recommend me a cheap, high-quality color printer that doesn't have to be fast

[dpopiz]

Hey I'm just looking for a color printer for under $100. It needs to have pretty good color accuracy/consistancy/vibrancy ON PLAIN PAPER since I'll be using it mostly for printing photos on plain paper. also must have VERY LOW COST PER PAGE (INK COST)

but I don't care too much about speed. even the slow inkjet printers these days are pretty fast, fast enough for me. I mean I can just tell it to print and then take care of some other business for a minute or two so I don't care about speed.

do know you of any good models for me to check out?

 

[Gunbuster]

Microcenter has a canon inkjet for ~6 after rebate.

Photos on plain paper will look like junk

 

[Waylay00]

I love my HP PSC 1350 All-in-one

 

[Waylay00]

Nevermind, it sells for about $130 USD

 

[kini62]

Canon Pixma 3000, they're about $99 or less. The best you're going to find for the price as far as quality and ink costs.

 

[Jotho]

Originally posted by: dpopiz
low-cost ink would be a big plus too.

Check PC Magazine's website. They have quite a few printer reviews. I know in their review of the Epson Stylus C86, they said that its cost-per-page was quite low compared to many other inkjets at that pricepoint.

 

[Thor86]

I agree, plain paper is junk for colour photo printing. Search google for Epson C3x colour inkjet printers. Pretty inexpensive and decent. And one more thing, there is no such thing as CHEAP ink replacement.

 

[dpopiz]

so just pixma 3000, epson c3x, and epson c86?

 

[DreamerSpawn]

If you don't mind parallel printers, you REALLY should consider HP Deskjet 712c. You can usually pick them up on E-Bay for $20 or less + shipping.

Here is a 712 for $10 + $20 shipping, totalling $30, on E-Bay. I know it's older, but EXTREMELY easy to REFILL the cartridges!

That's my opinion. Also, I've noticed that newer printers don't print CD Labels that well (without becoming faded). I don't know what it is....but it sux. This printer ROCKS. I had mine for 4 years, then I burned it up by printing so much and bought another off of E-Bay and yet again, I'm happy. I do a LOT of printing!...if that tells you anything (from greeting cards, CD Labels, Cardstock printouts, Business Cards, reports and much, much more.

PLUS...the newer printers have cartridges that have chips inside that detect when they get low, and deactivate the heads so that even when you refill them, it won't work. Of course, there are chip resetter items...but that's a LOT of hastle for POS printers.

Originally posted by: dpopiz
Hey I'm just looking for a color printer for under $100. It needs to have pretty good color accuracy/consistancy/vibrancy ON PLAIN PAPER since I'll be using it mostly for printing photos on plain paper. low-cost ink would be a big plus too.

but I don't care too much about speed. even the slow inkjet printers these days are pretty fast, fast enough for me. I mean I can just tell it to print and then take care of some other business for a minute or two so I don't care about speed.

do know you of any good models for me to check out?

 

[Macro2]

Canon. E O Story.

 

[randomlinh]

define plain paper. and why? you'll need at least 24lb paper.. as anything less (aka copy paper) will be much too thin for normal printing. it'll take draft printing, but what's the point? then again, i don't see why you're printing on plain paper either...

 

[Zepper]

Yup, the Canon iP3000 is less than $50. shipped after rebate (newegg) right now - the best value period. Plus I buy compatible ink tanks for $12. per set of four shipped (USAInkjet store on eBay, it's a division of Tyler-Martin) which last me about 4 months but I don't do a huge amount of color.
. I print a lot of my color on Kodak or HP Presentation papers. They are matte coated papers that cost about 10 cents a sheet. But yield a whole lot better looking prints than any plain paper I've seen.
. Sometimes you can find the iP4000 for under $100 before rebate. That would be the one I would go for if I had the extra money. That would be around $80. after rebate. There is a $20. rebate direct from Canon on the 3k, 4k, 4kR, 5k, and 6kD models. Updated replacements for these models will be introduced in late summer.
.bh.

 

[Macro2]

RE:"USAInkjet store on eBay, it's a division of Tyler-Martin) which last me about 4 months but I don't do a huge amount of color. "

You got a link to that? Tyler martin told me they don't sell the USA brand over E-bay.

 

[Macro2]

Apparently Tyler Martin has at least 3 ebay stores and their home rep doesn't know?

 

[Blain]

I love my Epson Stylus Photo R200... :laugh:
But now I'm hooked on printing CDs & DVDs.

 

[pelikan]

Canon i850 with Tyler Martin "USA brand" ink.

 

[Zepper]

Here's the link to the USAInkjet store. This store sells only the USA 5-star line.
. They sell other brand stuff (rainbow, etc) here: http://stores.ebay.com/tylermartin1/ I don't know any other T-M related stores. But I do know they generally sell for less on eBay than thru their own sites and you can't mix and match a custom order as you can on their own site..
. For my next order, I'll be trying http://www.swiftink.com (run by an ATF denizen) as the set of USA I'm using now in my iP3000 isn't as intense (except for the black) as the original equipment ink - . Whereas the USA I bought for my i450 was easily as intense as the OE ink. But the BCI-24 series tanks hold a much smaller volume of ink than the 3 and 6 series tanks that the i560, i860, iP3k, etc. use. So I think they are "stretching" the ink they use in the larger volume tanks. You can compensate by cranking up the saturation in the driver - but then you'll be needing new ink sooner. I guess that's the plan.?. And when I eMailed T-M about the discrepancy, I didn't get much satisfaction. I guess I'll gather my documentation and snail-mail it to them. See what they say with the evidence in front of their noses .

Swiftink isn't as inexpensive as USAInkjet - about $20. for a set of tanks. But I'm looking for OE equivalent ink at a good savings, not the cheapest I can find. Swiftink is still about half of what the OE ink costs, so I'd be happy with them if they at least come up to OE standards.

.bh.

 

[Wolfshanze]

The ink is where they really, REALLY stick it to you... don't buy those damn Lexmark and HP printers for $40 bucks at Walmart because the ink to replace them is literally more expensive then the printer itself (with ink).

If you're looking for cheap ink, your best bet is pretty much any modern Canon printer, since they have individual ink tanks per color instead of the combo ink tanks that other printers have (like if you use up all the yellow in a combo, you have to throw away whatever you had left of blue and red).

Ink for ink, the Canons are the cheapest at replacement ink costs... right now, I'd recomend the PIXMA 3000 from Canon if you don't want to spend too much dough. I currently have a PIXMA 4000, but it costs about $50 more then the 3000.

If you want cheap ink, try:
http://www.ink4art.com/

Realize "compatible" ink costs about 1/3 the cost of name-brand ink, but you don't always get the same quality.

 

[Ike0069]

Originally posted by: Wolfshanze
Ink for ink, the Canons are the cheapest at replacement ink costs... right now, I'd recomend the PIXMA 3000 from Canon if you don't want to spend too much dough.

 

[dpopiz]

some of the professional reviews I've read say that ip3000's output quality absolutely sucks. is there anything cheap out there that gives me good output quality and cheap inks? again, I don't care about speed

 

[dpopiz]

bump for above message ^

 

[TwoBills]

check out atlascopy.com for ink and refill supplies.

 

[DakotaEpic]

ANYthing Canon. My friend picked up a $50-$75 can't remember exactly how much Canon printer, and on cheap photo paper pictures still look great. Not exactly like our S9000, but still good.

 

[NightCrawler]

Canon IP3000 = $50

Ink Carts = $2.75 each ( third party )


That's pretty damn low for the kind of quality your getting from it which is good.

 

[nick1985]

Cannon IP3000