Helping friends choose a new multifunction printer since their
scanner died and printer is getting flaky.

Simple requirements: want color inkjet but they do little or no
photo printing, just documents, schoolwork, etc.

No networking, no FAXing, no refilling or generic inks, just
regular 8.5x11" paper, no special scanner requirements. For
Windows XP. Doesn't have to be very fast. The average use is
probably low, but ink costs per page should not be exorbitant.

It may not be used every day so should not be subject to
clogging; in general the hardware and drivers should be reliable,
simple, and hassle-free.

Ideally it could do B&W or color copies without PC even being on.

If no particular model, is there a recommended brand?

--
Visualize whirled peas.

The Canon MFs are well-liked. Get which ever one suits your needs. The
MP460, MP510 and MP600 are excellent values.



"bgoosh" <x864-xeas (AT) dea (DOT) spamcon.org> wrote

"Dan G" <none (AT) 12345 (DOT) org> wrote:

Thanks, I've been looking at reviews of these, and also of the related
MP160 and MP180. The "compare" function on Canon's site is useless for
comparing any of these, is there somewhere that summarizes the differences
concisely?

One common mention is that these are slow to start up (like 30 seconds),
and noisy. I'm wondering how noisy - any worse than for instance the HP
960c I have?

Are there any other manufacturers' multifunction printers that are worth
looking at?

Xainin wrote:
That depends.

If you want it for business than HP, but if you want it for photos Canon.

<snip>
For very good quality photos you cannot ignore Epson provided you print
regularly (a couple of prints per week) or HP.
Both produce exceptional quality photos, Canon do not have a mortgage on
quality photo printing.


Tony
MS MVP Printing/Imaging

measekite <inkystinky (AT) oem (DOT) com> wrote:

It's for home use. So Canon's the only good choice?

Also, it turns out they didn't realize that current printers let you take
the camera memory card and review and print pictures directly, and are
interested in that feature. (I was thinking they wouldn't want it since
they print their photos at local stores).

Tony <TonytheTigurrrrr (AT) aim (DOT) com> wrote:

My original post said "It may not be used every day so should not be
subject to clogging", so that would eliminate Epson.

Besides, now that I've spent hours looking at reviews on these things, the
Canon MP600 seems to be a safer bet, getting better reviews overall than
the similarly-priced range HP C4180 or Epson RX580.

Xainin <ugb8-kpjr (AT) dea (DOT) spamcon.org> wrote:
Fair enough, but once a week will keep an Epson healthy. I have no axe to grind
so you should go with your judgement.

Xainin wrote:

enhancement before being printed. Color balancing, exposure adjustment,
cropping out the strange guy on the side who's grinning and waving like
an idiot - things like that. I know that's certainly true of *my*
photos. Your friends would probably be more satisfied if they were to
load their photos onto their hard drive and work on them a bit, rather
than just print them directly.

Photoshop is the be-all and end-all of photo editing software, and many
would say it's the only one worth using - but it's very pricey and most
folks will never use most of its capabilities. Most photo-capable
printers come bundled with photo editing software, but some of those
programs are better than others. I would say that Picasa, available as a
free download from Google, is a good choice for non-professional photo
editing, especially for the novice.

Whichever printer they decide upon, your friends should try Picasa,
rather than print photos directly from the card. They might even decide
they like playing with this stuff!

Oh, one more tip... Whatever editing software you use, always do your
editing on a copy of the original photo, never the original. That way
you can always at least get back to where you started if things go
wrong. And be sure to use the editing software to convert the original
from the jpeg format most cameras use to a lossless format like png or
tiff. That should be your very first step. Saving and resaving jpeg
files causes loss of detail each time you do it.

TJ

--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

Tony wrote:
But he is in the printer business so more Epsons mean more business
resulting in higher profits. Grrrr