The daughter is going away to college.
The printer on her 'puter died. I want to get her a new one to go to school with.
I’m looking for a 4 tank inkjet.
So far the Epson C82 looks like a winner, but want to make sure I’m not overlooking something.
So anybody got a suggestion?
Been there and done that. Bag the inkjet. Get her one of the less expensive HP Laserjets. It’ll be much more useful for general college work and be far less expensive over both the short and long run re consumables.
I agree with Astro – go for a laser/LCD printer instead of the inkjet.
They cost WAY less to operate (like 1/2 to 1/3 the cost per page) and are much more reliable, in my experience.
You might look into a used one – they are pretty cheap, and generally still have lots of life in them. [I know a local store that eagerly buys & reconditions HP LJ II’s (circa 1985) and sells them to business/industrial users. They weigh a ton, but are built like tanks and just seem to work forever.]
P.S. Another advantage – with a black & white laser printer, your daughter probably won’t spend much time/money reprinting photos (possibly naughty ones) from the internet.
I cannot recommend Epson; there was a time when they were the best output on the market and this was reason enough to tolerate their buggy drivers, lengthy unannounced cleaning cycles and poor paper handling. Not any more.
I bought an HP all-in-one scanner/copier/printer (the PSC750, which has now been superseded) and I am absolutely delighted with it. I am usually wary of combination devices, but this one is simply excellent.
If I didn’t need colour printing, maybe I’d have gone for a laser printer.
Really? My experience is that that sort does nothing well.
I reccomend the cheaper black HP lasers. HP 1000 is nice but can’t network. HP 1100 is the next one up.
As I said, usually I would be very shy of combination devices, but this appears to be the exception; output quality and speed is very good; paper handling is flawless, scanning is fast and intuitive (the driver can be set to auto-crop and does the best job of it I have ever seen), setup is an absolute joy (I’ve raved about this before; to calibrate the print heads, the machine prints a calibration sheet and then asks you to put it face down on the scanner glass; there is no subjectivity in it at all).
Cool, Mangetout.
What other printers are in that price range?
I bought one of these Cheap to buy and cheap to refill. Refills are really cheap on ebay.
Before getting a printer check the cart prices. Some printers are real cheap cause the carts are expensive, thats how they make their money back.
Buy.com has a
Samsung ML-1430 Laser Printer
for $119.99 Shipped After Rebate
Not many; I paid £95 for it, which really is the point below which serious compromise starts to creep in. Lexmark have a similar offering, which I wouldn’t take if they paid me to (due to their anti-competitive cartridge-chipping/pricing policy), as do Epson, which I wouldn’t buy for reasons outlined above.
I could not recomend an Epson either for an inkjet.
I’m eyeing a Canon to replace our Epson inkjet.
I must second Mangetout as far as the HP all-in-one printer. Ours is a psc 2210, and it works great.
Are you guys with the 2210 writing a letter to Mom once a week or printing a weekly newsletter? My experience has been with business use.
I, too, have a HP 2210 and really like it. I don’t use it for business but I do use it to produce family newsletters (we’re planning a wedding) and to print photos. Plus it’s light.
I have an HP Officejet d135 all-in-one. I love it. My wife’s in school, and the ability to make color photocopies of all the materials she’s getting is essential to her. Print quality seems good, scan quality is also good. It doesn’t work properly with her Mac, though. I believe it’s being or has been superseded by the d145, which included a duplexer. (Which I ended up ordering seperately, and it’s on backorder. Drat) I love that it has an autofeeder. I love even better that when the cats stand on the autofeeder assembly, rather than breaking, it just comes off, and can be put back on with minimal effort.
I can’t say I’m using it for “business use” but then the OP’s daughter isn’t necessarily going to be either.
Err, just looked at HP’s site, and the Officejet d135 isn’t even listed. but there are printers that look just like it – the Officejet 7110 is a dead ringer.
Well, I’ve used all the capabilities so far; scan and copy quality is good, and I like how you can change the quality depending on priority. It prints well, and the fax option is easy to use and works great as well.
Mind, it’s not lightning-quick at any of these features, but it’s not snail-paced either. It’s a good machine.
I use the HP all-in-one for all my printing at home; this consists of (approx per week):
10 full colour printouts of whatever the kids have scrawled
25 C4 addressed envelopes (or A5 card labels for parcels) - my ebay sales
20 web related pages - mixed colour and text
25 plain B/W text
2 sheets glossy photos
2 sheets OHP transparencies
2 sheets self-adhesive labels
So not a terribly intensive duty at home, but it does all of the above very well indeed and has so far not had any problems handling any of the media.
I installed one of these printers in one of our satellite offices in London and they use it for all of their routine printing - the business is publishing, so their output includes press releases, book information sheets (with cover art thumbnails), letters, faxes etc - again, it performs very well in this environment. If it only lasts 18 months before breaking down (which I don’t think will actually happen), it will still have been good value
I would say that it is almost the ideal all-rounder for a student, but check it out for yourself…
My particular model does not meet the 4-tank requirement of the OP; it is a black cartridge and a combined 3 colour cartridge; this may not be the case for some of the higher models.
Sounds like you kame a good reference, Mangetout.