Printers are kind of like cars.  It's real hard to admit you've got a lemon.  I started out with a Canon 4100.  It did great black printing for letters, but color printing was terrible and black and white graphics were even worse.  After 5 years, I decided to get a new printer.  New technologies and improved resolution and the usual excuses.  The 4100 still works fine and is used on my wife's computer (I've got a bag full of cartridges for it).

I was very impressed with Lexmarks printing and bought a 3200.  Took it back because it was way too slow on every type of printing and it was going through ink like the stuff was free.  The ink usage is a common complaint of all the Lexmark owners I know.  The quality of color printing was excellent.

Next came a Canon 5100.  Very, very fast.  Color was ok but black and white graphics were terrible with one or two cartridges installed.  Very serious banding problems and customer service treated it like it's a normal thing.  Back it went.

I ended up with a Canon 6000.  I have no complaints about it.  It does superb color on glossy paper, it's almost as fast as the 5100 and it does excellent black printing.  With the dual cartridges (using a color cart and a photo cart), it make amazing color photo prints.  I particularly like the fact that individual color tanks can be replaced and they are transparent so you can see how you're doing on ink supply.

I have too many friends with HP printers to consider buying one.  They have had far too many paper path problems.  It is a Rube Goldberg contraption if ever there was one.  Why they choose to make feeding paper into such a mechanical monstrosity is beyond me.  Too many mechanical breakdowns.  A friend has a 1100 (reads photo memory cards and prints two sided copy).  We did a print comparison of his 1100 and my Canon 6000.  His was slightly sharper and mine was truer colors to the original.  The 1100 is $499 and my Canon was $89.

I've always avoided Epson because the printhead is part of the printer and seems to be a very expensive machine to maintain due to this.  I only know one person with an Epson and he swears it's the greatest printer in the world as he tells me about his latest $100+ repair.  All the others I've mentioned have the print head as part of the cartridge so it's replaced with the cartridge.  All seem to do quite well with good quality ink refills as long as you replace them periodically.

Going for maximum bang for the buck, I would recommend Canon and Lexmark.

My tuppence worth,

Art Cassel



> Mark Rode wrote:
> >
> > I have just given away my old HP 820 Cse Inkjet printer and I want to buy a
> > new Inkjet printer.
> > I really was not happy with my HP and would rather buy an Epson or a
> > Lenmark in the 150 dollar range unless there is a compelling reason not
> > too.
>  The one feature that would be nice is a
> > network connection but I suspect only top of the line business printers
> > will have this feature. Are there other features I need that I haven't
> > thought of.
>

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