A Buyer's Guide to Inkjet Printers

An anonymous reader writes "CoolTechZone.com has posted a good writeup on how to select an inkjet printer without falling prey to many of the common marketing gimmicks."

This is an easy one...

[grasshoppa]

You shouldn't. Not unless you want to print your photos out, but even then it's probably cheaper to sign up with some place online.

Inkjet printers are a scam, played on a public that doesn't know any better.

Here's the rule I follow

[Anonymous Coward]

Buy a used or re-conditioned HP Laserjet 4* or 5.

Work it like a rented mule and pass it on to your grandkids.

Re:This is an easy one...

[domipheus]

Hardly, I got my hands on one of these really cheap HP inkjets, it was around £29 about 2 years ago - it is great for printing that pdf that I can't be bothered reading on the monitor. Simetimes you just like a hard copy and this cheap thing gives me it.

New cartridges I hear you say? £4 for one of these refill kits that go on for years, sure the quality is not as good as the genuine ones, but I am reading this once and throwing it in the recycle bin. I am still on kit no 1 and going strong. And if you do it right, it is _not_ messy :)

Re:This is an easy one...

[frodo from middle ea]

And if indeed you do want to buy a inkjet printer for photo printing.

Plase do buy one with atleast seperate cartridges.minimum 4 CYM-Bk or if possible 7 CYM-RGB-Bk. Although they cost more, in the long run it will save you a lot on ink.

And DON'T buy Lexmark. ever

Re:ink...

[SimilarityEngine]

Tell me about it. I work for a printer manufacturing company, and we make virtually nothing on the printers themselves. There is an enormous profit margin on the ink, on the other hand - without it we'd be nowhere. Hence, my company goes to a fair amount of trouble to make sure that third-party stuff won't work properly with our printers (i.e if it works at all you get faded colours).

Re:Just buy new printers

[intermediate_represe]

I bet if enough people started doing this, the manufacturers would relent on ink cartridge prices.

They already know about this. The printers available these days have very little ink in them. It's called a demo ink cartridge.

For Linux avoid Canon and Lexmark.

[Anonymous Coward]

The best for linux are usually Epson or HP, which is ok because those are usually the best for Windows, too.

HP has GPL'd deamons to work with their printers and Epson generally supports Linux, too thru releasing PPD files and documentation and such.

Lexmark, Canon, and Brothers are usually worse then trash.

See
http://www.linuxprinting.org/suggested.html [linuxprinting.org]

Also check out specific models before you purchase them.. there are a odd few epson or HP printers that may not work or have full features for Linux.

Not always true, depends on useage pattern.

[brunes69]

The question is, are you someone who prints off a page from Google Maps once/twice a month, and an occasional photo, or are you someone who prints off huge online novels to read later?

Sure, cost-per-page is much lower for a laser - *over the long haul*. Personally, I print less than 100 pages per year. I am lucky if I even go through one color ink cartridge before the ink inside just dries out from non-use.

I don't print enough that I would *ever* be able to recover the much higher initial investment of a laser printer. By the time my cost per page savings would recover the $350 more it would cost me (in say, 10 years), the printer would liekly not even work with the computer anymore.

My all-in-one HP inkjet / scanner / copiter cost only $69 CDN, and has HP supported Linux drivers. I have been using it now for 8 months, and the cartridges are both still 75% full. I am extremely satisfied with my purchase and doubt I would have had any better luck with another printer (although I wish I had splurged and gotten the one with the built in memory card reader, that would be handy).

Manuals

[cuzality]

Fixyourownprinter.com [fixyourownprinter.com] has downloadable technician manuals for just about every printer out there. If you ever have any trouble with your inkjet (ya think?), their manuals will be indispensable.

Found it on del.icio.us/popular [del.icio.us] a while back.

Article Text

[Anonymous Coward]

In case you had as much trouble as I did:

When readying to buy a printer, you must first decide not only upon the kind of usage you will be putting it through but also on the type of usage.

Type of usage could be text, images or a combination of both. Now once you have identified your type of usage, as mentioned, the other factor is the volume.

Printers are differentiated on two broad technologies: Laser Printers and Inkjet Printers. As a thumb rule, Laser printers are generally much more expensive than Inkjet printers but have duty cycles of around 3-4000 pages per cartridge. Obviously, there are printers that have heavier duty cycles but they are accordingly priced.

