I need less sucky printers

[Mercutio]

Once again, I have the opportunity to purchase new printers for my classrooms.

The people I work for demand photo-printing, and strongly prefer the biggest rip-off of desktop HP Photojets.

My objections:
1. Current HP PJs install 300MB of drivers. SRSLY.
2. Assholes keep stealing power packs for our printers. These power packs are irreplaceable. HP literally does not offer a way to get them if one dies or goes missing. They do for most of their printers, but not the photojets.
3. Standalone = higher costs.
4. Stupid, stupid cartridge expiration. My K550 carts all expired in under a year, before they were even empty.
5. HP pisses me off for reasons 1 - 4.

My requirements:

1. Photo printing. Yes, that means color laser is completely out. I tried. I really did.[/url] We do a lot of classes for Photoshop and miscellaneous digital photography topic, and laser output just isn't good enough for that; offering students essentially free photo printing during class is an attraction for some people.
2. No Lexmark/Dell printers. Ever. I mean it.
3. Native network interface. I'm not putting the printers anyplace where someone can easily steal the power cords again.

 

[Will Rickards]

Your last requirement is probably going to limit you a lot.
Is there a device that could be used as a bridge for this purpose?

 

[Mercutio]

I guess I could buy some kind of crappy print server if I had to.
I have four printers right now - probably $600 worth of hardware and ink, all told, that are useless now because someone walked off with a power cable.

They are all different from a standard power cable, and I can't think of a reason someone would take the cables other than to just be a dick.

My answers to all questions involving printers are, of course:
1. We don't need printers. At all. Ever. Especially not Inkjets.
2. Buy a laser printer if we do.
3. Students don't need to be using our consumables anyway.

But I am not the check writing person.

 

[Will Rickards]

I was actually thinking of suggesting something like one laser and a photo only printer (you know those 4x6 ones). Not sure if that is in the budget or not. And what about the regular color prints....

Take a look at the epson's and see if any of their models would work for you.

Also what is the budget and how many printers?

 

[Mercutio]

Budget is any amount of money that will result in three classrooms having functional, photo-capable Inkjet printers. My boss literally wants there to be a photo printer attached to each individual computer, so if I find one or two networkable printers (not HP, not Lexmark) that can handle the workload instead, that's better all around. I'm not going to tolerate maintaining 36 inkjet printers, and that seems to be what she wants.

Again, anything that is not an inkjet is not acceptable.

My head started throbbing just typing that, I swear.

 

[ddrueding]

If it's going to be one printer for 12 workstations, I'd assume speed would be an issue. Is there an administrative console that the printer could be connected to? I'm not seeing many networkable photo printers that aren't HP or Lexmark.

 

[Mercutio]

*I* don't care about speed. I'm not going to have to use it.
In my mind, slower is better, so the evil students use fewer of our consumables.

 

[ddrueding]

Customer service is much easier without customers

 

[Mercutio]

They aren't *my* students.

 

[Tannin]

Canon or Epson. For inkjet printers there are no other brands worth even thinking about. I no longer know which of the two brands to recommend, as neither one has given me the slightest cause for grief in many years.

If you buy any other brand you can use it, if it lasts long enough, to print out your certificate of insanity.

Cheap, fast, reliable, reasonable running costs by inkjet standards, proper power cables (i.e., the sort that you can buy replacements for from just about anywhere, and don't need to because you have spare ones lying around anyway), there are no other choices. Canon or Epson. They are both good, toss a coin to decide which one.

 

[P5-133XL]

Try looking into dye sublimation printers. They are expensive to buy and operate; are deathly slow; not particularly reliable; but photo quality is near perfection. The most important feature is that they are not inkjets!

 

[jtr1962]

1. Photo printing. Yes, that means color laser is completely out. I tried. I really did. We do a lot of classes for Photoshop and miscellaneous digital photography topic, and laser output just isn't good enough for that; offering students essentially free photo printing during class is an attraction for some people.

