all-in-one recommendations?
 

Hi! Before I go and blindly buy another all-in-one device (Lexmark-big mistake), I would like recommendations. Does anyone have any suggestions as to printer/copier/fax machines compatible with OSX? I would love to be able to print via my airport, but that wouldn't be required. It will mostly be used as a printer, so print quality is fairly important. Any ideas??? Thanks in advance!

edited to add: it would also be really cool to be able to print to it from my Win98 machine too! But, that may be wishful thinking...

~Laura

Epson and Canon, definitely. In particular, the Epsons have excellent compatibility and good drivers. Both of them make printers that use very inexpensive ($10-$12) refill cartridges; make sure you buy one of those, versus the ones with $40 cartridges.

I have a CX4600 at home, which I use very lightly (also have a laser), but it always works welll.

I'm not a big fan of all-in-ones, since they make some serious compromises which are not made with separate units. However, if an AIO is a requirement for some reason, I would echo Carlos above, and say go with Epson or Canon. The HP hardware is excellent, but their OS X drivers are very bad. Brother and Lexmark make poor quality hardware, IMO. That leaves Epson and Canon by default.

Of those two, I think I prefer Canon slightly, but Epson is also a fine choice.

Trevor

I've got an HP LaserJet 3020. It doesn't have fax, but there's a version that does. The drivers are incredibly stupid (if you have multiple users logged in, only the first one that logged in will be able to talk to the printer), but I've been assured by HP that a complete rewrite is on the way. I have some faith it won't be too long; they recently released a completely new ScanJet driver, and it's much better.

Anyway, I have been quite satisfied with the hardware. It's an excellent printer.

compromises?
 

Hi! Thanks for the replies! What kind of compromises do you mean? I'm new to this! With my PC, I had fax s/w that worked with my scanner, but no one could ever read my faxes. So I just thought an all in one would be a good solution since I need a new printer anyway. But, I'm curious about the compromises you mentioned possibly making it not worth it.

giskard22, HP promised me that for the HP g85 back in 2000 or 2001, and I'm still waiting. I wouldn't hold your breath. I agree that HP hardware is the best of the consumer-level printers, but they badly badly need better drivers.

LKDahlen, the compromises are pretty simple. Compared to a dedicated unit, printing is not quite as good quality, scanning is not quite as good quality, faxing is not quite as good quality, copying is really slow. If you get a real printer, a real fax machine, a real scanner, and a real copier, you will have better everything.

Trevor

fax sw?
 

Yeah, the AIO must be too good to be true. I can't get one of each though! ($$$) For faxing, is there any software out there that would work ok with OSX and my hp scanner? I don't need anything that sophisticated- just an occasional fax. With my PC, I had a program that was free but didn't work all that well.

Thanks!

If you're using 10.3 and later, faxing options are built-in to OS X.

If your scanner can produce PDFs, you can fax them from the print options in Preview (or any other appropriate app) No need for the fax machine.

If you look in System Preferences, you can also set up your machine to receive faxes.

Brother MFC420CN
 

I aquired a Brother MFC420CN and am very pleased with it. I wrote about it in threads here and here. It comes with a full ethernet connection.

I just bought and installed one of the same over the weekend and it copies, scans and prints very nicely. I have yet to test the fax, but I assume that should be no problem, either.
;)

Just a plug for faxing directly from the printing dialog box - this is VERY easy in OS X and is what I use for my occasional fax.

A bit slower than having dedicated fax hardware (scan, wait, open scanned document (pdf is good but really any format that your mac can open, the OS does the rest), plug phone line into Mac, click print, click fax button, choose phone number, wait, connect phone line back to the phone when finished), but it works every time and I can use address book to store my set of commonly used fax numbers.

To receive faxes on your Mac is a bit more of a hassle, you have to know when they are coming in (unless you have a phone line dedicated to fax), so I don't use this feature.

Slightly off topic, but I always try to encourage people to avoid faxing. It's outdated technology that wastes paper and provides a poor copy since the resolution is so low.
It's much better to scan a document at 300dpi and email it as a PDF. The quality is much better, everyone can open/print it, email has no toll charges, you have a record of sending it in your outbox, and the receiver doesn't need to keep their machine on. I always send pdf files unless a fax is specifically requested, and I always request a pdf unless the sender doesn't have the capability. ;)

And archaic institutions like the insurance industry will insist on archaic technology like fax, for years to come no doubt :D ...

but I'm with you, cwt!

Anyway, not completely off topic - why invest in a fax capability, when the technology really should vanish, anyway?

I think you have answered your own question... we all have to prostrate ourselves before the great god insurance.

The MFC420 has sheet feeder, which is a whole lot more convenient than multiple scan/.pdf pages, particularly when their forms aren't fillable on the computer and/or you don't want to splash out for Acrobat.

