New Printer

[graeme_clarke]

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Hello Philip,

 

My Epson 1290 keeps plugging away and produces decent A3+ prints if I want them, and its s still available from several discounting suppliers. Amazon UK want £336 for a 1290s and £507 for a 2400. The two cartridges for 1290 - one for black the other with 4 colours are also readily available from the discout suppliers. I use Ilford Gallerie paper and the profiles work fine printing from photoshop.

Head clogging can be a problem if the printer is not used for a few weeks. The head-cleaning routine solves the issue when used a couple of times. I bought a special cleaning cartrige over a year ago and still haven't opened it. Some of my local camera club experts swear by the 1290 for both colour and monochrome.

 

Other folk will doubtless tell you about newer printers. I guess the bottom line is it depends on your budget, both for the initial outlay, and for replacing the cartridges.

 

Hope this helps,

 

Graeme

[like_no_other]

Hi,

 

at first let me thank you all for taking the time to respond in such an extensive way and for sharing your personal experiences and links to additional informative web resources.

 

Due to the fact that no one recommended Canon printers I think I make no fault if I focus my decision to Epson and HP. A change because I had in mind to choose one of the many Pixma printers. As I see that most of you have experiences with more than one model I think that Pixma printers probably aren't competitive because they didn't make their way to you.

 

Another thing I learned is that I overrated the quality of cheap printers. Before reading your answers I implied that only marginal differences in quality are given between cheap and expensive printers. This doesn't seem to be true. To give a simple analogy, the difference between HP 9180 or Epson 2400 on one side and a cheap Canon Pixma printer on the other side is more significant than the differences between cheap and expensive DSLR's if I take pure picture quality into consideration.

 

So, what printer will I buy? The Epson R800 is not the newest model. A smaller version (A4) of HP9180 would be nice. The self calibration, easy profiling and that there is no need to change cartridges for text printing makes this model very attractive. Maybe HP will present such a printer at PMA.

Because I have limited space on my desk I don't feel really comfortable with buying a bulky A3 printer. Jeff mentioned to buy two printers, one very cheap for text only printing and one for photo printing. This will broaden the options and is a very good advice but takes up to much space on my desk as well.

 

Now I have a much clearer picture of what I'm doing. Thanks again. Before I buy I will wait 1 or two weeks and see if a smaller version of the HP 9180 will be introduced by HP at PMA.

 

Best regards,

Philip

[Shootist]

Let me add that the HP B9180 is quite big. Front to back with the paper tray and outfeed support it is around 16 inches and if you plan on using the SMT (Special Media Tray) you need room behind the printer of about the length of the paper you use. The paper feeds straight in from the front and comes out the back then gets feed back into the printer to print on. Side to side it is fairly wide, about 26 1/2 inches. I have a fairly wide and deep desk and with my PC tower and 2 monitors sitting on it I have room for a notebook docking station and all kinds of junk that seems to collect on it. If I removed the PC tower and the docking station and rearanged the other things I still would NOT have room to fit the B9180 on my desk.

[wag]

Ever since the Javit's photo show late last fall, I've been waiting for the Canon Pixma Pro 9500. The Canon people said at the time this would be the finest B&W printer on the market and that it would sell for under $1,000. 13 x 19 with 8 Lucia archival pigment inks.

Meanwhile, where is it?

Brad