Are you going by your standards or your students? What's unacceptable to you might be perfectly acceptable to most of your students. I know on my CLP-510 color photos look just fine to me. And that's a fairly old printer by today's standards. I can't believe there's nothing in color lasers which offers what you consider acceptable print quality.

 

[Mercutio]

Unfortunately, that Samsung laser printer is no longer made and no model of equivalent features was made to replace it, and no, no human being on Earth would look at color laser output and compare it favorably to something with a 4 or 6 tank photo printer's.

These are not my standards. My standard would probably be a laserjet III and a swift blow to the head every time someone used the word "color."

I must contemplate dyesubs, however.

 

[mangyDOG]

I agree with Tannin on this. Canon is probably the only way to go. A lot of their mid range inkjets now come with integrated network ports, and they have a few models designed for business use with huge ink tanks (expensive to buy but much cheaper per page).

cheers,
mangyDOG.

 

[udaman]

I can't believe there's nothing in color lasers which offers what you consider acceptable print quality.

I think jtr did not read into Merc's posts very well. Merc couldn't give a damn, it's the person who is soliciting his advice and presumably requiring him (hence hostility on Merc's part...issues ) to maintain printers he couldn't give a damn about, quality or not.

These are not my standards. My standard would probably be a laserjet III and a swift blow to the head every time someone used the word "color."

I must contemplate dyesubs, however.

To quote Spock "Fascinating". Why "must" you contemplate???

I agree with Tannin on this. Canon is probably the only way to go.
cheers,
mangyDOG.

Canon printers suck way more than their fat, obsolete dinosaur dSLR's.

Canon or Epson. For inkjet printers there are no other brands worth even thinking about. I no longer know which of the two brands to recommend, as neither one has given me the slightest cause for grief in many years.

If you buy any other brand you can use it, if it lasts long enough, to print out your certificate of insanity.
... there are no other choices. Canon or Epson. They are both good, toss a coin to decide which one.

You could check my sanity after dealing with the total POS that was the Canon i950. Let it sit for more than a few months (unlike HP Deskjets cartridges that last for a long, long time) and the print head will plug, requiring replacement, no amount of cleaning, soaking in isopopel alc will keep the print head from clogging, causing horrid output. Dye inks run like crazy with the minutest amount of moisture applied to the paper after printing, pigment inks are semi-waterproof. Canon has but one high-end consumer model 9500 wide format that uses pigmented inks, but no ethernet port.

Only advantage of the Canon consumer line is the print heads are user replaceable where as Epson requires authorized dealer servicing $$$. Epson pigmented ink cartridges on the lower end consumer models leak worse than Clinton's...

I think Merc needs to get a grip, even if you could get the buyer to agree on networked printers, with 3 classrooms, you'd need at least 3 printers (probably a good idea to have one backup).

How old are these classroom students? What type of cameras are they using? dSLR's or PnS? For PnS, any general inkjet printer will do fine on photo output, you don't need a HP Photosmart printer, Deskjet will do fine, and probably give better quality text as well as printing faster.

http://www.consumersearch.com/www/computers/inkjet-printers/review.html

Both Canon & Epson have networking inkjet printers, but the AIO models are usually the ones with this capability, and might be a better choice for the classroom, even if more complexity results in more things to break, not work well from student abuse.

Keep in mind that while you can get networking with these consumer level printers, functionality/reliability can be problematic...best do some research on the flaws in each of these hardware/software solutions before you find out those problems which cause you to spend more time dealing with the printers than you would have if you 'd just bought 36 of them that are cheap $100 printers. Sometimes WiFi networks don't plug N play nice ...you're dealing with M$ Windoze, yes????

http://www.epson.co.uk/options/printer/interfaces/index.htm

http://estore.usa.canon.com/SearchResults.asp?strKeyWord=network&blnKeyWordSearch=True

 

[Tannin]

Ahh, I see your are in fine vitriolic form, Udaman. Good to see some fair-dinkum frothing-at-the-mouth ranting return to the hallowed halls of Storage Forum, I have missed a bit of good old-fashioned robust debate.