Inkjet printers, on the other hand, are extremely cost effective to purchase. You can get one for as low as $50 but the catch is the cartridges. Compared to the cost of a printer, the cartridges are extremely expensive. In fact, if you replace three cartridges, you will probably be paying more than what you paid for the printer.

Now if you are on a tight budget but really want to buy a printer and don't expect your volume to be more than a couple of hundred pages per month (of text, less if you are into imaging) then we suggest you look at Inkjet Printers seriously.

Buying Guide: Inkjet Printers

Before you rush out to buy a printer, sit again and think about your kind of usage. If you want a lot of text but not much imaging or graphs, then any entry level printer will suffice, but if you want to print photographs from your digital camera or from the Internet, print company presentations then you should look at a higher-end printer.

Now for text printing you really don't need to worry about the other features, but there are some features which will come in handy if you care to look for them.

What to look for and Why?

The Interface: The first and foremost thing you should look at is how it will connect to your PC. It is preferable to have a USB interface and you should certainly insist upon a USB 2.0 based printer. The difference will be visible when you print large files, as they would take significantly longer to be transferred to your printer over a Parallel or USB 1.1 port as compared to USB 2.0.

Types of Cartridges: A good way to find out if a printer is really a photo printer or a normal color printer is to check for the number of cartridges it comes with. Regular color printers normally come with a black and a color cartridge whereas photo printers come with at least four cartridges (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black and is thus called CMYK) and a maximum of six cartridges. The additional two cartridges are for Light Cyan and Light Magenta. Together these 4/6 cartridges try to give you all the varied colors and shades in your document.

The quality of picture is dependent on the size of the ink droplet that is measured in Pico litres; the smaller the droplet size, the more accurate the colour reproduction. Printers today come with droplets the size of one Pico litre. If you are into printing images and need to get highly accurate results, check for this property.

Paper Input Tray: The paper tray is important as it would get irritating if you have to keep topping it up after every 50 printouts. Go for a printer with a higher tray capacity, say somewhere around 150 to 200 pages at least.

Additional Tray: Some of the printers will let you add an extra tray and some already come with two trays. These are better than those with single trays for two reasons. One is obvious in terms of increased paper capacity but the 2nd reason is just as important. If you do printing on different kinds of paper (say you take rough drafts on cost-effective quality paper and the final drafts on high quality paper) then you can keep these two separately in the two trays and simply change the input tray in the settings. This will lead to increased efficiency and will cut the need to manually put in the superior paper every time.

Paper Output Tray: The concept is similar to the

Re:Here is the easy answer

[discontinuity]

Buy a color laser printer.

But this isn't ideal for everyone (although I grant you it's probably an adequate solution for many people). My GF is a graphics designer who specializes in print media. We compared many printers about a year or so ago and the inkjets blew away color lasers w.r.t. color accuracy. My mother won't notice if the laser printer makes the sky in her picture a few Pantone shades off from ideal, but stuff like that does matter to someone proofing a brochure before sending it off to the print shop.

Basically, I find anyone who is serious about their color tends to prefer inkjets despite the obvious fact that they have turned into a marketing scam.

Re:Here is the easy answer

[Anonymous Coward]

there is no 550n@newegg, only a 510n and a 550.

Re:Gimmicks?

[Nuclear Elephant]

Today's dye sub printers can do a full 8x10. The old residential dye sub stuff used to be crap, but dye sub has been used in professional print shops for at least a decade and the residential stuff has now caught up with the "real technology". My wife's a professional photographer and swears by them now. We've got an Olympus dye sub, HP color laserjet, and one of the higher end HP inkjet printers (before we found the dye sub). The Oly by far blows away all of the others in terms of photo quality. If you're just printing occasional photos, the laserjet does just fine... but if you want professional looking photographs I haven't found anything as good as a dye sub.

Laser, Ink jet, different uses

[Anonymous Coward]

I happen to own a Samsung CLP-500 (color laser), an HP 4MVP (wide format monochrome laser), and a Canon BJC-8200.

The Canon is probably the cheapest of the bunch to operate. Why? Because I don't pay $10 for each of the six cartridges to replace them. I pay about $1.25. So can you. Finding people that sell cheap ink-jet cartridges on the net is *easy*. Heck, I used to get 10 spam messages a day selling the stuff.

