I've had enough of Epson. What's my best option?

[bousozoku]

After several years of trying & testing 100's of inkjets & scanners, I feel comfortable in saying this:

A L L newer low-to-mid priced units S U C K!......
YOU ONLY GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR

The mfgr's dont give a rats a*s about the printer itself, they just want you to buy their cartridges and/or paper

Now if ya want way better quality, go buy a printer/scanner that was made 2-3 years ago, like the Epson "SC" & "SC-Photo"series, all of which work just fine with OS X, including my current SC-1280/Photo, and Perfection 1250, both running great under 10.4.5

Same with most HP & Cannon too!

And BTW, the R E A L trick with Epson printers is to clean the nozzles/heads with denatured alcohol & cotton swabs EVERY time you change the carts.......time consuming, yes, but well worth it to keep your printer printing instead of hours of endless, paper & ink consuming troubleshooting with the s/w utility!

Pretty much true, but all along the low-priced units were bad.

Good, regular maintenance is a great idea. Way back when HP introduced the DeskJet series at $999 for a 300 dpi monochrome ink jet printer, it was the first of its kind to include print heads with each ink cartridge. It was revolutionary and took over the market a cheap laser printer would have had--had there been such a thing. Using the manufacturer's ink helps somewhat but when you dip below $100 for a printer, you're asking for trouble.

 

[seabass069]

Go to Staples and buy the Canon Pixma MP 780. I does awesome in reviews and Tom's Hardware Guide.com rated the multifunction as the best. The great part is that it is under $250.

 

[blackfox]

I also have a Canon Pixma (ip4000). I have no complaints - It's my third Canon Printer. I also have a Canon scanner, digital camera and camcorder, so I guess I am brand loyal...

The thing that made the difference for me, is the design as related to ink cartridges and the cost of those replacements. I went the middle road - the Pixma had more individual color cartridges and they are fairly cheap to replace.

Other manufacturers have different cost/benefit ratios...some are really expensive and/or require a good deal of maintenance.

Again, your mileage may vary.

 

[Shaun.P]

HP all the way...

I have a HP PSC (Printer.Scanner.Copier) 1355, and it is excellent. They include Mac software with it too (I got character recognition software, scanner software and other stuff). I have had the printer 15 months and it has been very reliable.

I used to buy Epson printers too, but they are just horrible.

Please trust me, the HP PSC are great - go out and buy one today as you will not regret it one bit.

 

[Fireburst]

I also will never touch another Epson printer again. They clog up far too easily. I use HP for my colour printing and a brother HL-2040 mono laser printer (which is a great little printer) for my B&W work.

 

[geese]

My HP 5150 has been great.

I've had no driver issues, the print quality is good and it seems to be built nicely.

 

[johan_tanying]

Just got a HP 2600n colour laser jet for our home. Works great with OSX and XP. Ethernet connection is very convenient since you don't need to use one of the computers to run 26/7 as a printer server. Extremely quiet in stand-by mode. "Only" 8 ppm but still much faster than inkjet. Photographs are ok - for best quality I would print on "real" photo paper (Fuji/Kodak etc) for best quality and lowest price – NOT inkjet ...

 

[steebu]

all consumer printers are garbage. you gotta pay if you want quality prints. the only epson printers worth buying are the R800 and higher. for canon its the ip6000 and up. and all hp's generally suck.

 

[jacobj]

I've never had HP but I've never really wanted one either.. I have had both Canon and Epson printers and scanners on both Mac and Windows (yuk, spit)..

I prefer the Epsons without doubt, but the Canons have been good to. If you really must change for a while, I would go Canon.

all consumer printers are garbage. you gotta pay if you want quality prints. the only epson printers worth buying are the R800 and higher. for canon its the ip6000 and up. and all hp's generally suck.

I've got my eye on the R1800....give it time and a little begging to my other half and it'll be mine.

 

[Fireburst]

all consumer printers are garbage. you gotta pay if you want quality prints. the only epson printers worth buying are the R800 and higher. for canon its the ip6000 and up. and all hp's generally suck.

I wouldn't agree. I have had two Epson 1290s A3 printers that I have had to skip so even the 'better printers' are not so good.

