printer recommendations needed - mostly working in BW

[LarryPlane]

Looking for some kind ofusb printer that can print on photo paper up to A4. Thing is I mostly work in black and white, although I do sometimes need a colour image. At the moment I work with print shops online, but it would be nice to break free of that, but still get decent prints.

No idea what to look at or what price. Would be realistic to think under 100 pounds, but I can be flexible on that.

So any pointers or recomedations?

[Sarawak]

Re: printer recommendations needed - mostly working in BW

We've just bought a Canon MG7150. 6 cartridges including a grey one which seems to help the B&W images. A doddle to set up compared to previous machines. All off line printing. Prints up to A4. We use Fuji papers for B&W and Ilford Gallerie for colour. Colours seem just about spot on. Cost a little over £100 but seems to be good value - so far. We bought it from those nice people at John Lewis.

[2Beers]

Re: printer recommendations needed - mostly working in BW

We've just bought a Canon MG7150. 6 cartridges including a grey one which seems to help the B&W images. A doddle to set up compared to previous machines. All off line printing. Prints up to A4. We use Fuji papers for B&W and Ilford Gallerie for colour. Colours seem just about spot on. Cost a little over £100 but seems to be good value - so far. We bought it from those nice people at John Lewis.

Just wait till you buy the inks I have the MG6250 and to replace all the inks with Genuine canon cartridges is around £54 which is why I went for a continuous ink system

[Tigger]

Re: printer recommendations needed - mostly working in BW

isn't this the kicker with most printers !! they aren't too expensive to buy, but running them with paper and ink gets very expensive

[Muscat]

Re: printer recommendations needed - mostly working in BW

A friend of mine looks on the Canon refurb site on eBay and buys printers for around £50 and when they need ink he sells the printer on eBay for about £25 and buys another refurb unit. A bit of a pain for the colour balance as he has to set this each time he gets a new printer but for mono it shouldn't be too much of an issue

[Sarawak]

Re: printer recommendations needed - mostly working in BW

Just wait till you buy the inks I have the MG6250 and to replace all the inks with Genuine canon cartridges is around £54 which is why I went for a continuous ink system

We are awaiting delivery of two sets of ink for which we paid the princely sum of £37. Coming from our usual ink suppliers. So the inks may only last 15 years as opposed to Canon's supposed lifetime, but who cares? After 5 years max the prints will have been replaced, and we still have the originals if we need a reprint.

[Dave_S]

Re: printer recommendations needed - mostly working in BW

I have (now many years old), an Epson Photo R300, which is a six ink printer, and still capable of producing excellent prints.

Knowing that it is getting quite 'long in the tooth', I bought the Canon Pixma ip7250, which is a 5 ink printer (dye based black, plus CMY), and a pigment based black, used for text printing.

I have to say that I am really impressed with the print quality, being every bit as good as those from the six ink Epson.

BTW, the Epson has been running for years on Jetec ink cartridges, which are much cheaper than Epson originals, and just as good. Prints made several years ago with the Jetec ink, are still as good as those made with Epson ink.

As yet, I haven't had the need to replace the ink cartridges in the Canon, so I don't know how this would work, if at all, with Jetec ink.

Dave

[Stan]

Re: printer recommendations needed - mostly working in BW

We are awaiting delivery of two sets of ink for which we paid the princely sum of £37

I am seriously considering getting the MG7150

I think your inks are looking a bit expensive - £21.99 for a double set on Amazon

Stan

[LarryPlane]

Re: printer recommendations needed - mostly working in BW

Thank you for all the links and thoughts and suggestions. Plenty of research for me to do.