OS X Printer Recommendations
 

Yes, here's ANOTHER request for printers...

Anyway, I'm going to upgrade my old parallel Epson Stylus 600 Colour, as it only works with my PC at the mo, and printing out via the network (ie drop PDF into share, go to PC, right click on PDF, select "print"...) is really getting me down.

SO, my initial thoughts are with the Epson C60 or the Epson Photo 810. Gives you an idea of price-range and feature set I'm looking for. I like the Photo's 6 colour system, as well as the ability to print edge-flush.

However, I'm only thinking "Epson" as my last printer was an Epson, and I know where I am with reliability/quality etc. HP, Lexmark and Canon are all unknowns to me.

That said, I don't just blindly want to buy "my father's Oldsmobile", so if there are any partisans out there who want to lobby the case for their HP/Lexmark/Canon/Random-printer-manufacturer (or who want to endorse my Epson leanings), I'd be most appreciative.

Oh, and I'm looking for a USB printer, btw. And it has to work with OS X... you'd think that was self-evident, but you never know, eh?

;)

TIA

Re: OS X Printer Recommendations
 

My wife has had good luck with the Epson C60 after a miserable time with the 777's (she had two go down on her). I've been using an HP 932 with OS X and it's been rock solid. Get the new HP drivers on versiontracker, however.

One key consideration is paper feed. They are 2 primary styles. The first is the front loading "flip feed", best demonstrated by HP which is easy to load but since the paper wraps around in order to print and exit, labels have a greater tendency to peel off and stick in the machine.

The other style is a direct feed where the paper goes straight through the machine, best demonstrated by Epson. This style is harder to load as it usually loads from the top or back and feeds out the front. However due to the simpler feed path it has less tendency to clog and is easier to unclog. Labels are not as likely to peel either.

Another consideration is print cartridges. For many printers the replacement cost of the cartridges is half or more of the cost of the printer. Also some of the cartridges now have chips attached to the cartridge designed to prevent refilling or the use of 3rd party refills.

An additional consideration is the jet configuration. Again their are 2 main styles. Some, like HP the jets are part of the cartridge, so when you replace the cartridge you replace the jets. Others, like Epson, the jets are part of the printer so the only thing you replace with a new cartridge is the ink. This means that if the jets badly clog or get damaged, a trip to the repair facility is a must. However this rarely happens but could be a problem if the they are damaged by refilling the cartridge. As noted above however, refilling the cartridge 2-5 times essentally pays for a new printer.

So when buying a printer you might want to consider the following factors:

How is the paper fed?
Can I refill the cartridges or buy cheaper 3rd party refills?
How much do the cartridges cost?
How many average sheets of output will a cartridge print?
If labels stick, is provision made for removing them or do I have to send the printer in for repair?
How long is the warrenty and what does it cover?
Can I return a broken printer to a retail store for repair or exchange or do I have to ship it back to the factory?
If I have to ship it, do I have to pay shipping costs?
How much does the printer weigh?
How long is the turnaround for a warrenty repair?
Are loaners provided?
Does it support OS X?
Are driver updates charged for?
How does it print (qualtity)?
How fast does it print color in its best mode (most print B/W at a reasonable speed)?
Does it require special paper?
How does it handle envelopes?
How close to the edge of the paper will it print?
Does it handle various thicknesses of paper?
Will printing labels void the warrenty?

So far I have had good success with the Epson but have concerns about the new models as most now have protection against refilling cartridges. However devices are sold by ink suppliers for around $30 that reset the chips.

I used to swear by HP but no longer for two reasons:
First when thinks were not looking real good for Apple, they totally abandoned all of their Mac customers. No software updates, and the new models of printers were not Mac compatible. After things got better at Apple they reentered the Macintosh market again but did nothing for their existing users. If you wanted to use a working older printer with a newer OS, their attitude was to scrap your old one and buy a new one. Whose to say that they won't do this again?

Epson on the other hand, once they entered the Macintosh market they stayed in it and have usually provided updates for a reasonable length of time.