 

[javiercr]

For photo printing:

1) Canon

2) HP


Epson is rubbish, if the ink blocks the nozzle there is nothing you can do, wih Canon you can replace it (it think with HP too)

For BW document printing

1) HP laser

 

[YS2003]

When I bought my 12" Al PB early summer of 2005, Apple had a sales promo in which they gave you a free Espons C86. I heard many negative comments on Epson printers on various forums include this and I have not even opened C86 to this day. It is still in the original box tucked under my TV stand since I bought my PB.

So far, my HP 932 desk-jet printer is working good for more than 3 years now.

By reading this thread, I made a good choice by not using C86 to save myself a headache and frustration.

 

[Coheebuzz]

I've used both Epson and HP printers extensively during the last couple of years in my design shop so these are my general impressions so far.

Epson's have head clogging problems as everyone says but if you print something daily you can avoid that. I find that if i don't print daily i'll have at least 2 of the 7 inks clogged the next day and i have to do a head cleaning with the software.

The dealer told me that its due to the air-conditioning but thats not an excuse since my HP's never had that problem. Also they are not as forgiving as HP's with third-party products like inks and paper media.

But i have always found colors to be more accurate than HP's and thats the first reason i stick with them.

The second is because i have found HP's to have serious paper jamming problems so they need baby-sitting which i can't afford to do.
Am sure that not all units have these problems and that am just unlucky but *all* Epson's i had/have (about 10) had some sort of ink clogging issues and all my HP's (3) have paper jamming problems.

As for a scanner i have an Epson 4870 Photo and its great! Its fast and the quality is good for 90% of the stuff. Never had a problem with it so far and EPSON Scan is quick and easy. And this is the case with most consumer scanners as high-quality jobs are better to be drum-scanned. So i think getting a scanner is much easier than getting a printer - just check a couple of reviews. Hope i've helped.

 

[itsbetteronamac]

I never thought I would say this, but I would go with a higher quality HP. I have the 8430, or something like that. It has built in ethernet, and wifi, and on top of that, it supports bonjour. For the most part it has worked perfectly and I would probably recomend it to anyone. Also, you know when it's running out of ink, because it tells you and shows you. Unlike Epson which just won't print one day.

 

[prostuff1]

I would recommend staying away from HP. I had to get an HP for my parents house (was the only one that Apple would offer us as a replacement for the Canon they would not ship). Anyway, i know the HP does not support printer sharing, which was REALLy annoying. I went home for the weekend and did not take my wireless router, so every time i wasnted to print i had to unplug the printer formt he desktop and plug it into the laptop. This is REALLY annoying. I also find that when I plugged in the HP it did not "just work." I had to go fond the newest drivers (which were not on the disc) online. Then i also had to find the software for the scanner, copier, faxer.

When i called i asked HP why they did nto support printer sharing in OS X and why i had to hook the thing to a wireless router so that i could print from another computer nad they basically told me "cause." THey could not give me a straight answer and it was really annoying.

I have a Canon MP760 and i LOVE the thing. works great and did "just work" when i plugged it in. The only thing i did was install some software that i needed. It does work with printer sharing in OS X just incase you dont have a wireless router and want to share it with multiple computers.

I suggest either the canon MP780 or the MP500. Depends on how big you want to go because the MP780 is bigger in size and price.

 

[kiwi-in-uk]

Canon.

3 Epsons have failed within 6 months.

5 Canons have been reliable (the oldest are both 6 years) and are in daily use. The most recent have been an iP4000 and an iP4200. Also a scanner and two cameras. Apart from a paper feed problem on a 6 year old much-used laser printer I have had no problems with any of the hardware or software.

Haven't owned HP recently, but have had to connect a colleague's HP. The printer software is obtrusive and chews CPU. Not impressive, although the printer appears to be reliable.

 

[Toeside]

I have an HP 940c that's 4.5 years old. It just keeps working.

I'm considering buying a new printer, simply because of the $100 rebate I'll get if I buy one with my MacBook Pro.

I'm considering the HP PSC 1510 or 1610 to get all-in-one functionality, but I'm also considering the Epson PictureMate Express to replace our Kodak Printer.

It's really hard for me to use past experience as a guage on which printer to buy today. We had a Canon, which died after 1 year. Our HP, as I mentioned, is still going strong after 4.5. Neither experience guarantees that a Canon purchased today would be a bad decision, just as it doesn't guarantee that a new HP will last us 4+ years.

Decisions, decisions.