Looking For New Printer

[Erie]

I am looking for a new printer since my HP pcs 750 is no longer capable to stay up with Windows 7 and it is 10 years old.

I am looking for a printer that is for small business I have been looking at the HP Officejet Pro 8600, Epson WorkForce Pro WP-4530, Epson WorkForce 845 and the Canon PIXMA MX892.

What I want is a printer that will gave me very good printing , copying, scanning, Photos, Faxing and gaves you HIGH volume of ink that will print 1,500 to 2,000 page before you run out of ink.

One thing that I do not want is a printer that will uses allot of ink and very few pages.
Also a printer that is wireless.

A printer that is High Quality without allot of trouble.

I am very sorry if I have posted in the wrong place, I was looking for a area where you talk about printers and did not see any where to do so. I do know that you have a area where to talk about printers.

If you can gave me the PRO and CON'S on these printer that I have listed and which one would best fit the need that I am looking for I would be very thankful.

 

[PeterBJ]

I don't think any of the inkjet printers intended for home or small office use can print that number of pages before a refill is needed. I have read somewhere on this forum that printing an A4 photo takes 1 ml of ink. I think that ink coverage of a photo is 100%. A normal B/W office document has an ink coverage of 5%. This means 20 pages per ml of ink. A Canon pigment black cartridge of the PGI-x20 or PGI-x25 generation has a capacity of 20 ml. This could print 20X20=400 pages before a refill or cartridge change is needed.

Druckerchannel.de tests a lot of printers and one of the things tested is how many pages can be printed from a cartridge. If you read German the site is worth checking out. According to tests done by Druckerchannel.de the 400 pages printed from a pigment black cartridge is not entirely wrong.

If color printing is not a must then maybe a B/W laser all in one with fax capability is the right choice. I think that a laser AIO will be more expensive to buy but less expensive to run than an inkjet AIO. The laser printer is also more robust and needs less maintenance than the inkjet printer.

If printing photos is a must, then I think the laser printer is ruled out. I think a color laser AIO is very expensive, and inkjets are better for photos.

For comparison: http://shop.usa.canon.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/subCategory_10051_10051_-1_12153 and: http://shop.usa.canon.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/subCategory_10051_10051_-1_30751

There are of course other brands than Canon, but I think it is the same price relationship for inkjet vs. laser.

I have no experiences with laser printers, others may have some suggestions of what to buy?

BTW did you manage to get the HP PSC 750 to work with Windows 7?

 

[Erie]

No it does not work with Windows 7. I may print a 1/8 of a page or a 1/2 of a page and than it may print the whole thing. It work great up until I got my New Computer.

I don't really want a laser printer. My wife copies and scans photos and that is why I am looking at these printers.

These printers that I have listed are the ones that I am most interested in.

I will consider another printer if you can gave a very good printer that will outperform these printers. The one that I have problems with is the Canon PIXMA for what I have read is that it goes through ink like there isn't a tomorrow. That is not a good selling point. I need a printer that will gave you the performance of not useing allot of ink and get more pages for your dollar out of the ink cartridge.

I am not sure how many page you can get out of the Epson WorkForce 845 and am not sure what year it came out. I do know that it is a very solid printer for what I have read about it.

I do like the other two I have mentioned also. this is why I have posted here to see if anyone has these printer and perhaps you will be-able to guild me in the right direction on which would be the best printer for the dollar.

Without using these I would not know what one would have PRO and CON'S about them.

 

[jtoolman]

I think you are asking too much. Simply put most printers will need 1 ml of ink to print one letter size photo. So if you have say 6 carts with 15 ml each
You end up with a total of 90 ml. At about one ml per print, you will get up to 90 such prints. Maybe more, maybe less.
There is no Magic printer that will Squeeze more prints out of an ML of ink.
The frequency of cart changing boils down more to how many there are in a given printer and how much ink each carts can hold.
That is assuming zero waste due to head cleans and ink purges. So you see there is no magic printer out there. Printing is not cheap! It is a rather expensive activity and unless you refill your own carts with good but much less expensive 3rd party inks, there is really nothing you can do.

 

[marty2627]

Me too .. I am also looking for a replacement printer. My IP4200 now has "USB cdevice unknown" so I went down to the local post office "small town" and looked at the canon mg range... only to discover the newer printer models from canon have only got 8mm tanks ! The older ones in the ip 4200 and ip4300 had 13ml tanks.

So canon printers are ripping a small business owner off. .almost half the ink.. therefore almost twice the price. also twice as many times to undo the tanks and replace, go buy the tanks etc. .all takes time

Review sites for printers also never mention cost of printing, or pages printed, or ink- tank sizes.

So I found this website from another forum //forums.whirlpool.net.au/archive/1858778

And then I figured like the original poster, that as there are quite a few experienced printer people on this forum, so I might ge able to get informed advice prior to just going to my local small town post office and settling for a canon mg printer, knowing I will be replacing tanks twice as fast, and paying twice as much.

