Recommend me a printer please

[cat171]

After an inkjet one (like an epson or something) nothing fancy, just a printer.

I don't want it to have a scanner etc, it doesn't need to wipe my arse for me or make the tea (you get the idea)

The main thing is I don't want one where the inks costs a bomb !

Budget, cheap but good/ok printer. It must be able to do thick(ish) paper too.

I'm running xp, i've seen that most are usb now, if I can get one that's not I will.

Throw some ideas at me folks !
Cheers.

 

[Scottydog]

Epson Stylus Photo R285 is very good! not sure about ink costs, but we have a R300 at home and we pay £7 for all 6 cartridges on ebay for compatibles and so far so good!

 

[biojo]

just go for best epson u can afford

or cheapest if yer not going to be printing photos, but nowadays even the cheap ones will give decent results

 

[cat171]

I don't want anything fancy at all, just seen an S20 epson in tesco's lol, discontiued £40 - that worth a punt ?

Also an all in one (which I don't need) Lexmark x2650 for £35 That looked quite nice, but big.

Can I get split usb adaptors too ?? I have none left, apart from the ones on the front of the tower & I don't wanna use those.

 

[MarkCup]

I bought an Epson R285 too from Amazon recently for £40 or so.

Quite big but apart from that I can't fault it.

 

[The Hoff]

IMO Epson are crap, noisy, clunky and expensive to run on offiical inks. In fact every Epson I've owned struggled with print head issues within a year, required frequent/expensive head cleaning and was just poor.

Lexmark, printer will cost you £5 but the ink will cost you £35. Wouldn't touch them...despite their claims I've never worked in an organisation that uses or would ever use Lexmark-maybe they have a contract with McD's?

Canon/HP are only printers I'd recommend with preference towards Canon. Cheap to run in comparison to Epson, less noisy and generally more reliable by a stretch.

I recently looked at the Canon ip5400 for photo printing, reviews looked superb.

To summarise, get a Canon.

 

[oska]

Recent PC Pro comparison of inkjets and all in ones.

 

[The Hoff]

Nice, yeah just realised I'd confused the Canon model number I suggested, it was indeed the ip4500 - the winner of the PC Pro test

 

[WheresWally]

Any HP will be fine

 

[RichRSi]

I have the Epson D88 (before this I had the C86) which I've had for about two and a half years, it's a good printer and will do edge to edge A4 and takes 4 carts, which are usually about £25 for a set.

I'd recommend an Epson but one thing to watch out for is this; do not leave your Epson for months without making a print, it will totally gum up with ink and will no longer work. This has happened to the last three printers I've bought, which have been Epsons. If need be just print a test document with a photo once every few weeks or buy an extended warranty, mine has always been replaced with the new equivalent and was worth it.

 

[Scottydog]

I agree about the Canon comments, they are very good! but I used to work as a print technician at the school I currently work at, now working as a IT Technician & Marketing Director and I can tell you we have a contract with HP for all our office/classroom printers and a soon as the contract runs out they are out of the window! they are absolutely crap so cheap and brittle and constantly jibbing out or dropping off the network. I'll give you a recent example, we have a brand new laser in one of our suites and with in 54 copies! the print heads knackered. I wouldn't recommend them at all. Epson, Canon or Kyocera (who contract our high volume copiers but also do very good printers) FTW.

 

[Pettsi]

IMO Epson are crap, noisy, clunky and expensive to run on offiical inks. In fact every Epson I've owned struggled with print head issues within a year, required frequent/expensive head cleaning and was just poor.

Lexmark, printer will cost you £5 but the ink will cost you £35. Wouldn't touch them...despite their claims I've never worked in an organisation that uses or would ever use Lexmark-maybe they have a contract with McD's?

Canon/HP are only printers I'd recommend with preference towards Canon. Cheap to run in comparison to Epson, less noisy and generally more reliable by a stretch.

I recently looked at the Canon ip5400 for photo printing, reviews looked superb.

To summarise, get a Canon.

The man speaks the truth. I run Canon @ home and HP @ work.

SO +1 for that man!

 

[cat171]

Cheers for the link oska, that's the type of list i'm looking for.

The canon on that is cheap as & it comes out very well. I shall see what shops have it in over the weekend.

How much are inks for it likely to be ??

If anyone can link me to a printer only that's cool too.

Thanks.

 

[cat171]

I've seen the canon ip4500 & tbh it was a bit on the big side, it's also really geared towards photo printing, something that i'm not that into. Ideally I want one to print off documents etc, is the ip4500 good at that too ?

 

[oska]

standard mode text was every bit as sharp and regular as on the iP2600. Draft mode did demonstrate less precise letters, but text wasn't deformed, and legibility wasn't impaired.

 

[Daz]

I have an Epson R285 (Was a replacement to my R220, and that was a replacement for a R200).

Very very good printer.. out of all the ones I use daily, it's about the best to be honest.
HP ones are also quite good - we generally only sell HP at work, and they seem fine also.

Inks aren't cheap though for the Epson.. although they are all separate, so that's good. (6 inks in total)

This thing also prints onto the printable CD/DVD, which is a great feature.