The second reason is durability. Initially HP put out solid, well built equipment. However the last one I purchased several years ago peeled labels off a sheet of Avery labels, jammed the printer and caused parts to spit out the front. I had only had the printer for 6 months and this was my first and only jam. I called HP and was told it would take a month or two to fix it, and no loaners were available. I took it back to the store I bought from and the manager exchanged it for an Epson which I used until late last year. Never had a bit of trouble. I did have a jam or two from labels but it was easily cleaned out without damage to the printer. I was also told by the same manager that Epson had a 3 day turnaround for repairs.

Given the cost of cartridges and the protection schemes you might also want to look at some of the new low cost laser printers. They are now energy efficient, print gobs of copys from a single cartridge and the B/W are in the $300 range.

Hope this helps.

WOW!

Cheers jimw. Thorough and informative. Just how I like it!

At the moment, we're in a two horse race between Epson's 810 and Lexmark's Z65. The 65 looks REALLY sweet - up to 21 ppm (as usual, on draft etc) compared to the 810s 11ppm, but it doesn't have edge to edge printing, which would be a bonus.

However, I've heard that the edge to edge features on the Epson "Require you to use their software". Can anyone elaborate on this from experience? Does this mean I couldn't (for example) set the page margins to 0mm in Freehand?

TIA (again!)

Lexmark = bad
 

Becareful with the lexmarks. I sell printers... I get more lexmarks back then anything!! Last fall Apple and Lexmark had a deal going giving out free ones, I got 75% back, and lexmark refused to do anything! Plus thier drivers are spotty. I am sure now someone may love their lexmark, I am just talking from a seller and fixer, in general no lexmark.

On the note of 3rd party ink, Most epson printers have 3rd party ink cartridges available. I know of 2 Power Cartridge, and PTI.

I don't know too much about the Lexmark. They are a recent arrival to the Mac environment. However they have a reputation for two characteristics:

Inexpensive printers - They are known to have some of the least costly printers in the industry.

Cartridge issues - I have heard they go through ink pretty fast. Also they make you sign an agreement that you will never sell or distribute any of their empty cartridges to anyone but Lexmark. Consequently 3rd party and refilled Lexmark cartridges are harder to get. Therefore, if you are planning to use something else other than the manufactures cartridges, this could be an issue.

Given that they have been primarly a Windows printer, you might what to do some research on Windows forums and magazines to get some of their opinions.

I would caution you on revealing you want to use it for a Mac however on Windows chat rooms and forums. Some Windows users have some strong predjudices about that:D. If the platform question comes up, I would suggest you state that you are using Unix. That is usually acceptable and in reality it is now the truth.

Notes
 

"How long is the turnaround for a warrenty repair?
Are loaners provided?"

Be prepared, when asking these two questions, to hear what won't please you, but is logical.

"Depends."

and

"No."

Sounds stupid and greedy at first, but let's think about it for a moment.

Repair turnarounds, when speaking in terms of part replacement, usually depend on how long it takes for the part to arrive at the repair center, if a part needs to be ordered. Three factors influence this:

1. How long it takes for the manufacturer to process the order (usually very shortly);

2. If the manufacturer doesn't have the part on-hand (some things get backordered), how long it will be before they get the parts;

3. And finally, how long it takes to get shipped to the repair place. This is usually only a business day or two, for most computer makers.

Diagnose the unit, order the correct part, await part arrival. Most of the time, there are no hiccups. Sometimes, there are. Patience is a virtue. ;-)

As for the loaner answer, few repair/reseller places have the inventory available to do such things. It may look like they have ten of those printers on the showroom floor, but once they've opened a box to give you a loaner, they have to sell it at a discount, eating into already-thin margins on computer hardware.

So maybe they have some they've already opened? Yeah, but they're likely already in use around the store. It's rare for places to have printers sitting around, not in use.


