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."
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A Buyer's Guide to Inkjet Printers
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The Tao is like a glob pattern: used but never used up. It is like the extern void: filled with infinite possibilities.
Gimmicks? (Score:5, Insightful)
The first of which is that you should buy an inkjet printer in the first place.
Re:Gimmicks? (Score:3, Insightful)
Manuals (Score:2, Informative)
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.
Re:Gimmicks? (Score:4, Informative)
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?
Re:Gimmicks? (Score:3, Informative)
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? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Gimmicks? (Score:3, Informative)
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.
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.
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.
Re:Do you need an inkjet or laser (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Do you need an inkjet or laser (Score:2)
Re:Do you need an inkjet or laser (Score:4, Funny)
I8TheWorm: "Why?"
Re:Do you need an inkjet or laser (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Troll? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Troll? (Score:2)
Re:Troll? (Score:2)
Re:Troll? (Score:2)
Re:Troll? (Score:3, Interesting)
Not always true, depends on useage pattern. (Score:5, Informative)
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).
Re:Not always true, depends on useage pattern. (Score:2)
My Samsung ML-1710 cost me something like $150 and I've bought one $80 cartridge for it in the past 2+ years. I never have to worry about ink drying out or chips claiming to have expired.
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:Troll? (Score:2)
Re:Troll? (Score:2)
Another additional benefit is those combo fax/scanner deals. If you scan in and fax out a lot it doesn't cost you any ink, and you got it at a discount from the laser version.
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 compari
Re:Gimmicks? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Gimmicks? (Score:3, Informative)
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 via
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:Gimmicks? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Gimmicks? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Gimmicks? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Gimmicks? (Score:2)
It would make sense if you had read what the parent post had stated. What he said was that Laser Printers last for months of HEAVY PRINTING. I'd like to see any non-continuous flow ink-jet printer do the same.
As for all the posts in here about lasers being crap for photos -- we have a Samsung CLP-550N in here. We have taken several very close photos of some r
Re: (Score:2)
Kid of rude. (Score:2)
I mean really. It could be that the idea of spending $150 on a printer just to print pictures just doesn't work for some people. I mean how many printers does one need? Should a home user have laser for black and white, a dye sublimation for photos, and maybe a large format inkjet for really big prints?
Give me a break. A color laser or a cheap ink jet is "good e
And the point of the article ... (Score:5, Funny)
And so the point of actually reading this guide was ... ?
Re:And the point of the article ... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:And the point of the article ... (Score:3, Informative)
Isn't there anything better you guys could have done with the mod point
This is an easy one... (Score:5, Informative)
Inkjet printers are a scam, played on a public that doesn't know any better.
Re:This is an easy one... (Score:5, Interesting)
They're doing it with laser printers, [dell.com] too. $25 for a USB cable and $65 for toner.
The people responsible for this greed will pay one day.
Re:This is an easy one... (Score:2, Funny)
And this, children, is the
Re:This is an easy one... (Score:2)
They're doing it with laser printers, too. $25 for a USB cable and $65 for toner.
The people responsible for this greed will pay one day.
It isn't greed but simple economics. Manufacturers have cut prices to the point where printers are low margin products. This happens because consumers buy the printer based on it's price, not its total cost of ownership or cost per printed page.
Since manufacturers can't seem to sell expensive pr
$25 USB cables (Score:2)
Recently, I needed a USB cable. I was aghast to discover pricing of $25 to $40 for a simple cable!!!! UG. Best Buy, Circuit City, even Sears had these prices. I know from my cable-making days (Good 'old RS-232 hand-soldered connections!) this was wrong.
Turned out http://hp.com/ [hp.com] had the cheapest ones, at about $3 each. http://pricegrabber.com/ [pricegrabber.com] did that for me. Don't get fooled.
Best as I can figure, the chain stores know you need a cable and can gouge you because usually you need it right now, and lots o
Re:This is an easy one... (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't. If it hasn't been pointed out a million times already, the majority of the consumers out there simply don't know any better. For example, I recently recommended to someone the $300 Dell Dimension 2400 [dell.com] only to find that the sales rep talked them into upgrading to a "better model" so that they could get a 19" LCD "bundled" (note that Dell won't offer things like a DVD-R or large LCD monitor with their low-end stuff - that's how they getcha).
