Need Printer Suggestions

[Fingolfin269]

I have a friend who is in the market for a printer and wants it to be used primarily as a device to print off photos taken with her digital camera. She would like the ink cartridges to be separate (color/black). The camera is a Canon Powershot A60 so I guess that is a good place to start as far as just how much quality can be taken from the original image.

Let me know if you have any advice. She's willing to spend a lot of money but I don't think it's necessary to spend the kind of $$ she is suggesting. If you all have specific brand/functionality preferences then I'd definately like to hear about those as well.

Thanks.

 

[Lemon law]

Lots of good inkjet photoprinters out there--------but if economy in printing is also desired you are then pretty well left with only the Canon Printers. ----unless you want to look at Epsons and they have durability and printhead clogging problems.

If your friend is looking for a photoprinter that will also do a good job of text printing, your sweet spots are the Canon pixma ip3000, ip4000, and the ip5000 which are the npw discontinued but still readily avaliable with the non-chipped cartridges.-----meaning you can do printing with much cheaper non-oem cartridges or refilling methods. The newest Canon printer line up uses chipped cartridges that eliminate the ability to use all but OEM cartridges until some work around is found.

Since this Sundays paper listed an MP780 for $200.00 at Staples, your friend might want to consider that also---the MP780 is simple the ip4000 printer engine in a multifuntional that prints, scans, copies, and faxes.

But Canon printers mainly offer pic bridge support so one could print directly from the Camera to the printer.

The Canon line up also has some very pricey photoprinters meant for only photoprinting----including the wide carriage 9900 as I recall.

In terms of photoprinting----its can get expensive fast----figure about eighty cents consumed in
OEM ink per 8x10 print-------Various posters on nifty stuff forums brag that they can reduce that to less than a dime using third party cartridges and less than a nickle with refilling.----and get very high quality.

Just my take on the matter---others may offer different advice.------------but I do own an ip4000
and also a MP730 which has a printer engine similar to the ip3000.

 

[Zepper]

One of last year's canons iP3000, iP4000, iP5000, or if Photo printing is really about all it's going to do, the iP6000D. and SwiftInk.com has some of the best ink for it I've found for Canon ($4. per tank) on sale at 35% off for the next two days (thru Dec. 6) so stock up - coupon code is ANAND35.
. I say last year's models because Canon changed the tanks in the new line and those will cost you ~$11. each until the cloners figure them out, if ever. The old models are getting hard to find, FS/T here, online classifieds and try eBay. Staples has some models on clearance so check your nearby stores.

.bh.

 

[Lemon law]

Forgot to add, I have seen posts on other forums that Fry electronics has the ip3000 on sale
for $50.------these are either totally new models or refurbished--hell, the ink cartridges alone are
worth that.------also look for refurbished i960's as well--argueable one of the best photoprinters ever made.

 

[Greenman]

I own an epson photo printer. Total garbage, I have had nothing but trouble with it. About 80% of the prints are flawed and get tossed.

 

[Fingolfin269]

Thanks guys. I appreciate all of the advice and will pass it along today. I guess it boils down to:

1) Canon Rocks
2) Epson doesn't
3) Last year's Canon > This year's Canon so try to find last year's if at all possible.

If anyone else has anything to throw in I'd greatly appreciate it. Thanks again!

 

[Lemon law]

To Fingolfin269,

I have two web sites dedicated to photoprinting you might want to check out.

Steves Digicams

Nifty stuff forums

Will give user experiences with various photoprinters------and don't forget the paper used is a big variable also.

You might also want to check out the April/05 issue of consumer reports.