Good cheap printer ?

[herbage11]

Well, my Epson 850 finally died after 3 years and now I need a new printer. dang it . What have you all had good luck with? I know HP has good printers for pretty cheap. Is the ink for them also reasonable? I have liked my Epson but considering going to an HP this time. I like look of there black ones. Let me know what models you have liked and where you found them please cheapest. I think Sams Club masy be calling my name. I really want to keep it under $150. thanks all for the help.

 

[Mavrick007]

I would go with Lexmark all the way. You can get a good quality, fast Lexmark printer with excellent resolution for a decent deal. Cheaper in price to HP and I like them overall better than Epson. For between $110 and $150 you can get a Lexmark Z53 and I am sure that it would be a suitable upgrade. I have a Z57, which is an older model and it makes very sweet pics as well as nice text. Ink is comparable to any of the other manufacturers.

 

[JellyBaby]

HP 940C should fit the bill. Only caveat is you can't, for some stupid reason, put in high capacity black ink carts. Even cheaper is the new 920C which looks to be a re-christened 932C. Only trouble with HP now is their new 90-day warranty BS whereas other printer makers are at 1 full year.

 

[herbage11]

I see the Lexamark Z43 got some good reviews. Anyone have it? Also how exspensive are the ink cartridges for these Lexamarks vs the HP? thanks for your help you 2. appriciate it

 

[jkoXP]

go HP, they have very good quality printers, ive tried all brands, and always went back to HP.

the black ones are the photosmart series, which are awesome for printing photos, thats the one i have now. but they ara bout $200 for the starting low end models

 

[herbage11]

OUCH...I do like the sound of HP but I am saving for a new computer system and dont want to drop too much on a printer. Ill look at their lower end models. Thanks for the info.

 

[jcmkk]

Canon printers are spanking all of the other brands in the market right now. I wouldn't go lexmark because they have really bad windows XP drivers. I have two of them myself so I would know. You can get a Canon S300 at Best Buy for $130. They also have a better cost per page ratio.

 

[herbage11]

Thanks.... good to know....I will be running XP so I want something that will work well with it. I will have to look at Canon...thanks for the heads up on that.

 

[herbage11]

Looks like Canon may be the 1. Anyone else have windows XP and have a good inkjet for about $100? thanks

 

[vi edit]

If you don't use color that much, I'd go with a Samsung ML-4500 laser printer. I've purchased about 6 of these printers for some stores that I support and they have proven to be a very good buy for the $$. The print quality is great. They rip out 8 PPM, and you can get close to 6000 pages out of a toner with the toner save feature enabled.

Your cost for toner would be a fraction of what ink runs for bubble jets.

 

[herbage11]

True...have not looked at too many laserjets.....thanks

 

[vi edit]

Whoops, forgot to mention that I paid about $120 a piece for my ML-4500's. They run about $150 a piece and Samsung had a $30 MIR on them at the time.

 

[ed21x]

canon s500/s600/s630 are all really good printers that'll save you alot of money on ink.

 

[herbage11]

Canon S300 been good for others? About to order and want to make 1 last check w/ the smart people of anandtech forums....thanks

 

[Wuzup101]

I have a lexmark Z42 that I really like, however Jcmkk has a very good point...the new XP drivers blow goats! I would stay away from lexmark at the moment though I have been happy with mine. As far as cost per cartriage...they are a little cheeper than HP's however I refill my own so it's a bunch cheaper.

I would go with an HP. I've always had good luck with them...they shouldn't give you any problems.

 

[herbage11]

Thanks Wuzup. Lexmark is out. I know the HPs are good but I found a Canon S300 very cheap ($80 new) and that is more what I want to spend. Does HP have a model closer to $100 that is good? Thanks all

 

[jakobkraft]

I would go with Canon simply because the drivers for XP are the most stable I've seen. Went through printers like water when I got XP and almost settled on an HP photosmart but discovered a weird message whenever you turned it off after printing something, saying that printer is not detected. Got annoying after awhile - Canon seems to be the safe bet for XP, I think.

 

[herbage11]

thanks Jakob...I will be using Win98 for now but I will have XP soon so I need it to work w/ it. I did see that the Canon only has USB connection but that is not a big deal. Looks to pretty cheap to operate and reliable. Thanks again

 

[rickn]

I recently bought a new digital camera(nikon) to replace my old HP, and got an Epson 785EPX. Amazing printer. Since they had a promotion going, I'll get $100 back and the printer will have only cost me $78. It is a 6 color ink printer, uses one cartridge for the color, but since the color ink cartridges only cost around $13 bucks online, it really is no more expensive than the printers that use individual ink tanks. HP's and Lexmark printers are cheap, but don't be fooled, they stiff you on the ink cartridges since they have the print heads built-in..

http://www.imaging-resource.com/PRINT/E785E/E785A.HTM

good review on the epson.

 

[herbage11]

My Epson stylus 850 also treated me very well also. The ink was not too exspensive but I am wondering if I killed it by running generic? It lasted 3 years though so good enough. I need to look at the edact prices for the Canon ink carts. Thanks for the info....enjoy your Epson