I tried to explain that they could have just ordered the PC and monitor separately but this was obviously well over their head. They didn't care. In the end, they ended up paying over $1000 so they could do basic internet, email and photo printing.
Lovely.
Re:This is an easy one... (Score:3, Interesting)
You have to pick and choose your products, these days. The $279 2400N is a great price for a desktop (subtract $20 for no monitor), once you remove all the garbage.
So yes, I recommend Dell desktops but not printers. As a side note, I always keep a stash of Canon iP3000 [newegg.com] printers in stock. These printers are cheap, quality and Canon makes the cartridges very easy to refill. When someone runs out of ink, I offer to refill their cartridges for $20 or e
Re:This is an easy one... (Score:2, Informative)
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. A
Re:This is an easy one... (Score:3, Informative)
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:This is an easy one... (Score:2)
I don't have a lot of injet experience from Lexmark (brother-in-law has one that didn't work well but don't know of any other friends/family with inkjets from Lexmark), but the Lexmark laser printers seem to need pretty regular repair visits in my building. The HP laser printers seem to run pretty well and for home, I'm fairly happy with my Epson Stylus for the occasional prints. The Epson Stylus C86 [epson.com] I have uses the four cartridges (CMYK) and for the few prints, the convenien
Re:This is an easy one... (Score:2)
All the calls we are sent to for lexmarks have needed pars (from pickup rollers to print heads -- especially the front display. Those things go bad if you LOOK at them wrong.). The *one* call I received for a HP was user error. They had the second tray set for legal paper but had letter in it. They simply had no idea that they needed to adjust anything despite
Not always (Score:2)
Inkjet printers are a scam, played on a public that doesn't know any better.
See, that's not always true. First, like you say, inkjets are much better for photos unless you drop $1000, and many people aren't willing to wait days for prints from an online place. Second, not all companies go for the expensive, tiny, DRM'd cartridges like Lexmark does. Third, many low-end lasers are complete pieces of crap. Fourth, many people want the convenience of a printer but won't ever print enough to make back the in
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 $50 for the ink which will likely last you only around 100 pages give or take.
Re:ink... (Score:2)
Even colour lasers are relatively cheap on eBay - as long as you factor the cost over a year or two
Re:ink... (Score:5, Informative)
Next article.... (Score:2)
Re:Next article.... (Score:5, Funny)
CoolTechZone (Score:5, Insightful)
This is the site that last week, had an op-ed up arguing that "loving" Microsoft is OK, and Linux is just the product of some nefarious cabal of hypesters and PR men. Yeah, uh, I don't see me caring about this review of inkjet printers either. One of the things that matters to me is whether I can print to it in Linux, which I kind of doubt they'll be able to handle.
Re:CoolTechZone (Score:2)
CoolTechZone didn't impress me in the slightest with its earlier misconception-heavy informed-opinion-light gibberish. In fact, it annoyed me so much I ended up responding point-for point [slashdot.org] to the article. Summary: most of it was uninformed ranty BS, with about one piece of valid criticism in the whole thing.
This "printers" piece was even written by the same underinformed fanboy as the last "Linux 5uXx anD M$ i5 t3h r0xxoRZ!!!" crap.
I haven't RTFA yet, but my advice would be to take with a metric t
Here's the rule I follow (Score:2, Informative)
Work it like a rented mule and pass it on to your grandkids.
slashdotted (Score:5, Funny)
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).
Re:Here is the easy answer (Score:2)
However, most people aren't that good at math. They assume that $50 is always << $400, and cannot justify spending the extra $350 for a printer that 1) works 2) doesn't need a chronic watering of expensive ink 3) the toner does not dry up. I can't justify spending any money for printing something at home, I'll print at work if necessary the 1 to 2 times a year I need something on paper.
If I would do digital photography, I would send/take the pictures to a professional on a CD. I already have the in
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
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:Here is the easy answer (Score:2)
Re:Here is the easy answer (Score:5, Informative)
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 (Score:2)
Also, I've noticed that there are a lot of color lasers that look [newegg.com] identical [dell.com] to this one. Chances are it's an OEM equivalent of some tiwanese model....