As I like inkjets instead of lasers, would I be better off with something like a Brother MFC -J6510DW? I dont know the cartridge size of that printer either, although it has one colour tank less than the canon, and I have read it doesn't always recognise the tanks when inserted, and I watched a youtube video of it copying in colour, and that wasnt too good a result (one colour tank less than a canon ip4200) ... disclaimer... I only print photos occasionally. main use is printing letters .. documents etc ..

So any advice greatly appreciated. Within reason, cost wise, but most emphasis on reliable, and reasonable tank size !

Cheers. .Marty .. Snowy Mountains.. Australia... Edited as requested to remove link to forum, and change brand of existing printer to lower case so it would get accepted in forum as new poster..

Edit number 2. .Is there a way to disable the email function ? I prefer pm only availability.. first forum I have been on with email to be enabled..

 

[The Hat]

First of all Marty welcome and am sorry to hear about the 4200s demise, can you give us more information on that error,
maybe there is still life in the old dog yet.

The newer Canon printers are not a great catch cost wise, but there are still older printers
to be had which uses the larger cartridges and give great value.

As stated in the post above inkjet printing is not cheap but there are alternatives,
like using the much cheaper compatibles cartridges, or the most favoured way suggested by this site
is to refill your OEM cartridges with good quality inks which have a 75% saving, but it is very habit forming (Most enjoyable).

So you see there are other ways to skin a possum if you really look and something the normal dont have to be acceptable,
there are still many very good printers out there which you would be more than happy with.

Try contacting some of the guys on that forum you mentioned to see if they will sell their duff printers
and cannibalise them for the things you need for your 4200 its well worth saving..

 

[Erie]

I am not trying to make thing hard all I am asking you is out of the printers that I have listed which one will gave you the most bag for your dollar.

As Marty said why buy a printer that you will have more dollars going out and less pages out of the ink. My HP pcs 750 is a very economic printer , but like I said it is now 10 years old or older and it is time for a new one . It will not work with Windows 7., only part of the time and it wast paper because it will only print a 1/8 of a page or maybe a 1/2 of a page and than it might print the whole page, you never know what it will do.

So all I am asking is out of the list of printers which one is the best dollar value for your money with the less amount of trouble. Is this a hard question to answer?

 

[The Hat]

I am not trying to make thing hard all I am asking you is out of the printers that I have listed which one will gave you the most bag for your dollar.
So all I am asking is out of the list of printers which one is the best dollar value for your money with the less amount of trouble. Is this a hard question to answer?

Unfortunately it is and I have to agree with jtoolmans opinion there are no such animals.
They all perform much the same and that is to get You the User to waste as much ink as possible
and when your printer fails then you buy another one, there not interest in you just your money.

Have you tried to load and run your old HP printer in virtual XP mode in Win 7,
its one option that is still open to you or even load XP on the same PC and duel boot?

The days of the great old printers are gone sadly,
so if youre lucky enough to still have one then hang onto as long as you can..

 

[PeterBJ]

@ Erie

The problem with the PSC 750 could also be mechanical and not related to OS and drivers. A friend of mine has an HP PSC 750 that I gave to him. It worked well for a long time, but started to behave very much like your printer. It is used with Windows XP only, no newer OS's.

It sometimes would stop in the middle of a print job and the cartridge carriage movement was slower than normal and somewhat erratic. The printer also was more noisy than normal. The causes of the problems were a dirty timing strip, and that the cartridge carriage didn't move freely on the carriage rail. Cleaning the timing strip with soft tissue paper moistened with a window cleaner with ammonia and lubricating the cartridge carriage with a few drops of thin oil made the printer perform flawlessly again. See this post for details, the picture is from a newer printer, but the parts are placed in the same way: http://www.nifty-stuff.com/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=59573#p59573 You could try this before giving up on your printer.

@ marty2627

The unknown USB device error message normally means, that the USB device is defective or a proper driver is not installed, so it could be both reasons. You could try uninstalling and reinstalling the printer and see if that helps. If it doesn't, I think your printer cannot be repaired as the USB interface is part of the logic board, and I think a new logic board is unavailable or very expensive.

 

[Erie]

I will tell you I really like my HP pcs 750. I have never cleaned it so that might just be the answer to my problem.

One of the finagles if looking at it in front on the left side bock off years ago and I never got it fixed and wash that I would have. Does anyone know where one can buy parts for this printer?

I will clean it and see how it works after that.

Each time I print say 2 pages or more I have to be right there to get the frist page out of the way or I will get a paper jam and this really gets old when you have 30 pages to print. I really need some very good advise on this issue. I hope that someone would help me out on my HP pcs 750. :/

Now you say that there is no printer that will get 2,000 pages out of a black cartage will if you would look at the Epson WorkForce Pro WP-4350 you would see that this one does.