Recommend me a photo printer

[imported_Beavis]

Originally posted by: Macro2
RE:"whats the best place to get in for ip3000??"

BM or online?

newegg has it pretty cheap @$67

but it not in stock currently

bestBuy has it @ $99

Compusa haves one @99 and another one with a package @ $199

Circuitcity has it @ $99

Office Depot has it @ $107 online Price and $119 retail price

Staples has it @ $99.98

Office Max has it @ $99.98

Walmart has it @$99.98 but out of stock

Kmart has it @ $99.99

 

[Macro2]

Beavis, I believe there is a $20 rebate on all of those.

Also I see them reasonable on e-bay .

 

[Spike]

I would also look at the last gen of printers if you can find them for a good deal. I have a i960 I picked up for $120 a year and a half ago and love it. 6-inks and the pictures printed from it look awesome. At this point I have printed ~10 8.5x11 and about 40 4x6 and my first set of ink tanks are still all over half.

The pixima and the i960 use the same ink so thats cheap all around, especially at Costco. Of the new printers my brother recently picked up a IP3000 for $45 AR (65 before rebate from newegg.com) and he really enjoys it. He has only printed 2 4x6 pictures that almost compar with the ones off of my i960. they look good on their own but when held side-by-side you can see the better quality of the 960. Overall he is very please, especially for the price

-spike

 

[Icepick]

poll added

 

[Gooberlx2]

I have the ip4000, I dig it. I also dig the fact that it can print on both sides of the paper. A couple of the 4x6 printouts i've done with canon photo paper pro have been stellar...too bad that paper's so expensive. Sam's has the Kodak papers, but it's crap with Canons. And for some reason they don't carry the 4x6 size of the ilford photo papers anymore.

The 1 picoliter size probably will make a difference on photo printouts for ya though. It was my budget that decided I get the ip4000 when I did.

 

[Macro2]

RE:"poll added"?

Why?

All depends on your price range and how picky you are with photos. Even the ip3000 does extremely well with photos.

Also, try a anandtech search,,,and you will find the same thing.

 

[Fike]

If you want archival images, you need to get a pigment based ink printer. Dye based prints will fade noticably in a short period of time (months or a year). Pigment inks will last for as long as 50 to 100 years. I have been spending time going through old family photos and it has been fun to see pictures of my parents as children. With a cheap dye based inkjet, the image will be gone in a few years. That would be a shame. My favorite right now are the epson R800 or R1800 photo printers. They are archival photo quality printers.

Look here for some very interesting discussion of archival inkjet photo printing:
http://www.inkjetart.com

 

[batmanuel]

I'd go for an IP6000, since it has 6-color printing vs. only 4 colors for the lower end Canons. It depends upon what you are printing, though. Pictures that have a lot of sky or caucasian skin tones will benefit over from the light cyan and light magenta cartridges. It is hard to get an accurate light blue or pinkish color tone using regular cyan or magenta cartridges - even if you space the droplets really far apart these particular colors will always seem a bit too intense on a four color printer compared to a six color printer that can reproduce those colors more naturally. Pictures with a lot of bold primary colors won't benefit all that much from a six color printer, though.

 

[Zepper]

Goober...,
. You have to go to the Kodak web site to find out the settings to use for the Kodak paper with Canon printers. Use the i560 settings for the iP3000 and the i860 settings for the iP4000 - the iP5000 didn't have a previous equivalent. I haven't checked lately so they may have added the Pixmas to their listings.
. And your poll is meaningless because the iP3000 has no peer when it comes to value. But you will get slightly better photo output with the iP4000 because the black more closely matches the other colors in characteristics. As I said before, if I had the extra $$$s, I'd get the 4k!

.bh.

 

[Icepick]

Thanks for all the replies guys! Based on your input in this thread and from other threads in this forum I've decided to pass over the cheaper ip3000 and get the ip4000. I'm going to be printing more photos than text.

The reviews I've looked at over the web leave me with the impression that the ip4000 prints better photos than both the ip3000 and ip5000. PCmag.com suggests that the photo quality of the ip4000 is BETTER than the more expensive ip5000 while the ip5000 produces better text and graphics.

Here's a site that reviews the ip3000, ip4000, and ip5000. PCmag.com gave the ip4000 the Editor's Choice award.
http://www.pcmag.com/products/?sid=2664...facturerid%3A836&sortby=%2darticledate

This site compares the ip3000 and ip4000. behardware.com suggested the ip3000 over the ip4000.
http://www.behardware.com/articles/523/page1.html

Another site reviewing all three. cnet.com gave a glowing review to the ip4000.
http://reviews.cnet.com/4502-3155_7-0.h...=&500030id=&500428id=&500172id=5193563

Here's a site reviewing the ip4000 and ip5000, which ranked the ip4000 above the ip5000.
http://www20.tomshardware.com/consumer/20041025/index.html

 

[Zepper]

Not that it makes any diff, but Consumers Reports just gave the iP4000 its Best Buy rating but I don't think they tested the 3k or 5k.

.bh.

:moon:

 

[murban135]

I have an ip4000 and it is great. Makes excellent quality and fast color prints, also has good text quality. Highly recommended.