need a printer

[herbz420]

im looking for a printer that is the best bang for my buck(has the most features for the price)...and also cheap ink cartridges...also let me know about what printers to stay away from

[Cheep]

Stay away from Lexmark, choose Canon, HP or Epson. Buy original cartridges via EBay.... my 2 cents

[Cafe_333]

This should be in the computers section of the forum... but anyways invest in a midrange model and you'll be good. The above poster doesn't provide any factual reasoning so I'm going to assume he doesn't know what he is talking about. There is nothing wrong with Lexmark. More accurately said would be that there is something wrong with budget printers - you get what you pay for so don't expect quality nor longevity if you cheap out on your investment. Lexmark is the only company that offers a line of budget printers so stay away from those. Entry level from Canon sucks too.

Stay away from Epson and Brother - currently the worst ink drying offenders and at highest risk of print head clogging. Canon is your best bet for cheap refillable ink cartridges - assuming you can still find Canon printers that use BCI type cartrdiges. Newer models are now using the newer CLI cartridges and I hear that refills aren't easy to find for these. If you demand quality, you'll pay a premium for it, and that's where HP and Lexmark comes in - currently the market leaders.

[tracker123]

OK...here is my 2 cents...

Note that the below is a generalization and may not apply to all models of printers from those companies...

Epson - Best Ink (longest life, best colour, waterproof) - Most Expensive ink - cost and per print ink coverage.

Canon - Best Bang for buck - Cheapest ink - Fastest pictures - Decent resolution for photos - My current choice.

Lexmark - Cheapest printer - most likely to break quickly - expensive ink

HP - Decent quality - Good pictures - Decent price (lots of sales) - most printers don't have individual cartridges for different colours

There are exceptions to these of course but these are an outline.

I personally just purchased an Epson R340 for about $169 and 3 years ago I bought a Canon I850 which just won't die so it took me a long time to justify the Epson but I wanted to print directly on DVDs.

I have owned 8 Epsons (right from the old 9-pin days) so this used to be my printer of choice...but ink costs killed me. I have also owned 2 lexmarks and 2 Canons and the Canons have been the most satisfactory and the best economically. The IP4000/IP5000 models are cheap and allow for duplexing which can save tons of paper if you do a lot of printing. There are separate cartridges for each colour and if you really print tons, you can get an inktank system. The cartridges are about $14.99 a piece...not too bad either.

So the question is more what you want in the printer...

Photos?
Borderless?
Quality (dye-sub)?
Speed / Quantity?
Ink Cost?
Printer Cost?
DVD Printing?
Duplexing?

If you can rate these in the order of importance than I can ballpark a printer make / model for you.

[herbz420]

thanx to everyone for their input...tracker123 heres my order

quality
speed/quantity
ink cost
and everything else in no particular order

im considering purchasing either a cannon or an epson (mainly since u mentioned that its waterproof ink) so if u can suggests some models i cant look at that would be great

[tracker123]

Again...only my opinion but here it is...

Quality, Speed and Ink Cost => Canon IP4200 or IP5200

Choice 1

IP4200/IP5200 = 9600/2400 - 5 Colour = $149/$229 (regular prices)
Ink is about $14.99 each cartridge - cheaper for refills
4x6 in about 35 seconds

Choice 2

Epson R320/R340 = 5760/1440 = 5 Colour = $199/$179 (onsale at futureshop)
Ink is about $15.50 each
4x6 in about 60-90 seconds

------------------------------

Reasons

Epson is slightly better quality for photos which I really like...however this causes it to suck ink like there's no tomorrow. Even thought the cartridges are about the same price, I think the Epson printer will suck ink a lo more. That, along with the very slow printing speed sets this one just behind the Canon.

The Canon quality is definitely photo. Possibly a little less depth of field. However, the ink goes on and on and on. It'll take a while to go through a full set of ink cartridges so the price is suddenly a lot cheaper. Add this to the fact that you can print 2-3 times faster overall and you can duplex print to save even more paper and it puts it just ahead of the Epson.

You can tell I put a little more weight on speed and cost since the difference is more noticeable than quality.

I hope this helps in your decision.

Do you have a digital camera?

[kai]

http://www.redflagdeals.com/forums/showthread.php?t=295909

If you buy off ebay or even some local third-party inks, you would save substantially. But if you need high quality buy the original one.