote's for epson, and use genuine ink. It's only £20 for my 6 cartridges from flea bay.
Permabanned
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- 10 Jun 2005
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i have to disagree there it is very good...obviously you havn't been using the right discs
Sorry, but i think i might have to stick my ore in here and say HP.
We scrapped all of our epson inkjets at work as they would suffer from the blocked nozzles.
Least with HP, when you replace the cartridge, you replace with the heads with it too.
We scrapped all of our epson inkjets at work as they would suffer from the blocked nozzles.
Least with HP, when you replace the cartridge, you replace with the heads with it too.
Epson have been a big letdown for me, failed printheads each time so now I have a HP which has printhead on the ink cartridge so new printhead each time you replace ink, Epson sent a replacement under its last week of warranty & it turned out to be a refurbished unit which failed in front of the engineer who had delivered it to me.
What a farce, they then offered me a discount if I bought a new one
What a farce, they then offered me a discount if I bought a new one
I have not got an R220. Just stating what i have read. I know a few people with Epsons (I have had a couple myself) and they all have issues with the cleaning of the heads etc etc. This is what puts me off going for another Epson. I may go for a Brother All-In-One.
Oooooo,
I didnt get the epson, it was out of stock, I went for the HP 5940, as said new print head every time you get a new cartridge. The epsons cheap ink almost had me but what good is cheap ink if the print head is blocked.
Ask me again tomorrow I'll probably have changed my mind
Thank god I've spent my money......
I didnt get the epson, it was out of stock, I went for the HP 5940, as said new print head every time you get a new cartridge. The epsons cheap ink almost had me but what good is cheap ink if the print head is blocked.
Ask me again tomorrow I'll probably have changed my mind
Thank god I've spent my money......
I have an epson R200 (dont think they still make them). I have had it for over a year and only cost me £50. I use third party ink which i get 3 full sets (6 cartridges) for £20 at a local computer fair. This printer is used a lot as my GF uses it every day for printing out e-mails and word documents and i use it for photos and printing onto cd's and dvd's. The third party ink isnt as vibrant in colour as official epson ink but it is a 3rd of the price. I highly recommend an epson R series printer as i have had no problems ( and neither have friends and family who have one) and is great value.
Associate
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I've had an HP 710C for about 8 years now and its been brilliant, still prints perfect as if its brand new, I remember it costing about £150 at the time I got it too. HP 4TW!!!!
Greetings,
just been reading this thread and thought I would add my 33p worth. . .
I've owned two printers ever and they were both Epsons, The first was an EPSON STYLUS Colour 850 (3 ink)
bought that back in 2000 ish and it cost just over £200, got a couple of years use out of that but I found out two things
1) If I didn't do a print for some time (1-2months) I found that the print heads dried up a bit causing streaks. To fix this all I had to do was a few head cleans and everything was back to normal (but used up a fair bit of ink on the cleans)
2) The Official EPSON inks were really good but *really* expensive, so after a few years I got a bit fed up with paying through the nose for inks and decided to grab myself a full set of *compatible* cartridges for a fraction of the price (you read about so many people saying how good they are right!) anyway BIG mistake, I should have realised it after I did my first print out, the smell of the ink on the printed page was akin to ammonia. To cut along story short the prints were rubbish and the ink destroyed the print head, I sent it back to an Official Epson service centre (costing me £40.00) for them to fix it and they gave me a quote of £200 to repair it!!!
Ok so I thought fek it no way, may as well buy a new printer which I did, a nice shiny EPSON Stylus Photo R200 (6 ink), which I have been using until recentley.
Now its run out of ink (maybe 3rd time in two years) and I see epson are charging £50.00 odd for a full set of replacements (6 inks), damn that used to be £30, and the printer only cost me £75.00 hmmm. . . .
So I do actually really need a printer right now, spent a few days looking around and finally decided to buy a B&W laser printer.