Re:Here is the easy answer (Score:2)
I agree for 95% of my print jobs a color laser is best. But I also own an Epson Stylus 3000, and it rocks for some types of color printing - it takes a 22"x17" sheet of paper and prints in stunning resolution. There are a lot of aftermarket suppiles for it too. The ink carts are huge too - the size of a deck of cards. I got it for a good price too at one of the overstock web outlets.
Re:Here is the easy answer (Score:2)
Now, yeah, this was about 4 years ago and I didn't really have a lot of time to experiment. Are colour lasers good at printing photos now?
To this day, I still
(I have a high-quality inkjet for photos, and a Laserjet 4si for B&W text. I love that thing, 200lbs of p
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.
Re:Just buy new printers (Score:5, Informative)
They already know about this. The printers available these days have very little ink in them. It's called a demo ink cartridge.
Re:Just buy new printers (Score:2)
I've never bought one of the newer disposable inkjets, but I've heard that they only come with a drop of ink to begin with. If people start doing this, they will either put less ink in the printer, or none at all.
Continuous inking ability (Score:5, Interesting)
Linky linky:
http://www.nomorecarts.com/ [nomorecarts.com]
http://www.brandonstaggs.com/epson-r200-continous
http://www.atlascopy.com/cfs/ [atlascopy.com]
Continuous inking RULES!!! (Score:3, Interesting)
I have been using an Epson 1520 for about 5 years now. Very good at printing photos, and being a 4-color unit (not 7 or 15 color), it is cheap to get ink, and continuous ink supplies are available REALLY cheaply.
With people complaining about inkjets, you have to realize that this is the cheapest possible printing technique. Unfortunately, most manufacturers don't pay attention to what people want in a printer, and make their products to sell units -- not to last, or work great, etc.
This
What I've learned about IJP's (Score:5, Interesting)
- IJPs is an anagram for "jips"!
- If you're like me and only want to print out "The Onion", in color, once a week: by the time the next week rolls around, the inkjet heads have clogged. You waste a sheet or two of expensive paper in finding this out again for the galumpty-umph time.
- If you use the "control panel" to clean the heads you have to put up with 5 minutes of Grandpa-getting-out-of-a-Miata-type groaning coming from the printer. And it wastes a whole boatload of ink in the process.
- If you instead take the printhead to the sink and give it a Sitz bath, you get your fingertips all colored in the process, as you forgot how indelible the ink is.
- Some of the HP IJPs require a 59MB download to install one 37k driver. And 39MB of slow, clunky, and unreliable "Print management" admin software doodads. Which do not want to uninstall themselves.
- The HP installer hasnt heard of virtual LPT ports-- it bombs out if you don't have a real, live, 378h hardware LPT port, even if you wanted to use a USB virtual port.
- Don't buy even slightly past their expiration data ink cartridges-- I thought I was a real winner buying a bunch of HP ones for $1 each cause they were a bit expired. The red ink had magically turned into dark brown, like overnight. Not good if you're printing skin, er, I mean job-related bar-graphs.
- Don't buy one of those refilling kits, just don't.
Instead scarf up some lightly used color laser printer at some local auction. You won't regret it. Oh wait, you will if it needs a new photoconductor belt, $350.Do Not ask me how I learned these things.
Re:What I've learned about IJP's (Score:5, Funny)
Just buy it at CompUSA (Score:2, Interesting)
Well, after about a year and a half, it starts messing up.
So I have it run down to the store and they give me a brand new one for free and sold me Yet Another Extended Warranty for $50.00.
So for an inital deposit of $350.00 and $50.00 installments every year or so, you get a free laser printer replacement.
Not bad if you ask me.
Choosing an inkjet printer (Score:3, Interesting)
If it's rated for industrial use, but it either doesn't have Linux drivers, or the Linux drivers aren't under an OSI-approved licence, don't buy it -- even if you don't want to use it with Linux today.
If the Linux drivers for your industrially-rated printer were written by a third party, it might be worth buying -- after all, it's a good sign that somebody actually thought it was worth bothering to support.
Bear in mind that you have already managed up to now without an inkjet printer. Investigate all alternatives fully before you buy one. Can you e-mail your files, or host them on some web space somewhere? If you want to show off some photos, try burning them onto a CD-R -- most DVD players will read CD-Rs of
Lasers are the way to go except for photo printing (Score:4, Interesting)
With budget Laser printers on the market these days, even if you have to pay twice the cost of an inkjet printer, for 99% of your printing needs the Laser is the far far better deal. You can get the Samsung 1710ML, for example, at less than $100 on some sales.
