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Thread ID: 95442 2008-12-06 19:58:00 Consumer Latest Best Printer Test. Trev (427) PC World Chat
Post ID Timestamp Content User
726280 2008-12-06 19:58:00 Best printer Canon Pixma iP4500 $230
Best Budget Printer Canon Pixma iP3500 $129.
You can buy The Consumer Mag. in book shops.
:)
Trev (427)
726281 2008-12-06 20:08:00 I have got one of the Canon iP4500's and it is great.
I have had it for a year and it is very fast and reliable. Has never jammed once.
I only use it for colour printing as I have a laser printer.
The consumables are good - separate tanks (but I buy them from Cartridge World - more ink in them and very cheap)
Digby (677)
726282 2008-12-06 20:49:00 Best in what?
My criteria is maximum number of pages per cartridge (minimum 850, up to 1400) and availability of drivers. Actual manufacturer drivers. Try finding a Vista 64bit driver for most of them.
pctek (84)
726283 2008-12-06 21:08:00 I thought printers would have caught up by now. Cicero (40)
726284 2008-12-06 21:12:00 Both Canon?

No thanks, I'll stick with HP.

And to me, a budget printer is not $130. My HP was about $50 after cashback and it's the best printer I've ever owned. And yes I have had a LOT of printers.

Just avoid Brother.
--Wolf-- (128)
726285 2008-12-06 21:47:00 I have got one of the Canon iP4500's and it is great.
I have had it for a year and it is very fast and reliable. Has never jammed once.
I only use it for colour printing as I have a laser printer.
The consumables are good - separate tanks (but I buy them from Cartridge World - more ink in them and very cheap)

I picked up my iP4500 from a shop here in hams for $40 as it was a repo, have to admit it does have some kick assness about it. Very happy chappy.
rob_on_guitar (4196)
726286 2008-12-06 22:12:00 Have had my IP3000 for over 3 years now and it's great no idea what I paid for it now, does all the same as the others CD's 2 paper trays, pict bridge only thing the newer models have over this one is wireless capability built in gary67 (56)
726287 2008-12-06 22:33:00 I suspect that with $50 printers, you will indeed get through a lot of them. ;)
I have an Epson 680 about 6 years old that prints extremely good photographs, but costs an arm and a leg in ink, a Canon Multifunction that cost me nothing but a little time to fix which is quite frugal on consumables, and a Lexmark laser printer that is great for cheap printing of long runs in colour while also keeping the place warm in winter. The Canon gets the most frequent use since it is so efficient at being smaller on the desk than a seperate printer and scanner.
My grouches?
The Epson's ink monitoring software is a total pain.
The Lexmark is big, takes forever to warm up and makes a great deal of noise.
The Canon's control panel and display mean you have to look down on it to read it which rules out putting the thing on a shelf above the monitor where I would like to stow it.

All are reliable, but they are all annoyingly slow to the first print from switch on. (Time to haul out the dot-matrix ? ;) )
R2x1 (4628)
726288 2008-12-07 10:18:00 Both Canon?

No thanks, I'll stick with HP.

And to me, a budget printer is not $130. My HP was about $50 after cashback and it's the best printer I've ever owned. And yes I have had a LOT of printers.

Just avoid Brother.

Ditto and Ditto!
beeswax34 (63)
726289 2008-12-07 17:24:00 My HP MFC was around $150 offline (I now buy as much as I can online now). Can't say I have any niggles about it. So far has done what has been required of it, and does it well :) Myth (110)
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