Way OT: Printers, photocopiers and geek stuff - what should I buy?
Submitted: Wednesday, Feb 20, 2008 at 18:59
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Mike Harding
The ink cartridge on my printer will shortly expire so, obviously it's time to buy a new printer! (I have refilled the cartridge about 8 times so I can't complain).
I thought I'd like to get a laser printer which can also photocopy, don't need it to be able to fax. Wondered about a colour laser but, in reality, don't print many (read 3 over the past few years) photographs and was a bit concerned when the Officeworks flyer encourage me to purchase a HP CM1015 at $299 (after cashback) because it had "over $500 of toners"!!!
Most of my printing is simple text but a copying facility would be useful.
I've read the geek websites but am feeling rather confused :) Help!
Mike Harding
Reply By: Geepeem - Wednesday, Feb 20, 2008 at 19:44
Wednesday, Feb 20, 2008 at 19:44
HI Mike,
Check out what model may suit in the Brother range.
We have a Brother MFC (multi function centre) Model 8820D
Its a Laser that does, printing, scanning, faxes, photocopying (reduce and enlarge).
Our is about 3 years old now - the original toner cartridge lasted over 2 years (or over 8000 pages). Tray will hold 500 sheets.
I'm not sure what the current models that replaced our would be.
We have never had any problems with it - no service calls at all.
About 3 years ago I researched what was available and spoke to a service man that was repairing the printer at work - he advised I get a Brother as in the price range I was looking at they were the best.
I don't know if thats still the case but when I replace
mine I would look at a Brother again.
Hope this helps,
Cheers
Glen
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Follow Up By: Gerhardp1 - Thursday, Feb 21, 2008 at 10:40
Thursday, Feb 21, 2008 at 10:40
I second the Brother nomination.
Pretty much all the Brother stuff is above average.
Colour laser toners for ANY brand are EXPENSIVE. Kyocera is the cheapest colour laser to run, but it's a business printer range, not a very good photo printer range.
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Reply By: Member - Brian (Gold Coast) - Wednesday, Feb 20, 2008 at 20:49
Wednesday, Feb 20, 2008 at 20:49
Hi Mike,
I purchased a Canon MP600 mid last year. Can't remember how much but it was < $400. We have used it heaps here, printing everything from work stuff (quotes etc.......) to photo's. Still on the original ink tanks! The quality is great, it's also a copier and scanner, doesn't fax but another really neat thing it does do.... it can print a label directly on a CD or DVD.... so when we make copies of pics/video from a trip, we can put print the details of the trip onto a selected
pic and print that as a label! Very handy and much easier on the eye than DVD's that have permanent ink scrawled across them! (Not that there's anything wrong with that!)
Hope this helps... let us know what you end up with.
Cheers
Brian
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Reply By: howie - Wednesday, Feb 20, 2008 at 21:14
Wednesday, Feb 20, 2008 at 21:14
been looking as
well.
the canon's look favourite at the moment with most of their printers claiming 9600 x 2400 dpi.
the canon mp970 at $449 (
shop price) also scans,copies and does cd covers etc etc.(even scans 35mm negatives)
there are some cheaper canon's and the good thing is they lose some features obv, but still keep the 9600 x 2400 dpi.
BTW i got told the other day the most important thing for printing is ........ the paper! (probably true)
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Reply By: Member - Phil G (SA) - Wednesday, Feb 20, 2008 at 21:37
Wednesday, Feb 20, 2008 at 21:37
I went for HP because our previous HP 4L laser printer lasted over 8 years without a fault.
We bought a HP 6310 Multifunction from Orificeworks a few months back. 4in 1 Inkjet. Works
well - photocopy feature is great. But its meant to be network compatible, but we couldn't get it to get past our firewall. But HP gave us one of those wireless printer things, so we hooked that in instead. In their current brochure at $179 including a bonus 80gig HDD.
Amazing value if you don't do a heap of printing.
