Canon Pixma IP5200 ?

[chickens]

Hi there, I'm thinking of replacing my old HP deskjet 845c with the canon pixma ip5200. This hp has lasted until now without any problems, so in realibility terms it is good, but at times the paper tray will auto over feed itself 2-3 papers at one go for printing (recent problem) and the ink is very expensive to up keep. I'm only with OEM inks.. as my last trial I used some remanufactured ink that claims to give high quality print (yeah bullshit ads)[perfect10 inks]. The first thing I noticed is it prints more darker and once some droplets of water get to the paper...your document is doomed [never had such problems with oem hp black but oem hp colours do happen]. The oem ink costs like ...RM85-90 with 25ml ink [ rm amount/4 = U$D)] for one black and if i'm not mistaken it lasts to almost 500pgs or less.

So I went around browsing and first thought of a laser printer, but again I found that at times I would need to print colour so back to the inkjet, I've looked at hp again. HP is getting more expensive. Their ink is like one cartridge for RM50-60 [5ml inside one], which is totally out. Epson on another hand, not too impressed with their durabite inks and as many has complained about the frequent printhead clog, also is out of my consideration. Then comes to Canon. I've personally had a old canon, but it didnt really last long...so I did not consider one at first. Then it occured to me, I was using a low end budget one. So I've decided to try canon again, by choosing a mid range model, like 4000 - 5300 range. I've even look at the cartridge price and find it to be very affordable as one only costs RM45-50[26ml], in another words almost half price of my HP15 cartridge!

But then as I've browse inside here, I start to realise some unpleasant things about canon. One of them is the duplex printing with colour ink usage even if u specify grayscale on plain paper? My old HP isnt that smart too. Let say if I were to print a document with black text and colour text together in one page, it will also use some colour ink to print the black text, which isnt what I want. So I hope someone could give me hints, how will they use the ink when I enable to colour printing on plain paper. Will it be smart enough to use only pigment black text on normal text and only colour inks on coloured text/diagrams? Any other canon recommendation? I'm using it for school stuff, definately will print more on black only but occasionally need to print colour as well[would prefer separate ink tanks than those tricolour crap].

Thanks in advance.

 

[Trigger 37]

Chickens,

The only way I know to ensure that you print black on text and color on color is to do it in two passes. The Ink Mfg. are smart about this,... if they get a chance to print black using 3 colors of ink, you can be sure they will do it.

Anyway, about the ip5000. It is a 5 color printer and it has a BCI-3e Pigmented ink. It also has a BCI-6 BLK, C,M,Y. These are the lowest price carts of any made in the world. I get mine for $1.20 each. The better news is that you can buy your ink in 8oz bottle and refill the carts yourself. These carts have no chips to cause problems. I've been refilling mine for almost 2 years. You will also notice that it will print black text only at a very fast 25 ppm.(It's call Fast Black) Go online to the Canon web site and download the User's manual for the iP5000. You can get it from there "Support" page,.. under printers, inkjet, ip5000,.. then look for Documents. Hope this helps

 

[ghwellsjr]

The Canon printers that include the larger pigment black cartridge will use it on plain paper when printing anything that is 100% black even if you also have color text or pictures elsewhere on the page, as long as you do not select duplex printing or borderless printing where it combines dye magenta and dye blue in with the pigment black.

If you plan on buying a new Canon printer, make sure it uses a PGI-5BK cartridge to get the pigment black and I would suggest you get one that has at least 3584 nozzles in the print head if you want maximum speed. The iP4300 is a good printer (cheaper but it looks identical to the iP5200) and the MP830 is a good all-in-one.

Go to this link to find all of Canon's printers:

http://www.usa.canon.com/consumer/controller?act=ProductCatIndex1Act&fcategoryid=103

Aside from the tendency to clog, why are you not too impressed with Epson's Durabrite inks? They seem to me to be the perfect solution for plain paper printing.