For the money, I think Brother has a winner here.

Actually, I only email documents to my agent, and he emails them back. It certainly isn't the entire industry, but it's a start. ;)

Fax is stupid and useless, but having just fought the "why would you want to fax it when you can e-mail it" battle a few times, I can tell you that people just aren't ready to do something easier. People in general just fail to understand anything else. Which explains why our Savin high-end print/copy/fax machine has a "Fax by e-mail" function. People almost understand that concept.

It's all in how it's presented. I usually complain about fax quality while telling them it would just be easier to email it. I also tell them that I'm likely to loose a paper copy so I need to have the 'original' on my computer. Then it's up to them to come up with a good reason for sending me a fax instead of an email. :D

For *my* use I just tell people I don't have a fax, period. They can choose what to do from there. But for clients who ask about fax servers and similar antiques, I try to guide them to something better, and I have to be gentle about it. The "fax by e-mail" seems to be a reasonable analogy.

When the vendor of the Savins was trying to tell me how great "fax to e-mail" was, I thought, "That's retarded, why wouldn't you just scan and e-mail it then?"

I can HIGHLY recommend the Epson Stylus Photo RX420 - we bought one for a friend of ours, and I was so impressed by it, I bought one for Uni (where I'm typing this from now), and we also bought one for another friend of ours!!

The convenience is superb (what would you expect from an all-in-one!), it's very fast at scanning, copying and printing, and most of all, when put onto Best Photo mode, my GOODNESS!! The photos it churns out on Epson Glossy paper SERIOUSLY rivals professional prints made at your local camera shop! They are UNBELIEVABLE, particularly for a 3-colour printer. When I first bought the RX420, I immediately dissed it for only having 3 colours (as opposed to the 5 colours most photo printers have) - I put the thought of printing photos with it aside as I couldn't see myself doing it much - but I gave it a shot with some of the included glossy 6x4 sheets (50 free - not bad!) and I was absolutely blown away!

As if all those things weren't enough, the measly MEASLY price of £89.30 from www.cwonline.co.uk (if you're in the UK of course), is an absolute BARGAIN!!

I can wholly recommend this printer, and yes, I am quite excited about it! :D

OK... the above poster has to be affiliated with either Epson or cwonline.co.uk. :p

Thanks!
 

Thank you for all the lively discourse! I'm pretty well convinced I don't need a fax after all! I don't use it often enough, and hardly ever need to recieve a fax. Plus, I already have a pretty good scanner. Besides, if someone HAS to send me a fax, I can give them the fax # of the local Office Depot and they can fax it there! Then I can pick it up at my own convenience for pretty cheap. I think I will stick to email/"printing to fax" mentioned above.

Now if I could only get someone to respond to my "Stickies" post...

Thanks again!
~Laura

Oh, I forgot to mention that for those who insist on faxing me, I use efax for incoming faxes. The account is free unless you want to send, and for that I tell people I don't have outgoing fax capability, but I can email them the document!

Another vote for a free eFax account. I think you can only get 3 faxes/mo at most on the free ones, but it sounds like that would do it for you.

I don't know if there is a limit, but in August I received 7 faxes. I'm on the east coast and the free fax number is a California number, so that helps to encourage people to use email.

I use efax (free) for my personal fax "receive", and our company uses efax ($$$) for our business "receive". Being able to forward faxes to multiple recipients within the office simultaneously saves effort and reduces the possibility that someone won't get a fax for a few days because it sat in their snail mail folder. I personally don't have a great aversion to faxes - but with the influx of cheap AIO's, I think pdf's are probably going to eventually take over the "market".

As for the OP's question, I have a Canon MP750 that I just purchased that I couldn't be happier with. It has an ADF and does two-sided printing/copying. One draw to the model I purchased was the multiple ink wells. I had an Epson inkjet that had a black and a multicolor cartridge - if the yellow ink ran out, the printer would not allow you to print (not even a black-only document!!), and you had to trash the entire cartridge - even if the other colors were still full. At $30+ a pop, it got old quick. The MP750 (and several other Canon models) has three color carts and two black carts, and all are less than $11 each. I think they're phasing out the MP750 for the MP780 & MP760, so you might be able to find a deal on it - I got mine for $99.99 at Outpost.

-Joe

Do the scanning drivers work OK? Do you have it set up for wireless print sharing on a home network? I'd like to get a Canon MP7xx model, but reports are that wireless network support is iffy.

I ask about the scanner because I have an HP1200 AIO, which works great with my PC, but I can't get my Mac to even recognize that there's a scanner attached (printing from Mac is OK).

Any help/suggestions appreciated. Thanks!