On Sun, 5 Oct 2003 00:16:10 +0100, P Witte <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Phoebus R. Dokos writes:
<lots of useful information snipped>
Its an important point you mention about the print heads. With HP you
get a new print head with every new cartridge, with the Epson you only get
the one you bought with your printer, and when that goes, so, pretty much,
does your printer. I also have the same opinion as you regarding the lousy
HP sheet feeder, at least on the old Deskjet series.
My Epson has worked well for me, and at £70, or whatever Rich is selling them for, you can hardly go wrong. Another thing is I could simply use my old LX80 printer drivers for the new Stylus 850; they are pretty much compatible.
Is there anyone among us who is in a position (eg working in a computer
shop) to test the latest generation of printers suitable for for QL users?
The four most important things I can think of to know about a printer are:
1) Connectors (serial, parallel, USB, dual) 2) Printer language (built-in fonts and plain text) 3) Running costs 4) Design (reliability, long-term cost)
Hi Per,
What was true 10 years ago is true now as well,
The ONLY way to go is Laser (Colour preferred). (see below why)
Regarding printer language the cheapest parallel-equipped printers (that call themselves winprinters) in reality are not GDI printers anymore (as opposed to 5 years ago). Instead they use PJL, a very basic language from Zenographics. Most cheap LaserJets are fully HP PCL compatible as long as you can initiate a PJL session and download the firmware to them, after which they become full-fledged LaserJets (a good example is the LJ 1xxx series that uses this trick). I have managed to download the firmware independently from QPC2 to my HP LJ1000 (without using the "DOS Emulation" as they call the regular PCL emulation on these ones) and it worked fine after that using "RAW" transfer on ProWeSs.
Lexmark printers (my favourite inkjets-unbeatable for price) unfortunately have totally phased out parallel ports so unless you are using QPC2 they're pretty much out of the picture. For QPC2 users, their DOS emulation scheme makes them IBM Graphics and Epson Compatible so assuming you use QPC2 v.3xx you can still print directly to them if you "Capture" LPT1 from Windoze (Note here that newer Lexmarks do not have the software, but you can get it from drivers for older models) - All these printers use Zenographics' PJL variants.
I have tried Minolta - QMS colour lasers in Epson, IBM, PCL, HPGL/2 and PS modes with my Q40 and they work great and so did Textronix/Xerox Phaser printers. (These are big-ticket items that will set you back around $600).
However expensive (to return to my original statement) price per page on a laser printer (that with conservative use will last you a nice 5000 to 7000 pages per toner and another 25000 pages for drum (if you're using the separate versions) is approximately less than 3 cents (2 euro cents) per page and the quality is great every time without banding or other unsightly effects found even on the most expensive inkjets (remember that Epsons in order to produce their advertised quality apart from the special ink, they need special paper as well which in itself is a huge ripoff).
From all inkjets that I have ever used (and they are a LOT), the best quality on plain paper (70-80gsm photocopier grade) is from Lexmarks, but because they are incompatible with QLs they are out of the picture. Overall for 100% QL compatible printers (ie not only QPC) the BEST value for money plus best plain paper quality and reliability can be found on HPs. (That aren't that expensive anyway... at least not as much as my first rate choices).
I hope I helped a bit,
Phoebus
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