£250 for a printer

[inyourface]

Evening all

as title says, ive got £250 pound to spend on a printer for photogtraphy and was wandering well hoping that you guys and gals could point me in the right direction.
i have no idea what a good printer is so looking for advice on which one and so i can learn myself what makess it good, if that makes sense.

£250 is my limit and to be honest i would like one that prints bigger than a4 and good at b&w

many thanks all

mat

 

[coldpenguin]

One thing to considef is the cost of papers and ink.

I got the canon pro 9500 mk ii for around that mark. It is a3+ (13 X 19 INCHES, it can do 14 inches).
However, good a3+ paper cost more than £1 per piece, plus ink, of which there are 10 (14ml) carts.

Whichever printer you get, you may wish to start reading up now on profiles and colour matching. Getting the wrong profile will ruin an image.

 

[Ozk10]

Have a look at the New Epson XP-950 got one myself a few weeks ago,up to now it looks like a good buy.

 

[martsharm]

£250 is a tricky price point. The aforementioned XP-950 is more a multifunction unit rather than a dedicated photo printer and might lack in gamut due to only 6 inks. It seems to ask you to load the paper at the rear for A3s, one sheet at a time, which could become tiresome. The ink cartridges look rather small too.

In all honesty you should bite the bullet and go for a proper dedicated photo printer, namely the Canon Pro 100. Park Cameras are doing it with an extra full inkset and some good paper for £388. Which makes it about £250 for the printer. You'll need ink and paper anyway so in practical terms it's within budget. The 100 uses 8 inks so wider gamut. I use it's predecessor the 9000 mark II and it's great. And I prefer Canon paper to Epson for the simple reason that they package it properly in a strong corrugated cardboard sleeve. Epson paper comes in a flimsy thin card box and is invariably dented on the corners.

I can't see you vein disappointed with the Pro 100. The only downside might be a single black, so potentially not quite as strong with B&W as those printers with greys or blacks optimised for matte / gloss papers, but then you'd be blowing the budget in a spectacular fashion!

 

[dinorock]

Have a look at the New Epson XP-950 got one myself a few weeks ago,up to now it looks like a good buy.

looks good to me, iv'e had a print out of the spec for that one in my draw for a couple of weeks. just waiting for the funds to build up. hth mike

 

[martsharm]

looks good to me, iv'e had a print out of the spec for that one in my draw for a couple of weeks. just waiting for the funds to build up. hth mike

You'll need plenty of funds to keep buying those tiddly 5ml ink cartridges! Seriously, the Canon looks like such a better printer - unless you really need the bells n whistles of the Epson. That A3 paper feed would drive me insane too.

 

[dinorock]

You'll need plenty of funds to keep buying those tiddly 5ml ink cartridges! Seriously, the Canon looks like such a better printer - unless you really need the bells n whistles of the Epson. That A3 paper feed would drive me insane too.

seems i can't find the ink cartidge size anywhere in the blurb are they hiding something?

 

[martsharm]

seems i can't find the ink cartidge size anywhere in the blurb are they hiding something?

The standard carts are 5.1ml but it seems XL carts are available with 9.3ml. Cost for all 6 XL size @ Amazon £60.48 which is £1.08 per ml.

The Canon cart size is 13ml, the 8-pack costs £67.99 delivered from Just Ink, which is 65p per ml. So running costs for the Canon are 40% cheaper. And trust me, if you get into printing, which is the whole point of the printer in the first place, a 40% reduction in the cost of ink is very welcome indeed.

And I should qualify my "wider gamut" statement from before - I was thinking about the Pro 9000 II which adds a red and green cart. The Pro 100 doesn't have the red and green, but adds a grey ands light grey so should be very good for B&W, which was on the OP's wish list.

 

[martsharm]

And for comparison, the Epson 3880 has 9 80ml tanks at a cost of £362.18 for a set - a set contains 720 ml ink so the ink is 50p per ml. 54% cheaper than the XP-950.

Even more interesting, if you're prepared to pay the XP-950 cost per ml of ink, let's work out what the cost of the printer is when the included ink is factored in, assuming the ink per ml is the same across all three printers.


Canon Pro 100 £388 with £40 paper and extra ink set, 16 pack of ink @ 13ml @ £1.08/ml = £224.64 ink included, means you pay 388 - 40 - 224.64 = £123.36 for the printer

Epson 3880 @ £934 with 9 inks @ 80 ml @ £1.08/ml = £777.60 ink included, means you pay 934 - 777.60 = £156.40 for the printer

Epson XP-950 @ £296.50 with 29.1ml @ £1.08/ml (assuming included ink carts are standard size) = £31.60 ink included, means you pay 296.50 - 31.60 - 30 cashback = £234.90 for the printer

So in effect, because a printer like the XP-950 is so horrendously-priced when it comes to ink, it's *even more expensive* to buy in the first place compared to a big pro printer like the Epson 3880, or the Canon for that matter. Which doesn't even take into account the ongoing cartridge cost. So you might spend less when you buy it but you're paying about double per print when you use it. Which is a quandary - the more you use it, the more money you're wasting! An A3 uses about 2ml of ink, so you'll only get 15 A3 prints out of the XP-950 before having to change *all* the cartridges, whereas the 3880 will do 360 before needing fresh ink.

Let's say you print two A3s a week - you'll be buying an inkset every two months for the XP-950, but every three and half *years* for the 3880. The Canon will last six months but cost 40% less to refill. And bear in mind the XP-950 has cost *more* to buy than either of the other two options.

All of which is a roundabout way of saying, if you can't stretch to the 3880, buy the Pro 100.