A Buyer's Guide to Inkjet Printers 399
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."
"More software projects have gone awry for lack of calendar time than for all other causes combined." -- Fred Brooks, Jr., _The Mythical Man Month_
Gimmicks? (Score:5, Insightful)
The first of which is that you should buy an inkjet printer in the first place.
Ink (Score:3, Insightful)
Find a supplier of ink before you buy the printer.
(Ink that works and is cheap.)
ink... (Score:3, Insightful)
Buying a "cheap" laser printer is actually much more cost effective. You save a lot more in the long run if you don't mind printing only in B&W. 5000+ pages per toner at about $100 for the toner is a much better deal than $50 for the ink which will likely last you only around 100 pages give or take.
CoolTechZone (Score:5, Insightful)
This is the site that last week, had an op-ed up arguing that "loving" Microsoft is OK, and Linux is just the product of some nefarious cabal of hypesters and PR men. Yeah, uh, I don't see me caring about this review of inkjet printers either. One of the things that matters to me is whether I can print to it in Linux, which I kind of doubt they'll be able to handle.
Re:Gimmicks? (Score:3, Insightful)
Troll? (Score:5, Insightful)
People are conned into thinking that they are cheap because the initial outlay is low, and then they realise later that they will keep paying for it. Maybe for very low volume printing they are good (except that if you use them infrequently the ink in the heads dries up and you have to replace both the print-head and the ink), but for everything else they are a very expensive way of transferring data to paper.
Re:Gimmicks? (Score:5, Insightful)
Here is the easy answer (Score:5, Insightful)
how to select an inkjet printer without falling prey to many of the common marketing gimmicks.
Buy a color laser printer. Here is why:
Many prints for low cost (mine was ~US$400 and has 7k page black toner and 5k page color toner for each of C, Y, and M).
If all you want is a printer (i.e., not multi-function do everything device). Laser is the best way to go. I bought my Samsung CLP-550N from NewEgg (I am not affiliated with either Samsung or NewEgg) and have been exceptionally happy. There were cheaper versions, but here is why I got the one I did:
Seriously, just the built in duplexer and laser alone would be a deal at US$400. The builtin ethernet and extra CPU and RAM were basically a bonus. Not only that, but the quality is better than that of other inkjets I have seen.
THe only down side: you need to purchase special laser quality photopaper. Inkjet photo paper can melt when it hits the the 180 degrees C drum (or so I am told).
Just buy new printers (Score:4, Insightful)
One way to stick it the manufacturers would be to throw away the printer after it runs out of ink, and buy a new one. This would wreck their business model, since they typically sell the printers at a loss.
I bet if enough people started doing this, the manufacturers would relent on ink cartridge prices.
Do you need an inkjet or laser (Score:2, Insightful)
I want colour.
I want a printer at home.
At $1/page, it's still cheaper to buy an inkjet then a laser printer.
Short guide to buying an ink jet (Score:1, Insightful)
--------
It's really no harder than that.
Buy a laser instead. IME lasers are hassle free and the toner lasts forever.
Contrast this with ink jet printers that clog if you don't use them every day, and that need new ink all the time.
If you want trouble, buy an ink jet. If you want printouts, buy a laser.
Re:Do you need an inkjet or laser (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Troll? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Here is the easy answer (Score:3, Insightful)
* Samsung has a real Linux installer and Linux support for pretty much all of their printers (though, in my case I did not use it, see below).
Most people don't use Linux and don't care.
* The 550N came with a built in ethernet card
Most people use USB and don't care.
* It speaks PS level 3 (this is why I did not need their installer, as it speeks native PS).
Most people don't know what that is and don't care. They just click print and don't care how it gets from the screen to the paper. That's how it should be.
* It has a builtin duplexer
Most people don't care.
* the CPU is 266 MHz and it has 128 MB of RAM
Again. Who cares as long as it prints I don't care if it's driven by Chipmunks.
* It is exceptionally quiet
Good point. So is my Canon inkjet.
* Setting it up with CUPS took about 15 seconds. Much easier that when my father visited and needed to print something from Windows (Windows wanted the install CD for drivers, which he had not brought with him, so we had to hunt down drivers on the net).
You have to install the Windows drivers to use it from Windows? Well that sucks.
I'm glad you're happy with your printer. Nothing you listed makes it better than an inkjet for the vast majority of people, and it's much more expensive for the low volume printing that most people do.
Re:Just buy new printers (Score:1, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Most worthless buying guide ever? (Score:2, Insightful)
I am incredibly surprised that they didn't even remotely talk about things that people are actually confused about-- like whether or not you can replace the ink TANKS without replacing the ink cartidge. Or how long a ink cartidge lasts when NOT printing.
My problem was always that I would not print for 3-4 weeks, then go to print and find out that the head had dried out.
Finally went to laser and haven't been happier.
Re:Here is the easy answer (Score:2, Insightful)
I agree. Why on earth do you have to monkey around with some driver cd for a PostScript printer?
Oh, were you being factious? Do you think modem drivers are a good idea, too?
-Peter
Re:Troll? (Score:3, Insightful)
However, for color printing, color laser printers simply do not approach the quality of an inkjet on high-quality paper. Indeed, I can barely distinguish the output of a modern $100-200 ink jet from our $9500 Kodak dye-sub.
By comparison, color prints from our >$1000 HP color laser printer have dull, less saturated color.
Re:Gimmicks? (Score:2, Insightful)
As far as inkjet photo quality goes, I haven't liked the newer HP models. I usually ended up seeing lines if I looked closely. I don't know how one could agrue with the better Canon and Epson inkjets...
Re:Here is the easy answer (Score:1, Insightful)
Color? (Score:3, Insightful)
Even the infrequent printer like me likes to be able to print off a color picture once in awhile. And a color map is much easier to follow than a B+W one.
Re:Gimmicks? (Score:3, Insightful)
Sorry, no, We're talking about working professionals, who sell their prints for serious sums of money. These people can afford pretty much whatever they want, and a lot of them choose inkjets. You get more choices in materials and better color fidelity if you're willing to take the time and effort. Also, dyesub's make lousy B&W prints.
Re:The article says nothing anyway. (Score:2, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)