Guys,
I'm after a new printer.
I've never owned one of these things before and my computer never came with one.
Could you guys please give me some advice on what to look for in a printer.
It will mainly be printing text, but I want a printer that will give good colour rendition, in case I may want to print out the odd picture.
What's available and how do I avoid buying a piece of cheap junk?.
What do you guys use and what do you use it for?.

It's been years since buying a new Printer. Being "Biased" towards HP Printing equipment isn't any better!


When we setup my Wife's old(er) machine - it is a P55C MMX (circa 1997), we picked up an HP 720C Deskjet Printer, for her local print jobs.
I'll tell you, that is one Kick-Booty Printer!!! Kind of slow on the "deluxe" color print jobs, average speed for all the rest, but it is a real work Horse!
Also uses ink very efficiently, which results in long cartridge life.
Minimal paper jams and PCL errors.
Drawbacks are using the "Tri-Color" print cartridge, as opposed to stand alone CYM cartridges (Cyan, Yellow, Magenta).

Price was nice at the time, and looking back now, it was a steal for the long term dependability of the machine!

For simple color output with nice black text jobs, look for something that incorporates "REt II" type technology, or something similar.

I dealt with an HP 2000 (pro??) printer once, which has very nice overall output - but a high price tag ($400.00 in 1999!). Maybe price has come down... maybe not.
This machine has separate cartridges for the three colors, plus black - and also allows for print head replacement (print heads separate from cartridge).
Handles media from 5.5" to legal size 8½ × 14". There was a similar model that handled wide format - upto ANSI C (11"×17"), which is nice!.

If you are looking for a text work horse, consider the Laser Printers.
We have an HP 6P "Laserjet" Printer, which was purchased in 1996, and it has been working EXCELLENT since the first day!!!

Good luck!

Scott35

Trumpy,

I've been using the HP printers too and have been quite happy with them. The newer ones have nice features where you can insert the memory card from your digital camera and print out a contact sheet (or any individual pictures). You can also import the pictures into the computer that way which is great if you have a newer Kodak Camera and don't want to buy the newly required docking station.

Bill

Scott, Bill,
Thanks for that.
I've heard that the HP printers are pretty good.
I just wondered what you guys thought of different brands of printers.
The memory card system that you are talking about Bill, also works with some late model Sony TV's too!.

I have an HP DeskJet 720C on this system too.

As Scott said, the tri-color cartridge is a downside, as it seems wasteful to have to replace it just because one color is nearly empty when the other two may be only 50% used up. But then you can always go with the top-up method from ink bottles rather than tossing the whole cartridge every time.

For black-&-white use, such as the system I use for most of my day-to-day word processing & accounts, I still have an older HP DeskJet520. That's another good workhorse, with interchangeable font cartridges and the advantage that it doesn't need multi-megabyte drivers installed to run it -- A definite plus for running on an older DOS-based machine with limited disk/memory space.

I actually installed a second-hand HP520 in the taxi office in town when I computerized their operations last year. That printer gets quite heavy use printing out day sheets, weekly accounts etc. and is still running fine.

I have an old Laser Printer that I use for B&W. It's an IBM/Lexmark and a real workhorse.

As far as refilling individual colors in the HP ink cartridges, I've tried that with varying degrees of sucess and wouldn't recommend it. It seems like they may be refilled once, but I haven't been able to do it twice. You have to watch the pressure when you put the ink in or else they will leak. Sometimes they get clogged, and following instructions to unclog can make them leak, can be messy, messy, messy.

BTW, they have high capacity cartridges for some of the HP printers that are double the standard capacity and save a little $$$.

Bill

Bill,
On average, how long will a printer cartridge last?, with say using it only to print text(Black) and printing say 20-30 full sheets of this text a week?.

Trumpy,

I don't really know. With the HP inkjet/photo copiers there are different modes too such as Best quality and draft mode (which is probably good enough for most things and may use 1/2 the ink) I couldn't find any specs on page capacities per cartridge, but there are different sizes too depending om the printer model. My (high capacity) Black ink cartridge has been in the printer for many months already.

Mike,



I can start sending some of the umpteen ink refill emails I get each week to you if you want ....

Just say the word

Bill

Bill,
Thanks but no thanks!.
I'm having enough problems with screening and deleting up to 40-50 spam emails a day, let alone adding more to the pile!.

If most of your printing will be black and white, give serious consideration to two printers. A low end laser for less than $300 and a low to mid inkjet - $100 or more. The laser will give you lots of excellent quality printing and a low per page cost. The inkjet will handle your special needs and not set you back a fortune. At home, I have a Brother laser, an HP All-in-one scanner-printer-copier, and a HP1100 inkjet that I bought used. The 1100 is a little finiky but is a large format printer. I can do 11x17 prints with it. It only cost me $60 and is worth the aggrivation for those special jobs. If I were to pick just one, the All-in-one would win hands down. It is a real do everything machine. Even does full color copies (beats a drive to Kinkos and a buck a page).

Big Jim,
Yeah, pretty much all I want is a printer that will do really good B/W text.(who uses coloured text?)
But, also, I would also like to do the odd colour picture, like sort of every once in a while.
I've never really needed a printer as such, but I suppose it would save using the printer at work.

I saw a used HP laser, a home use one, for $10 at a garage sale the other day. It would be mine but I got really nasty vibes from the wife when I looked too close.

Big Jim,
I certainly hear you there mate!.
I went to a recent Ham swap-meet and I clapped my eyes on an elderly Tait 2m set and my partner said that if I bought it, I'd be locked out when I got home, but a long story short, I'm still using the same 2m set and I did sleep inside the house that night!.