If you do a heap of printing, go B&W Laser.
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Reply By: mfewster - Wednesday, Feb 20, 2008 at 21:44
Wednesday, Feb 20, 2008 at 21:44
There is a much cheaper way of doing this. If you use a Canon or Epson printer, replace the ink cartridges with a rihac system. This will cut your ink costs by over 90%.
Google for Rihac for more info and a list of supported printers. Rihac are in Victoria and they give good after sales service.
The system replaces the usual cartridges with a number of big bulk ink bottles. It takes about an hour to install on your printer. I do a lot of printing, both documents and photos. The rihac system saves me multi hundreds of dollars a year. Once you have the system set up, it is dead easy and you just pour bulk purchased ink into the bottles whenever a colour starts to run low. I used to go through a set of cartridges every few weeks, now I only fill the rihac bottles about once in three months. Each bottle can be filled individually as needed, so there is no wastage, no messing around with syringes etc to refill cartridges. Nope, I don't work for them.
You can get similar systems on ebay, however I have found rihac to be local and reliable.
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Reply By: warfer69 - Wednesday, Feb 20, 2008 at 21:48
Wednesday, Feb 20, 2008 at 21:48
Hi Mike
Stick with Canon Pixma, (never had issue with friends or business ive advised,plus myself) you can get non genuine cartridges for it at Frankston Officeworks for about $14.50 instead of $24 for original..
Have been told they do not stuff your warranty...
I suggest you go to Centre.com in Hartnett drive,If you decide to go this way email me as i have my business registered and can get a couple of bucks off if ya like !
http://www.canon.com.au/home_office/default.aspx
I dont think you'll be happy with quality from laser ...
Cheers
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Follow Up By: warfer69 - Wednesday, Feb 20, 2008 at 21:49
Wednesday, Feb 20, 2008 at 21:49
OH and steer clear of Hewlett Packard ! Their warranty is pathetic.
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Reply By: mfewster - Thursday, Feb 21, 2008 at 08:07
Thursday, Feb 21, 2008 at 08:07
Canon certainly don't honour warranties if the printer has used non genuine inks. Further, those little chips in the cartridges can tell them a lot about what has actually happened. On the other hand, there are work arounds, should you have an issue. All you need is a set of genuine cartridges in the printer when you return it. There are even some non original ink companies who will lend these to you.
I just re-read Mike's original post. If you are only printing 3 colour shots over a few years, then I would also agree that ink jet isn't the best option. Just get the colour stuff done at the local newsagent. Could depend on how much B and W you are doing. If Mike is doing this reasonably regularly, and inkjet is still worth a look if it is combined with a Rihac CISS system because of the huge reduction in ink costs this gives.
Check the RIHAC site or ring them. If I recall, mike H is also in
Melbourne?
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Follow Up By: warfer69 - Thursday, Feb 21, 2008 at 13:59
Thursday, Feb 21, 2008 at 13:59
*Canon certainly don't honour warranties if the printer has used non genuine inks* Nice little scare tactic from them
As you stated YOU would'nt be silly enough to leave the cartridges in would you !
I'm just stating a fact the non genuine ink does not stuff a canon printer from what ive seen over many years over many models...
Some company bought out a system for the ip 5000 and other models for canon where the ink wells were beside the printer,you hooked it up to the cartriges that were already in it so it was easy to fill with non genuine ink. I could not get my hands on one they had sold out completely...
This scenario reminds me of when you buy a new car you have to get it serviced through their dealership !
Cheers
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Follow Up By: mfewster - Thursday, Feb 21, 2008 at 17:21
Thursday, Feb 21, 2008 at 17:21
Wrfer 69 The system you saw was a CISS system of the kind I have been posting about. If you go to the website I gave you will be able to buy one. A cISS system is quite a bit cheaper to run than a laser and avoids the quite heavy power drain when you turn laser printers on. Laser technology really works best when the equipment doesn't have to fire up each time you use it, ie,in a heavy use environment. There have also been a number of health warnings re the powder used in laser cartridges, especially if they are used in small rooms.