On a final note, don't be surprised, upset, or unimpressed if your local salesperson doesn't have all the answers to everything under the sun. They (the good ones, anyway) try to be as knowledgedable as possible about the products they sell, but there are a great deal of things that fall through the cracks now and again. Keeping up with the details of everything in a computer store is much harder than it seems--it's practically a 24/7 job. They may not know something off-hand, but they'll be willing to find out for you. (That's what they're there for, right?) And if they aren't, well, they're not one of those good ones I mentioned. ;-)

-/-
Mikey-San
http://www.mikey-san.net/

interesting thread...

a lot of issues were touched on above, but there are a couple of other issues that need to be addressed. print quality is one, in my experience the epsons have had the best, but i haven't bought a printer in years, so does anyone know if the other manufacturers have caught up?

this is the most important issue for me because i use my inkjets for presentations or portfolios or any other print job that requires high quality printing. i would never use an inkjet for everyday black and white printing, they're still not fast enough and you can't beat a laser printer's quality/speed capablities, and they're getting more affordable. so ppm, while nice, is not the top priority for me.

the way the printer feeds is another issue. i like to print portfolios two sided with some critical alignments that relate from front to back. i have been able to acheive this with my epson 740 by using the right software (abobe illustrator) and the way the printer feeds. compared to my epson 1520, which lifts and pulls the sheet on the horizontal plane then rolls it over on itself, the 740 pulls the sheet from the vertical plan and straight through the printer. gravity assists in a large part to keeping the paper feeding through consistently.

so there you go. if someone has any insight as to which printers could work for me, i'd appreciateit.

Epson Photo printers
 

Thought I'd post a bit about my experience with Epson's Photo printers.

My wife and I decided to go with the Epson Stylus 700 Photo because of it's 6 color printing. The addition of Light Cyan and Light Magenta really gives a level of subtle detail that's not really possible with the standard 4 color printing. We have been continuously amazed at the quality of photos printed on Epson Photo Paper. My wife is a photographer/designer and I am a designer so we're really picky when it comes to prints. We feel they are on par with Dye-sublimation in terms of quality.

On the other hand we are also extremely annoyed with our printer. The print heads continuously clog and it uses about 1/8 of your ink to unclog them. If even one hole of one of the 6 heads is clogged the print will be ruined. Additionally, if the head of your black ink is clogged you can't just clean the black head, you have to clean all of them and waste your color ink as well.

The paper tray is a vertical one that feeds through and we've put just about evey type of paper possible through it from Art papers to labels. We've never had a single problem though heavy papers take a bit of coaxing.

Another problem, specific to the Photo 700, is that the color ink cartridge is becoming scarce. All other epson printers share a cartridge with at least one other Epson printer, but the 700's color cartridge only fits the 700. This shouldn't be a problem with any of the newer printers.

The whole clogging thing really has us peeved at ink jet printers in general. I think that the 700 (or maybe the photo series) are more prone to it, but it's something that has really turned us off of ink jet printers. I haven't been able to find any information about which printers clog more than others, either.

In the future, when we get some more money and are ready to upgrade the printers, we're going to get a low-cost Postscript capable Laser printer and an inkjet printer with cheap ink. They're all pricy, but some are cheaper than others. If we need to print something nice we'll upload it to Ofoto or something like that.

It's interesting that a printer that prints as beautiful as the Epson Photo can actually cause someone to swear off ink jets. Good luck.

Canon has OSX drivers for probly most if not all of the Inkjet range. Go to the website and have a look see under the driver section of any Canon printers you like :)

C600 works brill :)

:)

happy with Lexmark
 

Not much to add to this tread, only my own experience with a Lexmark Z32. Dirt cheap printer, but the cartridges are very expensive (with the jets build-in).
Before i bought it, i made sure refill-ink was available. So I also bought a bottle of ink. I'm not a heavy user, but so far, 2 years, I'm very happy, still working with the 1st cartridges which I refilled maybe 6 times.
At least for me the drivers are working without any problem, Lexmark was pretty fast with OSX support, and also updated their drivers later, which were a lot faster.
A friend of me has an Epson C-60, and has problems all the time with the driver, i noticed on some lists he's not alone.

HP G85 All in One
 

My G85 does an excellent job of printing and scanning. It could be a real money maker. Cartridges contain the print heads and I've not had any clogging problems. Kind of hard to refill and I have not found a color refill kit. Refills would be limited by print head life and how many little ball bearings will fit in the tank.:D The only jams I've had were caused by the OLD OS9 driver not timing correctly when run in the background from Classic. These were actual physical crashes in the mechanism.(accompanied by loud crashing noises) It took me many months to discover it would print from the forground. And many more months waiting for OS X drivers.