 

[chickens]

Well, I've a senior using it saying it causes frequent problem on using the original inks, where it cant be reset, and he needs to buy some resetter for it and besides, their ink is more expensive...with less quantity...so i decided to try canon once again. Also, the speed is also my main thing Been using hp, and I really cant bare with the intense slow speed when printing colour... 5 pages per minute... urgh. But talking about 4300, its already stop selling over here, the recent price list only shows 1700, 3300, 4200, 5200, 5300... and those high end models.

What i'm trying to ask is, lets say I want to print on a plain paper, black text with coloured text/diagrams and yes I want it coloured on paper. So I should choose the colour mode. Then I would like to know, if the printer used coloured inks on the pure black text?

But oh well, first I was impressed with the duplex printing feature, but ever since I found the dirt about it, might as well depend on FinePrint . I hope this printer works fine with fineprint, that software was the best solution when it comes to printing powerpoint slides and massive notes.

 

[websnail]

What i'm trying to ask is, lets say I want to print on a plain paper, black text with coloured text/diagrams and yes I want it coloured on paper. So I should choose the colour mode. Then I would like to know, if the printer used coloured inks on the pure black text?

Ah... I'm with you now..

What you mean is that your old HP printer would, whenever there was even a hint of colour on a page, print it out using ONLY the colour inks, no black ink cartridge usage at all.

I can confirm that this is NOT the case with the Canon pixma range unless you are choosing to do certain print types like photo pro paper, etc.. Standard plain paper printing will use the Pigment black cartridge whenever there's black text...

 

[chickens]

What i'm trying to ask is, lets say I want to print on a plain paper, black text with coloured text/diagrams and yes I want it coloured on paper. So I should choose the colour mode. Then I would like to know, if the printer used coloured inks on the pure black text?

Ah... I'm with you now..

What you mean is that your old HP printer would, whenever there was even a hint of colour on a page, print it out using ONLY the colour inks, no black ink cartridge usage at all.

I can confirm that this is NOT the case with the Canon pixma range unless you are choosing to do certain print types like photo pro paper, etc.. Standard plain paper printing will use the Pigment black cartridge whenever there's black text...

My old HP printer is a little weird, because I remembered my colour cartridge is almost empty only left with magenta. So one time when I print only text with colour mode on, I notice magentas on edges of the text...so what I can speculate is my old HP do uses some colour inks on the black text, but only on the edges or small parts of the fonts, the rest of it uses the black ink...not uses only colour inks.

For the pixma printer, I would like to know, will this be the same case? Or it will be so specific that on the same page, there is black text, it only uses the pigment black and when there is colour text, then only it will use the colour text? What about the black dye? I'm quite afraid of that it would use that instead to print black text rather than pigment black.

Also, does colour text print looks like laser prints?

 

[mikling]

As long as the head moves back and forth, some color ink is always used even in pure black text printing. This is on all printers and is so to protect the color nozzles from clogging ink dries while the head is moving. Sometimes this will be sprayed on the pads off the paper path.

 

[chickens]

As long as the head moves back and forth, some color ink is always used even in pure black text printing. This is on all printers and is so to protect the color nozzles from clogging ink dries while the head is moving. Sometimes this will be sprayed on the pads off the paper path.

will this be the same with epson printers too?

by the way, what is the yield for the cartridge of the pgi-5bk?

and also the yield for epson black high capacity?

 

[mikling]

all inkjet printers have their nozzles exposed to the air while the head moves so they all do this in some fashion.

Do not fall into the trap by the printer manufacturers whereby they claim their inks are "cheaper". The package is cheaper but the contents have risen in cost. Compare the cost of an HP45 to that of a newer HP56, or better yet a 21 or 22. The inks are much more reasonable but check the contents carefully.

Your experience with the aftermarket ink is soured only because they used inexpensive dyebased ink for the text black when it should have been the costlier pigment. Not an uncommon thing in the "bad" world of aftermarket inks.

 

[chickens]

Well I usually dont read their claims, i'd like to see their yield page by customers themselves.... but for their black ink, canon is indeed cheaper by half than hp, 26ml for rm45, compared to hp15...25ml for rm90..... thats cheaper by almost half!

by the way, does the newer epson models(with think tanks) also have chipped carts? and if they do, would u be able to find alternative ink carts together with the chip unlike canons without the chip on?