The CLP-500 cartridges are about $120 each (rated 5,000 pages) vs. $1.25 for the inkjet cartridges (which I get about 100 pages out of, but this is with higher than average coverage as I'm doing photos). 1% of the price for 2% the number of output pages. Not bad. Of course, this doesn't include the drum replacement cost on the Samsung (not that I've had to do this yet, heck, I've not even gone through my 1/4-fill sample toner cartridges yet). To my knowledge, none of the 3rd-party vendors have toner cartridges for the Samsung yet.

The HP unit (mono only) is comparable in operational costs, largely because I bought the unit used. Toner cartridges are in the $100+ range, IIRC (expensive because of the 11x17 format, I've yet to find cheap, refilled toners).

Ultimately, TOC isn't the choice for these printer purposes. I can't print photos (of decent quality) or t-shirt transfers on the lasers. I can't print waterproof labels on the ink jet. And I'm not willing to wait for listing printouts, or ebook print-outs on the ink jet.

And one thing cool about the canon printer. I've let it sit around for a month or two at a time without being used, and the print heads have never clogged (even using the cheap ink that I buy). With HP and Epson, letting the printer sit around was the kiss of death.

BTW, I noticed that Samsung recently released a CLP-510 color laser (duplex) that was selling at the local Fry's for $199. Toner cartridges are $79. But they're good for only 2,000 copies. The CLP-500 cartridges at $120 (5,000 copies) are still a better deal. Fear not, laser printers are the new razors and toner cartridges are the new razor blades. You didn't think that the ink jet economic model wouldn't find it's way to color lasers, did you?

Re:Gimmicks?

[Kaa]

Especially considering most people use a color inkjet for photos, which Dye Sub is far superior to.

Ahem. 99% of people who are serious about photography and want to (digitally) print at home use inkjets. The do not use dye-sub printers. Think there's a reason for this?

And no, they are not clueless. There are huge discussions on 'net forums about the minute technical advantages of this printer vs that, the comparative advantages of ink sets, etc. etc. There is no real discussion of whether dye-subs are a viable alternative to, say, Epson Stylus Pro R1800 -- because they aren't.

The article says nothing anyway.

[lcsjk]

So far, I have read all the comments and it seems that no one has read the article. All it has is basic information and defines terms such as pictbridge. The article really is useless for purchasing a printer. It has no information about the "false" claims by printer manufacturers, or other technical information that one would need in purchasing a printer. For instance, what is the "real" difference in the inks used for various printers? What does water resistant really mean? Which printers use inks that "actually" have long life when exposed to light? And there are many other questions that could be of interest in buying a printer. Most of the respondants to this article (so far) have made claims about color laser, and price of prints per page, price of ink, etc., but seem to have very little knowledge of what is really good or bad about printers, just the same as the article.

I just bought a photoprinter from HP that claims to print 4x6 prints at a rate "as fast as" about 20 pages per minute. However, a photo (4x6 inches) will print at a rate of one print in about 1 to 3 minutes, based on whether I choose Best or maximum DPI for printing. (How can maximum DPI be better than best?) Even after research, I had to buy based on brand name and advertised specifications, because it is difficult to find evaluations of printers on the internet that actually give useful comparisons.

Before buying the printer I decided against Epson based on the fact that if the printer is not used for a few days (maybe a week or two) the print head can dry and cause extensive cleaning before it works properly.

Also, Epson cartridges have a microchip that may cause the printer to stop operation when it decides the cartridge is empty, even if it is not. (A completely stopped up print head does not allow ink to flow, even during a cleaning cycle.) Printers with the print head attached to the cartridge should be more expensive, but are only slightly so, so even if you should damage the head, they are replaced.

Some companies sell Epson cartridge chip "reset" devices. I have not tried one yet.

If your Epson printer will not clean, you have to discard it or have it repaired at a price that probably is at least half the cost of a new printer. I have found that by filling an old cartridge with water, using a hypodermic syringe (break off the sharp point first) and then running a few cleaning cycles over the period of a few days, the printer can be recovered. Takes time, but seems to always work.

Re:Gimmicks?

