The Low-Down About Printers

[ceagle]

In a recent entry, I spoke about a lemon Samsung camera with surprise, since every other Samsung product I've met has been good or great.
Other companies might be opposite, such as Sanyo, where everything except one, (an answering machine), has been a lemon.
Others yet are much more mixed, depending on the brand level (high-end or low-end product lines), such as Sony.
In other words, it can be sketchy to stereotype a brand entirely.

With printers though, after all these years... it's kind of like Sanyo... so far it seems pretty universal...

MAKE	INK	PAPER	COMPATIBILITY	OTHER
Hewlett Packards	Goes BAD quickly without weekly use	Early machines had roller defects Paper Jams	Fair
Epsons	Goes BAD quickly without weekly use	Fair	Fair
Canons	Good	Good	Unfortunately not very backward compatible
Brothers	Fair, short life but never a bad print	Frequently grabs and wastes too many sheets Cannot use special papers	Fair	Driver Software bug does not allow multiple copies Must print one copy at a time

For Kodak and Lexmark I have little or no data. Kodak says their ink is a better value, and Lexmark is known as a low-end printer, but I haven't heard of any major complaints in the biz.

For years I've gone through them.... several HPs, several Epsons... all okay or even good machines in concept, but quickly a drag since the ink/heads would go bad rather quickly if it wasn't used every week.

A couple of years ago I looked into it and decided to try a Brother machine. It would run on the older macs and the newer windows machines. Also, the ink never seemed to go bad! Never a streak or bad print, from ink anyway.
Oddly, the manual did say the ink has a 6 month life, and somehow it did always ask to be changed before its time was up.
One annoying software workaround was that the dialog box would say you could print multiple copies, but it wasn't so. For every copy of something, one would have to hit Print again. Luckily I did not have a lot of multiple print needs, usually.
The eventual deal-breaker though was the poor paper feeding system. It would occasionally jam, and frequently draw in too many sheets, causing a print to be spread over several sheets, rendering it useless and a waste. It also can't work with special papers, so I can't do business cards like before, or greeting cards, etc, despite the manual saying it could do it if you loaded one sheet at a time.

So a few months ago I had gotten fed up and bought a Canon... but I never installed it because I had cooled off by the time I got home, and... heh.. I know how long it can take to install these things.. like 30 minutes to 2 hours or so... and really the latter.

So tonight after having to do a big copy job, I'd had enough... and I installed the Canon... (yep, 2 hours).

But... so far so good!
Multiple copies again.. YAY!
Good ink AND Good paper .. YAY!
Alas I won't be able to print from mac classic anymore... but I haven't actually done that in a long time... and realistically anything there can more than likely be moved to a newer machine for printing :}

I hope you enjoyed the Printer Report.. and I hope it helps you with your printer purchases in da future! ^v^ ...Eagle

Comments

[aldi.livejournal.com]

I hate printers. I'm stuck with an old Epson. I print my school notes at school on their B&W laser printers, or I get them printed by my best friend's wife. The only thing I'll print is a resume on short notice, and it takes several "head clean-ups" (i.e. ink-wasting processes) to print properly without streaks.

[c-eagle.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah! The one before my Brother was an Epson, and an HP before that. I've had a few Epsons and HPs before those.

Epson (and HP) do have some good concept machines. One friend has a large format Epson, and it's good for what it does.... as long as you use it as much as it wants. ;P

[orv.livejournal.com]

I agree that Canon makes the best inkjets. They've been doing it for a long, long time. Their printers don't speak the same language as anything else, though, which as you note can cause compatibility issues.

If you don't need color you might want to consider a laser printer. Laser toner doesn't go bad from sitting.

[warphammer.livejournal.com]

I agree - my combo was a Canon photo inkjet (with the nicely clog resistant dye inks) and a Brother laser printer I found next to the dumpster for general printing. (as part of a whole set, with a "FREE WORKING COMPUTER" label slapped onto it) Worked great. And really, cheap lasers are pretty trivial to find these days.

[orv.livejournal.com]

Yeah, mine have all been surplus from colleges or PC recyclers.

[c-eagle.livejournal.com]

hehehe! You got some nice used machines too ah? wooooot!
Thanks for chiming in on this, birdy!

[c-eagle.livejournal.com]

hehe... interesting points!
Yep... I've got a few *old* lasers also, and they are pretty amazing. All 2nd hand like yours. One is an old Apple Laser that I bought from a company where I used to work... so I know for a fact it was in constant use for over three years there... and it was still going strong! And even when they start to go, you can shake the powder cartridge and get many more weeks out of em :>

I just don't use em much cuzza the interfaces are generally outmoded and very slow. Also, I like a machine with a copy function on it, since I keep copies of my invoices for tax purposes.

So far this Canon makes copies faster than the Brother... the trade off seems to be that the printing side is a smidge slower than the Brother... not toooooo bad though..

[grrouth.livejournal.com]

I finally got fed up with inkjets entirely. Having had Cannons, Lexmarks, and HPs over the years. My biggest gripe about inkjets is that I don't print that often and it seemed that whenever I wanted to print a color pic the cartridges were dry or needed to be replaced and those aren't cheap. About a year ago I finally pitched my HP all in one inkjet and forked over some cash ... on sale about $100 and bought a Samsung CLP315 color laser printer. Love it. It can sit for months and print perfectly when I need it. A year later I still haven't bought toner for the thing and it runs great.

[c-eagle.livejournal.com]

wow... neet! At least there's another good vote for Samsungs!
Just watch out for their digital cameras... ;>

I have an ole B&W laser that is super good and never had new cartridge after all these years too :D !
I just don't use it much cuzza slow, and interface is old, and I need a copier around for bizness too..

[shurun-marten.livejournal.com]

Nice information on printers C Eagle. :)

I've owned a few (Ok 2) Lexmarks over the years and the ink on them also goes bad quickly without weekly use. The Epson i have now is a better printer in comparison.

[c-eagle.livejournal.com]

oooo....! Thank you for the Lexmark info!! Sounds like they can be lumped in with the tempermental ink crowd...

Now we just need some folks to tell us about their Kodaks :D

[cabcat.livejournal.com]

The HPs are good for high volume commercial machines :) They seem to run really well at work.

Cannon Bubblejets aren't so cool for very low use, lasers are better for that.

[c-eagle.livejournal.com]

High Volume is definitely the operative...
As long as they get lots of regular use, the Epsons and HPs seem to put out jes fine... :}