At 2004-05-18 11:14, Declan Moriarty wrote: >On Sat, May 15, 2004 at 12:44:19AM -0800, Declan Moriarty enlightened us thusly >> >> That's the query. 2 of us here in 2 separate cities require a change of >> printer. Both thinking of inkjets, but willing to consider any jet or >> laser. My brother dopes a lot more colour than I do. He of us is a >> strictly windows man, I have dual boot. >> >> When you buy three colour & one black cartridge for a Lexmark, it runs >> to nearly the price of the printer. Ditto HP with the newer models. >> >> No huge special demands on complexity, networking, or dpi. One of us >> does a number of large volume jobs. A dot matrix seems to be the >> cheapest to run (remember those ribbons?) but noise rules it out. >> > >Thank you all for your insights. > >> > Anybody research this thoroughly? > > >I can safely say yes myself to this now. 2 Sites were mentioned > >http://www.inkclub.com >http://www.vul.nu > >I had this on another list related to linux as well, and came up with >the following set of conclusions, after everyone said your requirements >in fact dictate your needs (quality, colour, volume, etc). > > 1. HP printers are now crap. Epsom got mixed reviews. > 2. My post was quickly refined to 'cost per page', and nothing >stands out as a success > 3. Brother & Samsung lasers were reccomended. > 4. Volume, and the need for colour are factors which should be >considered in your purchase. > 5. The printer might well be chosen by the availability of >cheap but usable cartridges from a third source. > 6. If b/w only is required in volume, use a laser. > 7. Between the lines was: Newer printers are more expensive to >run. > 8. Lexmark on original cartridges were a rip off. > 9. Watch out for smart cartridges with inbuilt timeouts to >prevent endless refilling. Found in Lexmark at least. Apparently someone >posted a workaround, and Lexmark sued :-o. > >So it appears the way to go is to choose your 3rd party cartridge or >toner first, then buy the appropiate printer ;-).
I have a Lexmark Z35 since a year or so. I used to have an HP610 and before that an HP400. (All cheap printers.) My mother had a 486 computer at the time and new printers required at last a Pentium, so I let her have my HP400 and she bought me a HP610. The first HP400 I bought (around 1995 I estimate) wasn't a big success and it had to be repaired twice after which it still didn't work correctly and HP in the Netherlands gave me a new HP400 which did much better and still works well. (HP service is good!) I sold the HP400 to my mother because her 486 computer couldn't handle modern printers so she took my HP400 and she bought me a HP610. Later she took over my 333 Mhz AMD-K6-2 computer and her old 486 went to a friend of hers who also wanted a printer. In the mean time most printers were USB-based so I let her have my HP610 and bought the Lexmark Z35 instead. My mother liked the HP400 so much (mainly because of it's small footprint and being used to it) that she didn't want the ugly, big HP610 instead. I don't print much and usually only things for the tax bureau and a new printer comes with new cartridges, so I didn't mind much getting rid of old printers... ;-) The HP400 could only hold one cartridge at a time, so a black cartridge or a color cartridge. That makes printing reasonable color-pictures almost impossible, but my mother only prints in black. The HP610 could hold two cartridges at the same time, so it could indeed print color pictures, but HP isn't very good at printing in color, and the color cartridge was dried up badly. Appearently my mothers friend also only prints in black... By the way, that HP610 already had the even-smaller-reservoirs, to make HP twice the profit on their cartridges. Why did I buy a Lexmark instead? I just went to the nearby PC-store and bought the cheapest printer they had, when taxes were due again, some months later. I wasn't very happy with HP, so any other would have done: Epson, Canon, Lexmark. They only had Lexmark at that moment. My experiences with the Lexmark: Quality can be very good, but the cartridges have to be in very good condition and they generally aren't after not using the printer a couple of months. Even the black cartridge tends to dry up. Both cartridges can be made to work again however using water and spiritus (what is the English word for this, it's methanol and ethanol to clean things), but getting the cartridges to work again is hard and takes a lot of ink... The software drivers are a bit annoying. They talk, which is a good feature I think. They will tell you when the printer is out of paper and when printing has started etc. This is very useful when you are 'running around' between printer and PC. Due to lack of USB ports on my primary PC I have connected the printer to a second PC and it works alright via the network (of W98 and ME). I had a problem with the paper not being entered into the printer, but with another batch of (heavier?) paper this doesn't seem to be a 100% of the time problem anymore. The paper is now being transported most of the times. As I said earlier I don't print much and due to circumstances I have renewed my printers regurarly, so I almost never had to buy new cartridges... As regards to chips monitoring the ink content of the cartridges: I dislike that too. Some days ago I tried to clean the heads of the Lexmark Z35 printer and it's very annoying to have to run a program each time one tries again if the pores of the heads have been opened up enough yet, and the software will ask if the cartridge is new or used, but it seems to accept it and it seems to show the actual ink content of the cartridges. I really don't care much about these things but would much rather see that I wouldn't have to waste so much time getting the printer to work correctly again (which is almost impossible). Because I don't print much I don't mind paying quite a lot per page, if only things would run more smoothly even when used only so now and then. As regards color: It's very overrated when printing your own documents, but when for example printing CD-covers from PDF files in magazines it can matter. BTW. A serious photo printer costs much more than the budget printers that cost about as much as the cartridges that they contain... -- Author: Jaap van Ganswijk INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fat City Hosting, San Diego, California -- http://www.fatcity.com --------------------------------------------------------------------- To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB CHIPDIR-L (or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from). You may also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).
