Which Printer?

Tightwadways

Argh! I officially hate my printer so it's time to replace it as it's way past its last legs.

Can anyone recommend a decent cost effective printer please?.

Specs needed:
Colour, A4, Win XP friendly, can be toner or ink but cost per page matters as I do a *lot* of printing, both using photo paper, card and normal paper, so must be able to take all three mediums. I don't mind how old the make is as long as consumables are available for it. I'm not adverse to buying 2nd hand either. Ideally looking to spend no more than £100ish on new or 2nd hand.

Replacing an Epson SX200 which is absolute pants for card, and I've spent a small fortune on inks recently with most of it going on head cleans trying to get it to print properly :eek:

paddyrg

Laser printers are not ideal for photo stock, so you want inkjet. How about working backwards, find a CISS at a decent price, then a printer it will support. My CISS was a total bargain at £7, normally around £40, but that means. No more cartridges and ink at 70p/100ml instead of £7/13ml.

oldtoolie

you might find more advice on the Techie Stuff forum. I have heard Kodak printers have low operating costs.

Savvy_Sue

I shall move you there now.

Only advice I can give is to make sure you have separate colour cartridges, then if you do a lot of yellow you haven't got to replace the entire colour cartridge.

And paddy, what's a CISS?

neilwoods

When you say card, what gsm is the card, as most will only go to 130gsm or 160gsm.

Kodak are currently the best for replacement ink as that is the big selling point, original ink starts from £6.99 for the black and £10.99 for a colour cartridge.

CISS stands for Continuous Ink System, they can be good and very cost effective, do need to get the right one though, plus have it set up perfectly. Have seen a cpl where they have flooded the printer by not having it on the same level as the printer.

So what gsm will you be printing on, does it have to photo quality, will it need scanner or just for printing.

interstellaflyer

oldtoolie wrote: »

I have heard Kodak printers have low operating costs.

No they don't, the advertising is very missleading, yes the cartridges are relatively cheap but 5 inks in one cartridge is wastefull as you never use all the colours at the same rate, the printers are very poorly built and they suffer from printhead problems, my advise is to leave well alone.

For £100 I'd go either Canon MG5150 or 5250 if you need wireless.

interstellaflyer

neilwoods wrote: »

Kodak are currently the best for replacement ink as that is the big selling point, original ink starts from £6.99 for the black and £10.99 for a colour cartridge.

No they are not, read my above post.

gazfocus

interstellaflyer wrote: »

No they don't, the advertising is very missleading, yes the cartridges are relatively cheap but 5 inks in one cartridge is wastefull as you never use all the colours at the same rate, the printers are very poorly built and they suffer from printhead problems, my advise is to leave well alone.

For £100 I'd go either Canon MG5150 or 5250 if you need wireless.

For the record, I'm not a fan of the Kodak printers either, but when you consider a Kodak colour cartridge can be bought for £9 online, even if you don't use all colours at the same rate, it still works out a lot cheaper than the likes of Epson (my preferred brand) which costs about £9 per colour.

I would echo what others are saying though, toner printers are no good for photo printing and photo paper won't work in toner printers unless you get specific Laser paper, so your best bet would definately be an Inkjet.

Do be careful if you get a CISS. We bought one when we first started our business and even though we'd set it up as per the instructions and on the same level as the printer, etc, it always leaked.

hethmar

HP are fine - check out amazon for deals

paddyrg

Yes, as mentioned above, CISS's are these kind of things http://www.continuous-ink-systems.co.uk/p60/Epson-Colour-Stylus-Printers-440-460-470-640-660-670---CISS/product_info.html

If you get it set up right and don't have leaks (I have had no leak problems - maybe I'm lucky?) then once in a while you just top up the reservoir for pennies - if you're a heavy user, you'll quickly see the benefit in terms of waste and price. One set of cartridges can cost more than a whole CISS system.

Printers are cheap because inks are expensive. Manufacturers make little to no to negative profit on each device as they know you're locked into paying shocking amounts for ink. Instead of the printer being the asset and the inks the (expensive) consumables, if you get a good CISS, you can treat the printers as (subsidised) consumables and keep on going when one wears out!

Ironside

I've been looking for a wireless printer which is economical on inks for a while now.

After going back and reading Santer's excellent posts, I wanted an Epson Stylus SX515W.

However, this printer seems to be discontinued and is only available at a few places at around the £80+ mark.

As it was selling for £59.99 both from Epson and Argos, I feel reluctant to pay the higher price for a discontinued printer.

But I know in the long run it will work out very reasonable due to the cheaper compatible inks.

Decisions...decisions....I don't know what to do.