A home photo printer for $200 or under

[legocitytruck]

Are there any decent quality home printers that can print photos or high quality color photos on normal or glossy paper for $200 or under? For this task and price range is inkjet or color laser a better choice?

 

[bobdole369]

Color laser is not for photographs.

It all depends on your application. Are you selling or displaying the photos? Are they professional images? Advertising?

If its just to print out your kids party invites or to give Aunt Peggy and Uncle Bill some shots to have, its still cheaper and easier to use Walgreens or CVS LOL. cheap inkjets are just that - cheap. And the ink costs more than your house.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Yeah the ink is going to kill you. If you're not looking for glossy pictures I'd go with a color laser. It will run you over 1k but if you print a lot it will pay itself. If you don't do this a lot it's cheaper to just get walmart or other photo processing place to do it.

 

[bobdole369]

Have you ever seen what a color laser puts out for photographs? You'll go running back to inkjets. Again it all depends on the app.

 

[legocitytruck]

Sorry for my lack of clarity, bodole you weren't far off, the main purpose is for pleasure, just to print out the occasional photo and keep for myself and distribute among those close.

 

[dawza]

We have a Canon Pixma IP4500 at home just for the occasional glossy photo, and it has worked quite well for the past 1.5 years. Individual ink tanks are a plus, as is having a separate black ink for text vs. photos. Print quality is, IMO, excellent- certainly more than sufficient for family and friends. I have not been keeping tabs on ink usage, but it has not been so high as to be alarming or unusual (I only use OEM ink cartridges- any money saved by using 3rd party cartridges would not be worth the headache of hearing the wife complain about inconsistent colors, artifacts, etc). I haven't experienced any issues with ink drying out after extended periods (2-3 months) of not printing.

I believe the IP4500 was replaced by the IP4600 a while ago, and the IP4700 is the current model. I assume the basic qualities have carried over with each revision, although some research to confirm this would be prudent.

The drivers are lean and stable- I have used the printer with both 32-bit XP and 64-bit Vista without issue.

I know the general consensus on the forums is to use a local pharmacy or department store, but nothing beats the convenience of being able to print at home, especially if you need to tweak some settings from your primary workstation.

 

[shiner]

Check Amazon for the Canon MP990. Normally a $300 printer but this week it is $169.00

 

[Lemon law]

If you check forums catering to photoprinters, Canon is the overwhelming choice and the epsons are the number two choice.

But phoprinting is still an expensive game unless you refill.

Even $100.00 will buy you a Canon printer with decent sized individual cartridges. $200 dollars will buy that plus flat bed copy and scanning. Avoid Canons with small cartridges or multicolor cartridges. Then defeating the chips so you can refill is the other problem. But refilling Canon and Epson cartridge is very very easy. And very hard on HP's and Lexmarks.

For more information google steves digicams forums or the nifty stuff forums, both of which cover all aspects of photoprinting.

I am lucky enough to own one of the last non chipped Canon's using the BCI-3&6 series of cartridges, but the chips on their next generation Canons using the CLI-5&8 series of cartridges are now cracked, and there are a few of those left on the new market. After that the newest series chipped cartridges can still be refilled, but it takes a convoluted user over ride of the low ink warning to keep them printing. Otherwise the chip stops the printer from printing after it calculates the cartridge is empty.

 

[legocitytruck]

The Canon MP990 seems to be a great choice, does it have any real competitors in it's price range?

 

[GrumpyMan]

I bought the Canon MX860 for $160.00. It does truly phenomenal photo printing for the occasional photo. Ink usage is normal for ink jets. Plus it copies, faxes and scans just fine.