Other issues:
This is a pdf printer and does not print ps (or text) files from the command line or XFree86 apps. (haven't got my filter working yet)

Best photo color mode is v e r y s l o w .

Don't know if a non-english driver is available.

You have to wake up the printer if it goes to sleep.

Price (well the refills don't cost as much as the printer)

Am I happy with it? YES (but I had serious doubts in mid 2001)
Willy

"Don't forget the Extended Warrantee"
 

As a former employee of large comp-uter oriented store in the USA, I wanted to remind everyone to purchase the extended warrantee package that the management forces down your throat when you try and buy a printer. It is especially important with printers which cost the same or less than the print cartridges - such as when there is a free giveaway with a computer. Not only does this give the store a much needed margin increase for the sale, it gives you the ability to bring the printer in and either exchange it or have it fixed right at the store you bought it from!

Personally I have always had HP printers and until recently have sworn up and down that their platen roll around paperfeed beat any gravity feed I have ever seen. In the early days of the gravity feed this may have been true. I still like the front loading capability of the hp, and when I have a final print of framed art it is worth the 4 am trip to the local kinkyos to use their "good printer" which is an hp color laserjet.

a "mid range" hp printer seems to have some good life in it - I have an hp 550c which has been around forever, and does ok - kind of low resolution on stuff, but if you aren't printing the mona lisa, who cares? I just refill the black cartridge and its fine. I have even printed presentation folders in it that were wider than the paper path - I just folded over one edge, and it worked fine.

One feature I like about the 935C (and is common with newer hp's) is that the back comes off so you can clear any paper jams - of which I have had one.

I had a costly and enormous waste of time attempting to refills H-P cartridges with color ink refill kits from MS. The prints were terrible, the mess was unbelievable, and the cartridges would spontaneously clog without reason, requiring flushing out at a kitchen sink filled with intense colored dyes. And H-P's are supposed to be one of the easiest to refill.
The Epson printers additionally need a non-interrupted flow of ink or an air bubble in the feed tubes can ruin the print head (very costly). Refilling may work for esoteric specialty printing, but is useless for the average user, and the cost of OEM factory cartridges should be considered part of the printer chosen.

I hate Epson.

-Jim

Canon S520
 

The new Canon S520 is Mac OS X compatible, this model comes very highly recommended on many PC-related websites (seems to be a replacement for the S600).

This new four ink-chamber printer (the ink is very cheap (compare prices,) this really is important for budget-minded folks!) and more logical (separate colors, if one color runs out you don't have to throw away the whole color cartridge) does NOT come with Mac OS X drivers on the CD-ROM.

My first download of the driver, from one section of Canon's website, seemed successful. It uncompressed with no problem at all, when run I came up with crazy JAVA errors! I searched all kinds of Mac websites for clues, nothing at all even mentioned about this new printer.

After quite a bit of fiddling with settings/resetting, etc - I wondered if I had a system problem with running JAVA altogether. I decided to download the drivers again.. this time it the opened file ran perfectly and I might add very professionally.

---

All the reviews everywhere about this model show it to be an awesome deal and now I'm comforted to know it's Mac OS X compliant.

I'll post more later as I check out the print quality of this unit..

Jacques

Man, looks like my thread has been "slash-dotted"!

Cheers for all the feedback so far - this has turned into a really informative thread, with loads of opinions all over the place. I think I'll be printing this out and digesting it slowly next week while I'm making the phone calls ;)

Anyway, I'm still looking at the Lexmark, mainly for the print-head issue : Lexmark carts have print-heads built into them, while Epson ones used to just have one set of print heads which were part of the printer.

Is this still the case?

TIA (again) (again...)

Printheads - differences?
 

The Canon has one permanent print-head (using C-Y-M-B ink), doesn't this make it less expensive in the long-run? What's the advantage / disadvantage of this setup?

Jacques

I got a lexmark z32 at costco for $40 or some crazy amount.. Unfortunately, that was $40 too much. Clogs terribly if you don't use it every day, and the replacement ink is hideously expensive. Don't go lexmark.

Put it this way - my Epson has a print head built into the machine. It's currently munged. Building print heads into carts DOES make them more expensive, but it effectively takes print-head life out of the equation.

I think?