[jawtheshark]

Colour Laser printers don't have to be expensive. I've seen them as low as 500€ (USB versions). Toner lasts much longer. Personally I have a Ricoh Aficio CL2000. Works perfectly, fully postscript compliant, is silent (when in powersave) and I got the network option (which cost a tad bit much on top of the base price). Base price was 650€ or so. Toners are still reported as "full" and I have had it half a year.

Inkjets can be had for much less, but their built is lousy and often you're better off replacing it with a new printer after the ink runs out. (Not really, because the ink that comes with it is only 1/3 full. Buy printer, one refill and then replace the printer is ideal)

Print quality between my colour laser and my wifes coulor inkjet is mindblowing (in favour of my laser, of course)

Of course, both my wife and me have to print a lot because we're both in education... but that is entirely another story.

Re:And the point of the article ...

[ZosX]

Uh...how exactly is this flamebait? It is at best informative, but I was going for funny a bit there. Ye mods! It is indeed a fact that the point of having any sort of article is, ad revenue. Sorry. That's how the real world works. Notice how I didn't say that it was a bad thing or anything inflamatory. Is it flamebait because I called him son? Well, look at his freaking UID. Its not exactly my fault I have nearly half the UID he has. :)

Isn't there anything better you guys could have done with the mod points?

Even for photos, inkjets suck.

[sirwired]

One advantage of inkjets that has been pointed out by many on this story is their photo quality compared to color lasers.

This is like saying a port-o-john is better than a pit toilet because it has deodorant in it. Technically true, but it still smells strongly like crap.

If you are a typical consumer that just wants to shove out prints from a digicam, just take your CF, CD-R, SD, whatever to your local drugstore, Wal-Mart, Target, random one-hour photo place, pay them 19 cents a piece, and they will do a much better job than ANY consumer-level inkjet printer.

The photos from a minilab will be more consistent, free of dithering, mostly waterproof, light resistant, and also guaranteed.

The photos from an inkjet mostly fade in sunlight (a few exceptions), are not waterproof, suffer from nasty dithering, and if you screw up, you just flushed your money down the toilet.

If you REALLY want to print out prints at home, then use a home dye-sub. Sony, Kodak, and Olympus make fine dye-sub printers. The prints only cost a little more than inkjet, and they are waterproof, UV resistant, and far higher quality (no dithering).

For non-photo printing, Lasers are superior in every way. Sharper text, cheaper supplies, faster, more reliable, etc.

SirWired

Re:Gimmicks?

[poot_rootbeer]

I can't afford to blow that much on a color laser.

Color lasers can now be had for under $300. [officemax.com] That's the cost of a decent color inkjet plus two or three sets of ink refills. Are you sure you can't afford that?

Laser doesn't do it for some tasks

[arexu]

For all you slashbots who think the only use for color is photos, you need to stop and ponder the possibility of other uses for printed material before you crap all over my inkjet printer. YOU might not use an inkjet for anything beyond that, but there are plenty of us who do. If you do paper (cardstock) modeling the inkjet is far superior, because that expensive laser toner CRACKS and flakes off if you score or bend it too much (two things you tend to do when modeling anything more than a flat panel). Inkjet printers can even print on plastic card and other structural materials (not to be considered with the heated drum of the laser...) I only wish I could get a good continuous ink system for my HP 842C printer.

Re:Gimmicks?

[dgatwood]

If you've ever printed photos on a $300 color laser, though, you'll understand why people buy inkjets. Some color lasers can compare in color quality, but the cheap ones don't come close to the quality of an equivalently-priced photo printer.

That said, if you are trying to print text and spot color graphics, the reverse is true. The best inkjets are no match for a laser in terms of print cost, and the difference in quality for high-saturation graphics is negligible.

Re:Gimmicks?

[slaker]

I really stunned by the Samsung 550N. I bought one for $430 that does above-average cover prints, has 100Mbit LAN and DUPLEX PRINTING right out of the box. The box advertises the quietness of the print engine - most inkjet printers are louder.

Not trying to be a shill for Samsung, but for anyone who has the room for a laser printer I'd say it's the way to go.

Re:Gimmicks?

[nelsonal]

I agree, but don't think it is worth trying to compete with professional equipment down at the photo lab. If it cost $0.15 or more per print at home and $0.11 at Costco, I'll keep my black laser printer and let someone else own the good hardware. Personally, if I wanted nice color, I'd get one of those wax based plotters.