Recommend a printer?

[ewx]

I'm after a new printer. It'll be used both for documents (e.g. Naath's OU homework) and for photographs; though if I want particularly high-quality photos I'm happy to go get them done specially rather than buy/feed an unusually expensive printer.

It'd be attached to a Linux server and driven from Mac/Linux/Windows clients (presumably via CUPS) so it'd better be something that can be driven that way (ideally without endless pain but this is printers we're talking about...)

My old printer is an Epson Stylus Color 660 and appears to have unfixably clogged some of the black jets. So I'd prefer something that either inherently doesn't clog up or has the printhead built into the ink cartridge.

Recommendations for/against?

If anyone wants my spare ink cartridges (4 black and 4 color, non-branded), let me know.

Comments

[dave holland (from livejournal.com)]

I recently bought a HP LJ2600N (colour laser) and I'm very pleased with it. Unfortunately I think it was discontinued the day after I bought it...

[ewx.livejournal.com]

Yes, after a bit of looking round last night I was quite tempted by one of the smaller HP color lasers. Possibly a bit OTT for my needs given how much cheaper inkjets are, but I've not compared consumables costs yet...

[crazyscot.livejournal.com]

I ran the numbers on my old HP inkjet (PSC 1410, which also scans and copies and probably has sufficiently clever firmware to make the tea) and was alarmed to note that it costs somewhere around 12p per page. Yes, the consumables aren't expensive, so you don't notice them as much, but they don't last long (~150pages per cartridge in my case).

I bought a Brother HL-4040CN networked colour laser earlier this year. IIRC the consumables amortise to something like 6p/page. Windows, Mac, Ubuntu, no problem - there's a handy .deb which installs the right magic for CUPS to DTRT. Documents print very well. While it's not a photo printer, you can plug a USB camera into it; I tried once, on plain paper, and confirmed that the quality is OK but not stellar. The capital cost isn't bad, and was helped by a £100 cashback offer. (In fact it seems the promo is still going: http://www.brother.co.uk/g3.cfm/s_page/87000 .)

[crazyscot.livejournal.com]

In fact it's even cheaper now than when I got mine; Misco have them for 220+VAT before cashback.

[crazyscot.livejournal.com]

Yes, very pleased. I'm not sure but I don't think it takes raw PS; when I was trying to set it up on Linux (before i discovered the debs) it ended up printing a few pages of raw PS as text before I noticed and hit Cancel.

[dave holland (from livejournal.com)]

My conscience told me it would be OTT too, but I ignored it. :-)

For my needs, consumables costs were comparable. I don't use a printer often enough to keep an inkjet from drying/clogging, so I was buying new cartridges disproportionately often. Admittedly I didn't factor the cost of leaving the thing on standby (no green points for me) but I have a magic plug to deploy, which will turn off the printer when the PC is turned off.

[baljemmett.livejournal.com]

I've been tempted by one; various vendors were offering a networked Brother machine for ~ 150 quid earlier in the year. Consumable costs worked out to be about half those of my bubblejet going on manufacturer's rated page count.

I came >< this close to buying one, then my current machine remembered how to print colour properly (for a while it was swapping cyan and magenta, which was very confusing) so I didn't. Still tempted, though.

[simont]

The problem I always had with inkjets (Canon, in my case) was that once an ink cartridge was opened the ink would gradually evaporate. For my very uneven printing habits this was a real killer: I'd crack a fresh set of cartridges to print ten or twenty pages, come back a month or two later wanting to print ten more, and the ink would be all gone. I used up more ink by evaporation than I ever did printing real pages, by at least one order of magnitude and quite possibly two. Switching to a colour laser brought my consumables cost way down just due to toner being non-volatile; virtually all the toner I buy now actually ends up on pages I printed.

Biggest downside for me is that "one of the smaller colour lasers" is still a bloody enormous box by the standards of anyone used to an inkjet, or even used to a cheap-end B&W laser.

[ewx.livejournal.com]

I suspect that my usage pattern would be somewhat similar. Though I'm tempted to adopt a habit of cycling between different photos adorning bits of the house, which might mean more of the ink actually got used.

I've been noting dimensions in my table of candidate printers, since I've a plan about where I'd like to put it. I could generate some more space if necessary by replacing a CRT with a flat panel on the same desk though, albeit at some extra expense.

[reddragdiva]

What's colour laser photo quality like compared to inkjet photo quality?

(I am prepared to pay way too much to print photos by inkjet because it's about the same cost as sending them out to be printed and I like control.)

[simont]

I'm not much for literal photos, but my general impression is that stuff coming out of my cheap HP colour laser is slightly nicer in basic quality than my Canon BJC used to be and much nicer in terms of not having slightly soggy paper which rucks up, not having misalignment between successive print-head passes, and not having obvious horizontal banding.

It might be that I had a particularly poor inkjet, of course, but I'd take a lot of convincing before I'd even consider going back.

[reddragdiva]

See, I'm talking about doing nice A4 prints onto expensive glossy photo paper :-) My RX620 does an ace job at this (six-colour printer, specifically for making nice photos), so that's why I pay all that money for ink. Which does dry up as quickly as you describe.

[gjm11.livejournal.com]

I can't comment on how good colour lasers are for printing photos (I never print photos), but my own experience with going OTT on printers is that several years ago I bought an LJ2200d (smallish office-standard laser, does duplexing, etc.) to replace the canonical small flaky HP home laser printer I had before, and I have never regretted it for an instant. Yes, it cost about twice as much as I'd have paid for a cheaper printer that notionally did the same sort of thing; yes, it takes up more space and weighs more; but it's robust and quick and prints happily on both sides of the paper and interprets PostScript itself, and I like it very much. I'll be surprised if what I replace it with (in a few decades :-) when it gets old) is anything other than a colour laser printer.

[ewx.livejournal.com]

I got as far as placing an order for a LJ2700, only to be told it was out of stock and discontinued l-( There doesn't seem to be a clear successor in that line either.