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Printers
The Cabl3 Guy
Elite Ranger
in Zocalo v2.0
Well along with everything else Im gonna be buying over the next few months I also need a printer. Alot of the mumbo jumbo I don't understand. PPM is pages per minute i take it...If I have a digital camera that takes 5.0 MP pics what DPI would have to be to print that kind of quality? Alot of printers I've had in the past have just fallen apart right in my hands so any suggestions on a good one is appreciated.
Comments
[SIZE=4]DO NOT BUY AN HP OR LEXMARK![/SIZE]
They are fucking with people buy charging heaps for ink cartridges, trying to prevent 3rd parties from selling ink cartridges that work in their printers, and now HP plans to introduce [url=http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/01/20/0226204&tid=173&tid=126&tid=218]region coding[/url] in its cartridges to prevent people in Europe from buying them from the US where they are significantly cheaper, mainly due to the euro vs dollar.
I've heard many good things about Canon printers recently, particularly their photo ones.
Incidentally, if you intend to print alot of black and white documents, seriously consider an entry level B/W laser printer. As fas as sheer value for money goes the laser cant be beat.
Also... if youre printer is likely to sit idle for long periods, always send a colour test print through once a week atleast, because if you let the print heads dry out... kiss goodbye your inktank.
If colour lasers would come down perhaps another 200 bucks I'd but one without hesitation. Bubble jets, as good as they are now, really are POS. If you have the bucks, go laser. If not, Canon or HP, and as big/fast as you can afford. I'd also make sure you buy a model with separate ink tanks so you can replace the differing colours as they run out. The ones with single multicolour tanks are crap, cos you inevitably run out of black first, magenta second, cyan next, and finally yellow.
Bubblejets fade fast and they are distinctly water solouble. They are NOT archivable for any serious length of time, even in very good archival conditions. A really stop gap, cheap (?) and cheerful, sort of hardware in my opinion.
Also a few other things I found out while researching whether it was possible to clear the jammed head (it isn't worth the cost): Turns out that cleaning cycle epson runs at the start when you turn your printer on sends ink to a catchbasin sponge in the bottom of the printer. When a digital counter says that enough cleanings have been run and the sponge is "full" (rarely is) it requires you to service your printer at a dealer (the low end models it is nearly impossible to user-access the sponge! High end models (ie $500+) have a little door in front to get at it.).
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HPs, yeah, their ink is a killer though before they merged with Compaq they had nice stuff. Now I don't trust their products either.
Cannons I hear nice stuff about and will likely be getting one of theirs as my next printer.
[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by The Cabl3 Guy [/i]
[B]Well along with everything else Im gonna be buying over the next few months I also need a printer. Alot of the mumbo jumbo I don't understand. PPM is pages per minute i take it...If I have a digital camera that takes 5.0 MP pics what DPI would have to be to print that kind of quality? Alot of printers I've had in the past have just fallen apart right in my hands so any suggestions on a good one is appreciated. [/B][/QUOTE]
My friend does professional photography for a living and uses the higher end Epson printers (the inkjets, NOT the DyeSub Photo Printers) and his customers love them.
I personally have a lower end Epson c64, ad it does great photos, but he loves the R300 Series (the one he uses retails for about $350 i believe)
If price is an issue, check out [url]www.ableshoppers.com[/url] its a site with lists of who's offering good rebates. That site is how i got my current scanner for $5 and my current laser printer for $15.
Rebates are good
[URL=http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=70823&item=6737228410&rd=1]HP[/URL]
I might just go up a notch theres a 2175 for $50. No fax feature but I don't think that will be a problem.
[URL=http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=70823&item=6737247920&rd=1]2175[/URL]
That is a smokin DEAL. Damn 15 mins gotta make up the mind now or never.
But then again it is not my money
Gonna be around $90 thats perfect.
@Biggles sorry I ignored your advice but the price was right. :D
Next item on the list
[IMG]http://wwwi.reuters.com/images/w148/amdf830952.jpg[/IMG]
Look at the thing! ITs a fucking lunchbox!
Difficult to believe it has a full size keyboard.
From an official CNet review of the R800:
[QUOTE]Which brings me to the bad news: as with most Epson printers--it's been true for every model I've used for the past 10 years--the Stylus Photo R800 has a serious quirk to which you must cater if you want consistently good prints. If you change from a high-quality setting to a lower one, essentially decreasing print resolution, you're going to get the ugly striations that often indicate a clogged nozzle. I usually circumvent this issue by printing everything at the highest resolution rather than running endless head-cleaning cycles, but less forgiving users might want to steer clear of Epson altogether. [/QUOTE]
Source: [url]http://reviews-zdnet.com.com/Epson_Stylus_Photo_R800/4505-3156_16-30608012-5.html?tag=top[/url]
Yet somehow even with that it got the Editors Choice at Cnet! Go figure! :rolleyes:
[B]Yeah it will be good for my purposes for at least the next year. Even then I don't see myself just getting rid of it either.
Next item on the list
[IMG]http://wwwi.reuters.com/images/w148/amdf830952.jpg[/IMG]
Look at the thing! ITs a fucking lunchbox! [/B][/QUOTE]
I need to get one of those,
Im' trying to get my boss to pick up 5 or 6 of them for our net cafe.
[B]Nice...Where is your net cafe? [/B][/QUOTE]
Bar Harbor Maine.
Right now we've got 5 Windows XP machines, 20something Linux machines, and we have enough people who want mac's, that 5 or 6 mini's would work very well.
[B]hmm just was thinking I wouldn't leave those around being so light & small somebody might steal it. Even though its Maine that is still a hot item. [/B][/QUOTE]
They do have locks slots. :D
[B]OH Yeah you saw John Malkovich in there right? [/B][/QUOTE]
yes, Malcovitch was there.
As for people stealing them, Even though they are small, i think i'd notice someone unpugging it and walking out with it,
anyway, it can be locked down as someone else pointed out.
Another thing I don't like: when the toner is low it will at one point just refuse to print, and the usual "shake the toner" trick doesn't work, you just have to change the toner (it does warn you in advance that the toner is getting low, but it still is annoying that if you didn't get the replacement in time you won't even get a print-out).
The HP printers on the other hand do work quite well.
But being in a University means I don't have to worry about buying the toner myself.
The office I work in also has a Tektronix color laser, which has always worked well for me, but I'm sure it's a very expensive one (in fact they moved it out of a public computer lab into the department office because so many students were using it for printing, even when color wasn't necessary, that they blew the toner budget for it).
I'd second the idea of having separate tanks for each color, I've have wasted too much ink of two colors when my HP inkjet (home printer) runs out of one.
HP does actually acknowledge a business model of inexpensive printers and expensive printer cartridges... that's the one thing I don't like about them.
At uni we have exclusively HP printers, but they're the expensive business lasers. They work nicely. At the moment we're trying to find room in our budget for a photo printer. Just 'cause.
Then you can use it to print out custom maps for board games and stuff :D
[B]Biggles, convince them to purchase a plotter for printing cad stuff or diagrams on.
Then you can use it to print out custom maps for board games and stuff :D [/B][/QUOTE] !
How much do plotters go for?