Printers - advice (1 Viewer)

I'm not sure if this is the best forum for this, but here goes anyway....

My printer has just gone to the great computer shop in the sky and I need to replace it. I mainly print photos with it and one day I would like to try out digiscoping. I have been recommended the Epson C82 as a good printer for photos, but it is so long since I brought a printer that I have lost touch with what is good and whats not. Does anybody have any experience with this printer - is it any good? Also does anybody have any advice on printers that handle photos well? I guess I am looking to spend ~£100-£150.

Thanks,

Iain

I've recently got a hp deskjet 5550 for about £60 from dabs.com (although that was on a 1/2 price special) looks to be c£112 now. Very happy with the quality of the prints at A4 from a 4 Mp image using the HP pnhoto cartridge and paper. Expensive on ink though.

Ivan

I may be wrong but I believe the C82 is a very low end printer designed for low workloads.

You may be better off with one of the Epson Stylus Photo series of printers.

Note that the printers are cheap but the consumables (ink and paper) are not.

rka

I just read an article on the Espson stylus 900 and it got rave reviews. As good and or better than commercial developing.

Just go for the largest DPI you can afford Iain. We have a Lexmark Z65 with 2880DPI and an Epson C42UX with 1440DPI and you can really see the difference. We got the Epson as we can get cheap cartridges for it (2x black and 2x colour for £20 - the Lexmark is about £21 for black and £23 for colour). We use the Epson for draft printing, my course work etc but the Lexmark for stunning quality photo's.

We have just purchased the Epson C82 at work (I use the Epson 880 at home). It was promoted as being a heavy-use printer, ideal for businesses.

After setting it up, I tried it with a photo and it came out very well - just as the 880 at home does.

The only gripe would be that it takes some time to warm up when first switching on, as mine at home does, but once done it prints well, in black and white or colour.

Another advantage is that it has separate colour cartridges, so you're not changing a whole cartridge if one colour runs out. The replacements can be bought very reasonably from computer fairs - I checked before getting the printer.

I can only say I seem to have had quite a bit of trouble with Epson printers, for some reason mine periodically decided to throw a wobbly and printed green tints where it should be a reddish colur. An older Epson sometimes did this also. Fairly recently I bought an Hewlett Packard 3822 and although it is not really claimed to be a photo printer so far with any prints I have thrown at it I have been more than satisfied with the quality. Ink cartridges are much bigger than the Epsons and seem to last much longer without been appreciably dearer.

Ian C

If you are more interested in printing photo's then it has to be Epson.

In all the reviews I have read when mags have done comparison tests the Epson has always come out best for photo's.

My last one gave up the ghost not long back (Epson 750) so I have replaced it with an Epson 900.

In your price range you are looking at the 830, 900, 915, range.

Check them all out they all use the same print engine and dpi is as good if not better than the rest.

One point to remember you need to switch it on at least once a week to stop the heads clogging.

Hope this is of help

Pete

These days not only Epsom, but Canon and HP also produce well regarded photo quality printers. As mentioned, look not just as the printer cost, but the cost of consumables.

One good source of reviews is photo magazines such as Popular Photography. They also produce special review issues that tell you the best performing cameras, scanners, printers and so on at each price point.

You can also go to PC World and look around. They usually have a folder by each mode of printer that contains sample pictures on various papers. That way you can decide what level of quality you want/need/salivate after. PC World are expensive so buy elsewhere. (I don't normally recommend trying a shop and then buying elsewhere, but PC World deserve such treatment for ripping us off.)

I have an Epsom 870 that produces gorgeous prints (at a price) but it is out dated now.

www.7dayshop.com is a cheap source of consumables.

I have had two Epson printers. (660 and photo 870, I think). Both produced great results. And both gave me a lot of trouble... probably because I bought compatible ink cartridges. The problem is that the proper Epson cartridges cost about £20, which for a machine that only cost £100 in the first place seems a huge amount of money. (Compats are about £5.)
I now use a HP Laserjet 1000 (which only prints black) and is absolutely fantastic. It makes me feel that colour laser printers might be worth a serious look if you are intending to do a lot of printing. Yes, I know, arm and a leg--but some people can afford them!

Wow - thanks for all that advice. I have somewhere to start now. With the weekend approaching I think a trip to PC World for a look around is in order.

Thanks again,

Iain

I think 'Which' magazine recently did a survey on printers. The point I remember most is that although Epson printers do very well on quality printing, their replacement cartridges are considerably more expensive tahn other makes.

Alan Hill

The following are taken from a PC Pro lab test http://www.pcpro.co.uk

Sounds like it's a bit more than you want to pay, but try the
Epson Stylus Photo 950

VERDICT: Unbeatable quality, decent speed and useful features make the 950 the benchmark for other manufacturers to beat.

Ever since its launch nine months ago, we knew the Stylus Photo would be hard to beat. The combination of a seven-ink, individual cartridge system, automatic paper cutter and ability to print directly onto CD-Rs puts most other printers to shame for features, and the 950's awesome print quality, and amazing speed at which it delivers it, remains unbeaten.

There are no media readers, a status display or preview LCD - this printer is aimed at advanced amateurs who want to edit their photos in Photoshop before printing them. This means you're not paying for unwanted extras, which is a good thing as the 950 is already one of the most expensive photo printers around at £281.