Just to inject, alas, a note of practical advice and sanity here in what was otherwise threatening to turn into a good thread worthy of reading whenever I tire of Ken Rockwell, you shouldn't leave any inkjet printer idle for more than a few weeks. If you did that with an HP and got away with it, then good luck to you. My ancient Epson C61 regularly amazes me that it hadsn't clogged up yet despite practically never getting used, but these are exceptions. You should never count on any inkjet not clogging. If you want to leave a printer unused for any length of time, get a laser.

We now return you to our regularly scheduled rantfest.

 

[Gilbo]

I don't know about Canon's dye-based Photo Printers, but their pigment ink printers are the opposite of their competitors with respect to clogging tendencies: they're by far the most resistant to clogging. By far... (Epsons are legendarily poor.) I believe I've also heard that the Epson dye printers are worse than Canon's but I don't really keep up on the dye printers.

Mercutio, consider wax-based printers. The Xerox Phaser 8860 has colour at the same cost as black. Incredibly low. If it's too pricey the ]8560 is better than just about anything else (except it's bigger brother) with respect to colour ink costs. Neither are particularly cheap up front though...

As for quality, photo printing from a wax-based printer is higher than from a laser, but not as good as the dedicated photo inkjets. Xerox will send you a test print though.

 

[Mercutio]

I already have to deal with six Phaser solid ink printers. They cost a young fortune in consumables and, once again, don't come close to matching the moronic photo printing requirement I am having to deal with.

The newer Phasers are very fast printers; I think our newest is three times faster than our oldest for real world printing, but I've also noticed wonkiness with the network interfaces our two newest ones. Sometimes they forget their static IP and/or stop responding over the LAN.

 

[ddrueding]

Sometimes they forget their static IP and/or stop responding over the LAN.

(slightly OT): This is a problem I consistently have with every Brother printer. Add them to your crap list (HP, Lexmark, Brother).

 

[blakerwry]

I have an HP laserJet4 that does this as well... Is it the network card or the printer?

 

[blakerwry]

btw, I'm happy with the Canon i470 that I purchased for my family ~ 3 or 4 years back.

Has had zero issues, although consumables don't last long if you print much.



Your job in this matter is to give your boss information. Make recommendations, weigh the pros and cons of each, and let your boss decide.

Option 1: 1 printer per workstation (36)... initial cost: $3600, Annual consumable cost: $1000, Average life span: 1 year, Annual maintenance cost: $1000 + 10 hours (assuming you just buy extras and simply replace flaky units when problems occur), Total projected annual cost: $5600 + 10 hours

Pros: Highest print availability
Cons: students may not be able to use a workstation because of a failed printer, high cost of ownership, constant problems and unforeseen opportunity costs due to high level of maintenance.

Option 2: 1 printer per classroom (3)... initial cost: $3000, annual consumables: $750, Average life span: 3 years, annual maint cost: $ 500 + 5 hours , Total projected annual cost: $2250 + 5 hrs.

Pros: low cost of ownership, low maintenance, any student can print to any printer
cons: Students may have to wait for other's print jobs to complete.

Option 3: 2 printers per classroom (6)... same as above, with only a higher initial cost. Annual cost may not change much due to a longer expected life span on all printers caused by lower duty cycle.

Pros: redundancy
cons: ... higher initial cost.

If you present several options and make one the clear winner it's pretty hard for your boss to make the wrong decision. And if they do, well at least they have no one to blame but themselves.

 

[P5-133XL]

Don't forget to include the rent cost for the extras square footage needed for all those printers. You will need a bigger room, fewer workstations (fewer paying students per classroom/teacher?), or a lot less elbow room if you have one printer per workstation vs a few networked larger printers.

 

[Pradeep]

If you are worried about cost of ink then the "new" Kodak inkjet printers may be worth a gander.

