Sorry, Another Printer Recommendation For A Few Colour Prints A Month Please

AfxTwn

Hi,

I am looking to replace my Canon Pixma MG7550 All-In-One inkjet printer. I have had it since around 2015 but I'm having trouble with the print head misalignment and prints (particularly anything with text or postage labels) being wobbly and having double-up/blurred text etc. I'm pretty sure this is due to either a damaged or dirty encoder (timing belt) strip. The problem is that it's almost impossible to get to to clean and I have tried disassembling the machine but plastic clips are that old and brittle, that they are just snapping off and it's impossible to take apart.

Anyway, time for a new printer I think and I would like some recommendations about what to get please. I would prefer a colour printer and I print maybe a few times a month, mostly artwork and photos (no bigger than A4) to make my own birthday cards with for friends and family as well as returns labels and the odd letter. I print maybe 2-4 times a month at most but can go a while without printing at all. I don't necessarily need another all-in-one as I have a Canon Lide 400 scanner which is great for scanning pictures etc into my computer for printing out later.

I was thinking of getting a photo printer such as the Canon Pixma Pro-200 but I don't think I'll need A3 sized prints and this perhaps overkill for the limited and non-professional prints I make that are just the odd birthday card for someone. I am not sure whether to go for another brand altogether either really, I know people say to avoid HP.

Any suggestions would be great thanks.

Undervalued

AfxTwn said:

Hi,

I am looking to replace my Canon Pixma MG7550 All-In-One inkjet printer. I have had it since around 2015 but I'm having trouble with the print head misalignment and prints (particularly anything with text or postage labels) being wobbly and having double-up/blurred text etc. I'm pretty sure this is due to either a damaged or dirty encoder (timing belt) strip. The problem is that it's almost impossible to get to to clean and I have tried disassembling the machine but plastic clips are that old and brittle, that they are just snapping off and it's impossible to take apart.

Anyway, time for a new printer I think and I would like some recommendations about what to get please. I would prefer a colour printer and I print maybe a few times a month, mostly artwork and photos (no bigger than A4) to make my own birthday cards with for friends and family as well as returns labels and the odd letter. I print maybe 2-4 times a month at most but can go a while without printing at all. I don't necessarily need another all-in-one as I have a Canon Lide 400 scanner which is great for scanning pictures etc into my computer for printing out later.

I was thinking of getting a photo printer such as the Canon Pixma Pro-200 but I don't think I'll need A3 sized prints and this perhaps overkill for the limited and non-professional prints I make that are just the odd birthday card for someone. I am not sure whether to go for another brand altogether either really, I know people say to avoid HP.

Any suggestions would be great thanks.

Plus hugely expensive to run for occasional use with genuine Canon Inks. I have one of the Pixma Pro series and yes, it is capable of superb quality if you know what you are doing. 

The problem is that each time it is powered up it wastes significant amounts of ink "priming" the system. You can't get round this by leaving it on as it self powers down after, I think, 24 hours!

It has eight individual cartridges. Obviously depending on what you are printing the usage of each ink varies. Less obvious is that even if you are printing statistically average images (wide range of colours but none predominating) the coverage of each cartridge varies widely. Once any ink runs low it will refuse to print until that cartridge is replaced. Each time you replace a cartridge it will draw ink from ALL cartridges as part of the priming process. So much so that if you look on specialist forums you we see advice that it is cheaper to throw away any other cartridges that are below, say, half full when you are forced to replace even one ink!

A full set of Canon Inks for mine is about £120. If you use it a lot you waste less for the reasons I have described. If you are producing prints that you would otherwise have paid significant money for at a professional lab, say several pounds a print, then it becomes economic. Otherwise don't even think about it!

Yes, you can get sets of clone inks for a quarter of this price. How accurate the colour is for critical work I have no idea. Equally, many would worry about them blocking the delicate non replaceable print heads.

To a lesser extent this is all true of the more consumer 4 ink printers as well. However you are then talking about a printer costing perhaps £50 to £75 rather than £5 to £7 hundred.

See my comments in other threads about HP (and similar) subscription options. I have one for "everyday" photos, let's say it is 60% as good but very acceptable for everyday images. 10p per A4 page for ink, regardless of how much ink is used, plus any head cleaning  pages etc cost you nothing.

mksysb

I few years ago I would have said Epson.  I had one that lasted many years I replaced it with another Epson and that died, then another Epson that wouldn't feed photo paper.  So gave up with Epson and tried HP.  That died after a couple of months when it suddenly refused to recognise the cartridge.  HP support tried and failed to fix it.  They said to take it back to Tesco for a refund.  Tesco refunded and I bought a Canon.  So far the best printer I have had, so if I were you I would stick with Canon.

Vitor

Canon TS8350a is the closest modern replacement to what the OP has

AfxTwn

If I were to stick with Canon, I think either the TS8350a or TS8750 are my options there and there is currently an option for an extra 20% off the price of a TS8750 making it £119.99 instead of £149.99 so I am tempted by that.

I think for the tiny amount of printing I do, an inkjet is probably the way to go and I don't really require amazing quality prints as it's just for everyday use and some crafting so a professional photo printer wouldn't be worthwhile.

It seems there's little difference between the many all-in-one printers by each manufacturer and it comes down to how much you print and if you need a lot of ink or not and in my case I don't so I am stuck at the more budget end of the market.