The RIHAC mob say that there are quality differences between inks. Their web page is an interesting read on the subject. I dunno, can only say that I find their system excellent and ultra cheap.
I was in Asia recently and looked in at a number of computer shops. Pretty
well everyone of them had converted their printers so they were running on a CISS type system. I
Anyone who lives in SA, call in to Ink Jet City on South Road and have a look at one running.
I think you woulf find Warfer that if you looked very closely at the cartridges that were in the ip5000 you looked at, that they had the chips slightly modified so the printer's brain didn't know it wasn't using standard cartridges and ink. It is not a hard modification to do, just needs a
Stanley knife or scalpel.
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Follow Up By: warfer69 - Thursday, Feb 21, 2008 at 17:55
Thursday, Feb 21, 2008 at 17:55
HiYa mfewster
Thanks for all the info will have a bit of a read !
Catch Ya
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Reply By: MrBitchi (QLD) - Thursday, Feb 21, 2008 at 09:03
Thursday, Feb 21, 2008 at 09:03
Mike, there's numerous laser multifunction devices on the market for around $200 - $300. Any of these will do the job for you. Most of these cost about 5c per copy in toner costs. A 2000 copy toner cartridge is around $100 so they're much cheaper to run than an inkjet device. If you do the sums the ink for an inkjet works out at around $6500 / litre...... Most expensive fluid on the planet ;-(
Colour devices can be pretty expensive to run as they have 4 toner cartridges to replace each time, each of which is typically over a $100, although the cost per page is still cheaper than most inkjets....
I'd recommend something like
This
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Follow Up By: mfewster - Thursday, Feb 21, 2008 at 09:47
Thursday, Feb 21, 2008 at 09:47
Mr B. You are correct about the cost of ink cartridges, but not about the cost if you use a CISS system. In this case they are cheaper than laser per sheet. The problem with cheap laser printers is that (in my experience, based on 3 different brands we tried in a shared office) they didn't last very long. Each lasted less than a year before it started giving problems. This was around 5 years ago, so they may have improved..
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Follow Up By: MrBitchi (QLD) - Thursday, Feb 21, 2008 at 10:02
Thursday, Feb 21, 2008 at 10:02
You may be right about cheap lasers in an office environment, I refuse to have anything less than a HP4250 at work, but I understood Mike to be asking about a personal use printer for
home, in which case a cheap laser is the go. I have run a couple of different models over the years (FUJI-Xerox and Lexmark come to mind) with no problems whatsoever.
Does anybody make a CISS system in a small office printer? For less than $150??
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Follow Up By: mfewster - Thursday, Feb 21, 2008 at 10:11
Thursday, Feb 21, 2008 at 10:11
Mr B
Yes they do. A Ciss with 5 different inks (including about 500ml of ink, which is an awful lot of ink, costs about $130 from RIHAC
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Follow Up By: MrBitchi (QLD) - Thursday, Feb 21, 2008 at 10:17
Thursday, Feb 21, 2008 at 10:17
That's $130 PLUS the printer.....
For someone who's printed "3 or 4" colour pages in the last couple of years a Laser is still the best bet.
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Follow Up By: mfewster - Thursday, Feb 21, 2008 at 10:37
Thursday, Feb 21, 2008 at 10:37
Yes, but if you buy a Pixomat multi fiction, you get a fax, copier, autofeed, double paper tray, printer and CD labeller for about $300. If you added a CISS and never used the colour inks (remember, you only fill the colour (or black) that you need, I reckon you would still be in front when compared to the cost of a laser equivalent plus the cost of laser cartridges. And given the ultra cheap price at which high quality photos can then be done, if he wished, Mike might decide to do some of these as
well.
Check the following site
http://www.rihac.com.au/
In my experience, what they claim is accurate.
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