 

[iGary]

The Xerox Phaser (nee Tektronix Phaser) -- which I have always jokingly referred to as "liquid krayola squirters" -- is best used for graphics arts output, not photographic output.

As for inkjet quality, I like Epson's inkjet printers best. I don't like Epson's high-end offerings, such as their roll media plotter (HP better there). Even though I've had the chance, I have not tested that recently-released low-cost Kodak inkjet printer. I have only heard through the grapevine that it is a good printer and the consumables aren't expensive. I don't know if it uses one of Merc's dreaded external power supplies, or if it has in-built Ethernet networking.

Recent dye sublimation printers (like Kodak's offerings) aren't as slow as the old ones. Quality is excellent. And, compared to supporting one of those stand-alone photo mini-lab setups, which use real photographic printing paper and chemicals, they also hold their own in costs on short run jobs with essentially equivalent quality.

Kodak should also be considered (inkjet and dye sublimation) along with Canon and Epson.

 

[Gilbo]

The Xerox Phaser (nee Tektronix Phaser) -- which I have always jokingly referred to as "liquid krayola squirters" -- is best used for graphics arts output, not photographic output.

I certainly shouldn't have suggested otherwise (and didn't really mean to). I just wanted to note that I found their photo output to be noticeably better than Colour Lasers, which is not exactly a compliment.

I already have to deal with six Phaser solid ink printers. They cost a young fortune in consumables

Consumables are that bad? I thought the whole point is that they were easier on consumables.

 

[Mercutio]

Consumables are that bad? I thought the whole point is that they were easier on consumables.

Well, let's lay that myth to rest...

They are THAT bad. If my math is right, a set of black blocks last us on average about 4300 pages (some printers use bigger blocks, some smaller, and there's the question of how much of each page is covered... and the color blocks are only supposed to last about half as long). A set of black blocks costs about $100, and the printer needs four sets of blocks to print at all.

Also, we've found that non-Xerox blocks are horribly uneven in terms of quality.

In contrast, a color Laserjet 8500 also needs about $500 worth of toner carts to operate, but each cart is rated for IIRC 15,000 pages, making the Phasers something like four times more expensive (given the low capacity of the color blocks) than a standard laser printer in terms of consumables.

My company spends about 40% more on printer consumables than it does paying me, and I'm the highest paid employee. I've suggested moving to online access of PDF files or even well-crafted HTML documents that could be distributed on CD, but, again, the person I work for is afraid that would result in widespread redistribution of our training materials, and thus is unwilling to consider any distribution but paper.

Anyway... blakerwry, I write proposals for clients all the time, and believe me I've been down that road here several times. In this case, I'm fighting a "We've always done it this way" mentality along with some bizarro-world dislike of Laser Printers and in fact a dislike of non-HP equipment as well. Needless to say, trying to push in a change here is whole bunches of fun all at once.

My inclination at the moment is to buy a couple Canon printers and stick them on a USB to Ethernet print server. I have no long term experience with Canon printers at all, but at this point I feel that they can't possibly be worse than recent HP experiences.

 

[Gilbo]

Thanks Mercutio, I was considering recommending one of these over a colour Laser at my office; I'll have to reevaluate that.

Incidentally, what models do you have experience with? The 8860's black cartridge is supposed to be good for 14,000 pages, but I wouldn't be surprised if that was BS.

 

[Mercutio]

I was looking primarily at the reports page on our Phaser 8200DN. The older ones (850, 860) seem to be better for consumables cost than our newest one (8560).

 

[e_dawg]

Well I was going to suggest Xerox Phaser in a networked environment, but you're not a fan... how about the HP Color LaserJet 2600n? I love my CLJ 1600 and thinks it produces photos that are among the best from colour lasers that can compete with cheap 4-colour inkjets.

As for colour inkjets, i love Epson, and think the Stylus Photo 3800 would be a good fit in a network environment. I've actually had less clogging issues with my Epson than either of my two Canons.