VeeDubb Posted May 21, 2003 Report Share Posted May 21, 2003 So, my printer just died, what should I replace it with? I want color if possible. Also, two cartiges are better than 1, (i.e. one for color and one for black and white) And I'd like it to be as fast as possible and have the cheapest ink possible. So, for less than a $100 what do you reccomend? It's very important to me that it have a real linux driver. My old printer that just died, was only "sort-of" supported and was VERY SLOW. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ixthusdan Posted May 21, 2003 Report Share Posted May 21, 2003 Any Epson or any Canon in your price range will work well, and I have used both brands. Lexmark has linux support, but I have found their ink jet printers to be excellent boat anchors! :lol: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VeeDubb Posted May 21, 2003 Author Report Share Posted May 21, 2003 My printer that just died was a canon BJC-2100 and PAINFULLY SLOW. Are the Epsons any faster? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ixthusdan Posted May 21, 2003 Report Share Posted May 21, 2003 Yes, Epsons are a little faster than Canon's in the same price range. Looks like Epsons are 12 ppm vs 7-10 ppm with the Canons. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bvc Posted May 21, 2003 Report Share Posted May 21, 2003 I can't believe I'm saying this but...for under 100 I say epson. I just didn't like the picture quality, or lack thereof, but I seem to be alone in this arena. Fast? Hard to say. It depends on the driver in linux. The statistics are windows based which makes for a blind read. I tried 3 epsons and all were much faster than my HP932C but it's painfully sloOOoowWWww. I think it's the HP1500 that's fully supported but it's 150USD. The epsons do a superb job with text and do it fast. I've never tried a cannon. Another consideration is Epsons support for linux, which is great, so it's good to support them, which is why I tried and tried for a week to get one with picture quality as good as my 2.5 year old HP :roll: Don't get me wrong....it wasn't printing color that was the prob, it was getting photo quality pictures, and this is in win98 and linux. HP's are good in this arena, in linux as well. http://www.linuxprinting.org/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cjc Posted May 21, 2003 Report Share Posted May 21, 2003 Any Epson or any Canon in your price range will work well, and I have used both brands. Lexmark has linux support, but I have found their ink jet printers to be excellent boat anchors! :lol: I have to agree about Lexmark. I just dumped my Lexmark Z51 for an Epson C82. Speed was not an issue for me as I really enjoyed the Lexmark in the begining. It was the stupid, fricking expensive ink cartridges that were the problem. The jets plug up and they are a bitch to get restarted. I even complained to Lexmark. Sent them the cartridges for inspection  "Oh yeah, we know about the problem in this particular batch, solid particles in the ink batch plug the ink jets"  Well duh, recall all the parts. Needless to say I continued to have problems and at $40/cartridge...forget it. I have an Epson Stylus Color 800 at home and after months of non-use, never fails to print. Sold me.  Now for under $100 you are not going to find speed demon printers. For a little more you are going to find nice prnters.  I bought my wife a Canon i550 ($149.00 w/$30.00 rebate) and I just bought the Epson C82 for work. (both are in the same retail price range) Both printers have individual cartridges for each color. ~$10.00-$11.00 each. If you plan to print pictures, the Epson has the advantage with longer lasting ink colors...otherwise I see them as both to be good printers. (IMHO) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VeeDubb Posted May 21, 2003 Author Report Share Posted May 21, 2003 speed isn't that critical, but with my canon I was getting 2ppm, whitch is pointless. A 20 page paper would take me 20 minutes to print, and that's if it's all black and white! 10ppm would be great. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aRTee Posted May 21, 2003 Report Share Posted May 21, 2003 I say epson, for their support and quality; have the stylus color 740, quality looks great, speed is ok (for text it's good, photos not really fast, but none are). Â They made it possible with mtink to check the ink levels in linux. Â I've had mediocre results with a canon s630, printed fine but no high quality pictures/images (weird ink stripes/effects)... Â Epson and HP seem to be among the more supporting companies for linux. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VeeDubb Posted May 21, 2003 Author Report Share Posted May 21, 2003 aRTree, thanks, that's exactly what I want. The old printer I had acualy uses the 630 driver. So you can imagine if it's a slow driver ont he right printer, just how bad it was on the wrong printer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mtweidmann Posted May 21, 2003 Report Share Posted May 21, 2003 I've just bought an Epson C42UX, which is working great both in Linux and Windows. Printing quality is good, speed and cartridge prices are both reasonably. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest fubar::chi Posted May 21, 2003 Report Share Posted May 21, 2003 having used canon (2100), epson(820 r something like that) and hp (5550). I'd have to say hp's are the best with linux drivers. I had linux suport for all my printers features when it just came out. If you can get on in your price range I'd say go with hp. If you can manage to raise an extra fifty bucks you could buy the desktjet 5550 and get back $50 with a REBATE :). Otherwise i'd say GO canon (just make sure linux drivers are actually available for it) for price and GO Epson for linux driver support. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bvc Posted May 21, 2003 Report Share Posted May 21, 2003 Yes, that's it...Isaid hp1500, but it was the 5550 I was thinking about. Imagine.....all features! :wink: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VeeDubb Posted May 21, 2003 Author Report Share Posted May 21, 2003 The thing I hate about HP is the cost of ink is 150% to 300% of other brands. Even the generic cartriges cost more, though, I went shopping today and found HP's as low as $50.00 And one HP, the officejet 12xx (don't remember the xx) it is a printer/scanner/copier al in one and it's realy pretty small, not sure about drivers though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VeeDubb Posted May 22, 2003 Author Report Share Posted May 22, 2003 Okay, it's the hp psc 1210 printer*scanner*copier ANybody confirm/deny that this works under mandrake? I checked the hardware database at mandrake, but it's not listed either way. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest danc Posted May 27, 2003 Report Share Posted May 27, 2003 While HP ink cartridges do seem to be more expensive, they also seem to last a while for me. If you're not doing that much printing, who cares? I have always had great results with HP and won't buy anything else. I've used an HP 5L (laser), and HP DeskJets 712C and 3820C with absolutely no problems under Linux. The 3820 is under $100 and works flawlessly right out of the box (driver already in CUPS). That's my choice. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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