I do sometimes need color, and a color laser would be nice, although the colors from such a printer are not good enough for some applications such as photo printing. Photo printing is the one last domain of the ink jet, and probably always will be. But I do that so rarely that taking my photos to walmart to print is the best deal for me.
Re:Lasers are the way to go except for photo print (Score:2)
Re:Lasers are the way to go except for photo print (Score:2)
Say no to inkjets except for multifunction devices (Score:4, Interesting)
This is to say, if you replace your ink cartridges on 1x/month basis - an inkjet is more expensive than a laserjet. I have several clients who change both the black and color cartridges on a monthly, or bi-monthly basis: $25/chartidges (bulk) x 2 x 6x/yr = $300/year for cartridges. This is the cost of a color laserjet.
Based on the duty cycle of the $100 high capacity cartridges in my Konica Minolta 2430DL, an inkjet cartridge with a capacity of 300-800 pages will cost between $830 and $300. (If we assume that black is 800 pages, and colour 300 pages, you are paying between twice and three times as much for ink)
Further, you get to escape the duties of changing the cartridges and making a mess on a (bi)monthly basis.
If you need a color copier, and a fax - then a multifunction inkjet makes sense. Otherwise, anyone who prints often should get a laserjet.
OH, almost forgot: Yes, Epson inkjets are wonderful for printing photos. However, if you are really serious about printing pictures - a color correction system (~$200) is required and can match your screen to any printer. And some (my)laserjet printers do have pictbridge so you can print directly from the camera. (Without proofing, why?)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Don't knock inkjet. (Score:2)
Also not all of us want to spend 400 EUR on a printer so that when the toners run ou
HP (Score:2)
One thing I learned with the old printer: never, ever will I use parallel printing with Windows again. That was horrible...USB or the net all th
My guide to buing inkjet printers (Score:3, Funny)
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.
Next article by cooltechzone (Score:3, Funny)
"Two-sided printing", etc. (Score:2)
The "two-sided printing" means that after you print one side of a paper stack, you can turn the stack over (manually) and print the other halves. The windows driver helps with this by printing only even/odd pages. Of course that doesn't work in reality, because the printer jams about every 20 page, or feeds two pages instea
ask /. (Score:2)
I'm going off to college very soon, and need some sort of printer with a very small footprint. I don't care if it's laser or inkjet, although I'm pretty sure I'll have access to a laser for high-volume stuff.
The low-end HP models are perfect for this task, but as I've found out by owning one, you get gouged on the ink. Cartridges are low-capacity, cost a mint, and have no generic equivalent. Reple
Don't buy a new inkjet (Score:2)
I have an HP DeskJet 832C (which was made in 1999) that still works beautifully. It prints pages at about 2-3 times the rate of the brand new colour inkjet one of my friends bought recently. I've not had to change the ink in at least two years, if not longer.
If you go this route, your only problem will being finding someone who's willing to part with one.
Old INKJET, dammit (Score:2)
Damn typo. Should be "old inkjet", not "old injket".
But Does It Look Good? (Score:2, Interesting)
Sorry. but unless you're willing to invest in something like a Fiery system or lease an imagesetter, your "cheap" lasers wo
The article says nothing anyway. (Score:3, Informative)
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.
Even for photos, inkjets suck. (Score:3, Informative)
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:Even for photos, inkjets suck. (Score:4, Interesting)
I am a professional photographer and I have been using the Epson 2200 and Espon 4000 for my work, and there is NO WAY a dye-sublimation printer could do the work these pigment-based inkjet printers do. I use a bulk-feed system for my 2200 with the Lyson Cavepaint pigment inks and I have compared my 13x19 prints with dye-sublimation. There is no comparison, the inkjet is far and away better in color gamut, subtle tones and in the huge variety of archival and canvas 'papers' that are available.
Laser doesn't do it for some tasks (Score:3, Informative)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:From my experience (Score:2)
Re:buy laser (Score:2)
And then there's #3 - large format prints. As expensive as they are, 24"-60" wide printers
Printing service (Score:2)