Home Printer Recommendations

[Roger P]

I would like a new photo printer along the lines of my current Canon iP4500. My criteria, in order are:

Good photo quality.
Reliability
Low cost per page.
I have an adequate to good scanner so don't need to pay for that to be included
Sensible size, preferably with front loading of general purpose printing paper

It doesn't need to be Canon!

I'm happy to go on-line for specialist printing but I want something quick, handy and good quality for home use.

Any suggestions where and at what I ought to be looking?

Thanks in advance.

Roger

 

[gremlin16]

I'm interested to see how his thread develops. I have had nothing but problems with printers.

 

[chris malcolm]

I've struggled over the years to solve the problem of good photo quality and low cost per page. I've come to the solution that I can't be bothered any more trying to square that circle. I get good photo quality from high cost per home printed page when I want instant high quality results, and reduce my costs by doing most of my printing by post. I have two printers, a very cheap do everything A4 printer/scanner which does documents and quick prints of family snaps. For quality work I use a high quality A3 printer. I've experimented with cheaper third party inks. Some of the better ones produced just as good colours as the expensive OEM inks, but exposed to just natural room light, no sunlight, for a few years, the colours visibly degrade.

I used to use Epson printers because their colours were said to be better. Accidentally I've shifted to Canon, find the image quality to be just as good, and have entirely escaped from the head clogging head cleaning episodes which seemed an inevitable feature of my Epsons if I'd not used them for a month or two.

While the quality of prints from my high quality A3 printer is obviously and delightfully very much better to my eyes, there's hardly anyone I show my prints to who notices the difference in image quality between my 300 pound printer and my 30 pound printer. That's pounds sterling, and divided by three is a rough approximation of printer weight.