The Laser vs Inkjet debate is an interesting one, but if at the end of the day you do a fair amount of document printing and you care about costs then I believe laser is best solution. Yes I won't be able to do any of my snazzycolour CD labels anymore but thats about it. I get most of my photo prints done at the high street stores now (take the images there on USB thumb drive/or CD) or you can order them via the internet, actually works out cheaper than doing your own prints at home.
So from my personal experience I have decided to leave the ink-jet path and go laser, I just want a workhorse printer that will hammer out documents 24/7 and where I don't need to think about costs or refill the paper tray or toner that often. . . .
The best thing I could find in my price range was the DELL 1710, it does 1200x1200 dpi resolution prints and set me back £127 brand new, hope its the biz!
To sum up:
a) I think ink-jet is more a convenience thing now, similar to how a minibar is *convenient* in a hotel room, and just as expensive! I do still think its a nice thing to have if your new to computing *or* have never owned a modern inkjet photo printer before, but after you paid out for inks a few times the novelty wears off
b) 3rd Party compatible inks have never been good for me, and I'm fairly sure any prints you make using these won't stand the test of time, having said that I never tested a whole different bunch of them but after melting my £200 printer using some I wasn't keen to have another go
c) If you have read all this post then your a total geek with nothing better to do lol!
just been reading this thread and thought I would add my 33p worth. . .
I've owned two printers ever and they were both Epsons, The first was an EPSON STYLUS Colour 850 (3 ink)
bought that back in 2000 ish and it cost just over £200, got a couple of years use out of that but I found out two things
1) If I didn't do a print for some time (1-2months) I found that the print heads dried up a bit causing streaks. To fix this all I had to do was a few head cleans and everything was back to normal (but used up a fair bit of ink on the cleans)
2) The Official EPSON inks were really good but *really* expensive, so after a few years I got a bit fed up with paying through the nose for inks and decided to grab myself a full set of *compatible* cartridges for a fraction of the price (you read about so many people saying how good they are right!) anyway BIG mistake, I should have realised it after I did my first print out, the smell of the ink on the printed page was akin to ammonia. To cut along story short the prints were rubbish and the ink destroyed the print head, I sent it back to an Official Epson service centre (costing me £40.00) for them to fix it and they gave me a quote of £200 to repair it!!!
Ok so I thought fek it no way, may as well buy a new printer which I did, a nice shiny EPSON Stylus Photo R200 (6 ink), which I have been using until recentley.
Now its run out of ink (maybe 3rd time in two years) and I see epson are charging £50.00 odd for a full set of replacements (6 inks), damn that used to be £30, and the printer only cost me £75.00 hmmm. . . .
So I do actually really need a printer right now, spent a few days looking around and finally decided to buy a B&W laser printer.
The Laser vs Inkjet debate is an interesting one, but if at the end of the day you do a fair amount of document printing and you care about costs then I believe laser is best solution. Yes I won't be able to do any of my snazzycolour CD labels anymore but thats about it. I get most of my photo prints done at the high street stores now (take the images there on USB thumb drive/or CD) or you can order them via the internet, actually works out cheaper than doing your own prints at home.
So from my personal experience I have decided to leave the ink-jet path and go laser, I just want a workhorse printer that will hammer out documents 24/7 and where I don't need to think about costs or refill the paper tray or toner that often. . . .
The best thing I could find in my price range was the DELL 1710, it does 1200x1200 dpi resolution prints and set me back £127 brand new, hope its the biz!
To sum up:
a) I think ink-jet is more a convenience thing now, similar to how a minibar is *convenient* in a hotel room, and just as expensive! I do still think its a nice thing to have if your new to computing *or* have never owned a modern inkjet photo printer before, but after you paid out for inks a few times the novelty wears off
b) 3rd Party compatible inks have never been good for me, and I'm fairly sure any prints you make using these won't stand the test of time, having said that I never tested a whole different bunch of them but after melting my £200 printer using some I wasn't keen to have another go
c) If you have read all this post then your a total geek with nothing better to do lol!
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