This morning I half heard a brief item on N.P.R. about Epson printers. It said something to the effect that inkjet printers were not as popular in Europe for home use as they are in the United States. I’m wondering then what is popular there – does everyone have a laser printer at home? Or are they using old dot-matrix printers? Or those old heat-transfer printers?
I don’t know where they got this info from.
Inkjet printers are just about universal for home based systems. Few have laser printers (expensive compared to very cheap inkjet), and practically no-one has a dot matrix or heat transfer (like, it’s not 1985 anymore).
Unless they meant to suggest that having a home printer at all is not as common as in the US. I can believe that, but doubt the ownership percentages are significantly different.
Hm. Maybe I misunderstood what they were saying.
I still copy things down into a handy notepad.
Seriously, I’ve no idea where they got that from, or alternatively what they might’ve been saying that you misunderstood. Unless they were simply making a comparison of sales/population ratios, in which case I would be prepared to believe that ownership of inkjets (along with laser printers and computers in general) is lower in Europe.
I absolutely detest inkjets. I have no need to print in color, and inkjets are slow and crappy on text. They are also more expensive, less reliable, and generally of crappier quality.
I have a $200 laser printer that I use for everything, and I love it.
I fully agree, Absolute. After so long of my mother phoning me every three weeks asking me to fetch another ink cartridge on my way home from work, I finally explained that my laser had cost me the same as three of her cartridges, and was still on its original toner after over a year. She understood, and I no longer have to delve into the miserable bowels of PC World.
I have a 3 year old HP Photosmart printer that I use for Photo’s
For everything else, my refurbished Konica Minolta magicolor 2300 DL Color Laser Printer with built in NIC does the job. It is extremely energy efficient when sleeping. < 1watt. Prints 16 pages per minute, but does take 30+ second to warm up from the low power state.
It prints great color and B&W. Magazine quality with glossy Laser paper. It was $400 with shipping. I am still on original toners and have printed probably $140 dollars worth of color ink already. I had spent a month making comparison before I purchased.
http://techbargains.pricegrabber.com/search_techspecs_full.php/masterid=618065