With a top resolution of 2,880 x 1,440dpi and 4pl drops, the 950 is capable of incredible detail. We couldn't fault the photo-montage print - skin tones and other colours were faithfully reproduced and fades were smooth, with grain and banding non-existent.

Plus, even at this top resolution, the print took only half a minute longer than the 925 and HP Photosmart 7550. It's also a lot quicker than the Epson 895, our previous Labs Winner (see Labs, issue 92, p76).

Black text is extremely sharp from the new dual-cartridge setup and much speedier than we're used to from Epson. In our 25-page test, the 950 managed 8.4ppm, beating even the quick Canon S530D. Our four-page DTP test was handled with ease on Epson's coated paper, with bright colours and smooth text, lines and fades. Plain paper performance was almost as good as the HP 7550 and images weren't as grainy.

As you'd expect at this price, borderless printing is possible at A4 and also on roll paper. It's a shame, though, that you can only choose 1,440dpi when printing borderless on 100 or 150mm roll paper, which introduces some banding, but the quality remains excellent and the auto cutter is very convenient.

Although this pales when compared with HP's 70 years' fade resistance, Epson guarantees up to 25 years' lightfastness on the correct media. When it comes to printing onto CDs, you'll need to use special CD-Rs as you can't print on standard media. The good news is that the results rival commercial audio CDs, with such a vivid glossy finish that you'll never use a paper label again.

While it costs more than the Photosmart 7550, the 950's supreme quality, speed and features make it worth the extra cash and help it retain its all-important A-List position.

Printer around the £100 mark.

HP Deskjet 5550

VERDICT: Considering the stunning quality of the 5550, it's a real bargain.

The Deskjet 5550 is our current A-Listed colour inkjet and easily defends its standing in this Labs. It uses the same new ink system as the Photosmart 7550 and the psc2110. As standard, it employs a dye-based tricolour cartridge and a pigmented black, and with the optional photo cartridge (comprising dye-based black, light cyan and light magenta) replacing the black it delivers superb quality output.

Without the photo cartridge, photos appeared slightly grainy, akin to the 3820. However, photos printed with it were stunning. The A4 montage gained full marks for quality and was printed in only a few seconds longer than the Canon i320 at four minutes, 23 seconds. The only test that slowed it considerably was the DTP document on coated paper, although it was worth the wait for the excellent quality. Our standard text document was pushed out in under six minutes at a mediocre speed of just over 5ppm.

The 5550 isn't the cheapest printer to run, though, costing 3.5p per mono page. However, colour pages cost just 4.5p and this price includes a new print head with each cartridge. Canon and Epson page costs only cover ink, as their print heads are integrated and aren't replaceable. If their print heads become sufficiently clogged to noticeably reduce print quality, you'll have to buy a new printer.

The 5550's drivers are easy to install and offer comprehensive controls. With an optional £40 duplex unit, the only missing feature is borderless A4 printing - it can only manage this on 6 x 4in paper.

The HP Deskjet 5550 is a great general-purpose printer. If you can afford it and you're more worried about quality than outright speed, this is the machine to go for.

Around £200 mark.

HP Photosmart 7550

VERDICT: For ultimate print quality, the Epson 950 remains our first choice, but the HP 7550 is ideal if you need to eliminate the PC occasionally.

Photosmart is HP's brand for dedicated photo printers, and the 7550 is the company's all-singing, all-dancing flagship inkjet. Crammed with enough gadgets to make James Bond jealous, it's aimed at those who want superb photo quality and the ability to modify and print digital photos without the need for PC intervention.

With a 4.5cm colour LCD, you can view, crop, rotate and add borders to photos before printing them. There's a 10 x 15cm tray for loading up to 20 sheets of photo paper and the 7550 will print onto these with no margins. Sadly, it doesn't offer borderless A4 copies like the Canon or Epsons.

As you'd expect, the 7550 uses the new PhotoREt IV technology and can hold all three cartridges (unlike the 5550, which requires swapping) and so delivers seven-colour printing as standard. The tricolour and photo cartridges cost £18 each, while the pigmented black cartridge is £14, and include the print head for a reduced chance of blocked nozzles. We found they all exceeded their stated yields, making the 7550 one of the cheapest photo printers to run, costing only 4.5p per 15 per cent colour sheet.

With four integrated memory card readers, it's unlikely this printer won't support your digital camera. Also, if you own a compatible HP Cam, you can plug it directly into the printer without the need for any card swapping.

Testing the 7550 for speed, we found it was the slowest of the four photo printers on test. We ran slightly different tests to when we reviewed it last month (see Reviews, issue 99, p136). It was particularly slow at printing the four-page DTP document on coated paper, taking almost 30 minutes to complete the job. Happily, though, the quality was better than the Stylus Photo 925's with laser-like black text, and the HP matched the 925's speed in the two important photo tests. Plus, it managed almost 6ppm in the text test, while the Epson was sluggish at 2.4ppm.

In the PhotoREt IV mode, the quality of the photo montage almost rivalled the 950 and easily matched the 925. Grain was imperceptible and there was no discernable banding. Another bonus is that the 7550 proved the best performer on plain paper, producing decent colour and detail from the CorelDRAW image.

With HP claiming over 70 years' lightfastness from the new media range, and with a good variety of papers to choose from, the 7550 edges ahead of the 925 again, but can't take the A-List spot from the 950.