Recently PC Mag reviewed the MP830 and they were pretty impressed by it. Based on a few other sites, it seems like a lot of people are impressed with this machine. It is currently ranked 44th on Amazon’s list of their top selling elcetronics. What is impressive about that ranking is that even though it doesn’t seem that high, it is still the highest ranking for any type of printer. The MP830 barely edges out another Canon, the iP4200, a less expensive model which has been out a little longer.

We’ve written about the MP830 before, first when it was introduced and then recently about a couple of deals on it. The most recent deal from a few days ago had it at $239.99 from Amazon, but the price has since gone up to $247.99. That may seem pretty expensive, but this printer was originally listed at $299.99 and it has only been out for a couple of months. The price still might seem high compared with some of the deals you can find on all-in-one printers, since some of them can be found for under $100. But based on the reviews and the various feedback we have seen for the MP830, it definitely seems to be worth the money.

All the reviews/feedback you will read about the MP830 stress the number of features and how good those features are. Canon meant for this to be a business all-in-one, which means that the fax/scanning features are for real. In addition to a 35 page automatic document feeder and standalone faxing capabilities, the MP830 has double-sided printing and scanning. Although these features are meant more for people who use their printer for business purposes, the MP830 also performs well as a photo printer, so it not limited to business use.

You can check out PC Mag’s review here.

You can check out some user feedback on CNET here.

Buy this printer Buy cartridges for this printer

A month ago, we wrote about how Epson had settled a couple of class action lawsuits over the amount of ink left in their cartridges. Technically if you printer was already registered with Epson, you should have automatically received your credit in the mail. Also, you can still register you printer up until November 13th, 2006 and automatically receive the credit. The June 22nd deadline only applies if you never registered your printer with Epson and don’t want to or else you don’t want the $45 credit and you want one of the other benefits.

So far, based on what we have read on a few different sites, it doesn’t seem like too many people have run into any big problems yet. Hopefully the process is going smoothly for most people. If anybody has had any experiences with this claims process, good or bad, leave us a comment and let us know.

http://www.epsonsettlement.com/

Update - You can visit this page on the official settlement site to be automatically notified when your discount/benefits will become available.

Amazon has the Canon MP830 Office All-in-One on sale for $239.99. This is just a regular sale, so there is no mail-in rebate or coupon code. The list price is $300, and this is the lowest price we have seen for this printer so far, so it is a pretty good deal.

The MP830 is rated at 30 pages per minute black and 24ppm color at a resolution of 9600 x 2400. Canon markets this as an all-in-one with business in mind, so it has pretty good features compared with typical multifunctions. It can copy both sides of a document without the user having to turn the page over and it has the ability to receive a fax with 250 incoming pages. At the moment, this is one of the most robust inkjet all-in-one printers. If the MP830 is too fancy for you, then you can try the model it replaced, the MP780.

You can find Canon MP830 cartridges on our site.

Sometimes even when an ink cartridge has been refilled to capacity, your printer still registers it as empty. This is because your printer remembers that the cartridge was previously installed and it can only remember it as being empty. Part of this is due to technology put in place by printer manufacturers so that you will always have to buy new cartridges. Part of it is also that printers are just dumb and give us lots of errors for no reason.

Because there is no “official” way to fix this problem, you have to basically clear the printer’s memory to make it recognize that you are installing a full cartridge. If you have tried to install the refilled cartridge and you have done all you can to convince your printer that the cartridge isn’t still empty, then basically you just have to unplug your printer for a minute and then trying reinstalling again. You can read more about this process here, but it should fix this problem and it can potentially fix other annoying things your printer is doing.

Even though this article is from Australia where printer companies might run a little differently, it still applies to this situation. Someone was mad about their refilled cartridge not being recognized so they took Lexmark to court. Some secret agreement went down and the customer was happy, but in reality nothing changed in the grand scheme of things.

Ink stink [Sydney Morning Herald]

With every new generation of inkjet or laser printers, there comes new software. Gone are the days when you just installed a simple driver on to your computer and never noticed anything different. First came software to better control your printer, including the ability to run cleaning cycles and check ink levels. That was ok, and also pretty useful. It was nice not having to wait until you got streaky prints missing one color to know that it was time to get a new ink cartridge.

But then with the popularity of home photo printers came photo software. Printers started coming with CDs filled with all sorts of photo editing and management software - all of which was pretty useless. As photo printers got more popular and more fancy, the software that came with them got more bloated.

Unfortunately most people are stuck with all this software because it just installs itself along with the other software that is necessary to run your printer. After it’s already on the computer, most people either are comfortable or technically inclined enough to remove the unnecessary software while keeping the important stuff. Because every printer manufacturer has their own software that differs from printer to printer, there is no easy way for everyone to get rid of software that might be clogging their system. But, if you know for sure that you never ever use any of the photo software that came with your printer, then you can delete it by going to:

Start > Settings > Control Panel > Add or Remove Programs

There you should be able to find the software that you aren’t using. For instance, you might see something like HP Memories Disc Creator which you have maybe never ever heard of and therefore can delete.

For information about this problem as it applies to HP printers, check out this article.

Buy.com has the PIXMA MP450 on sale for $82.99 after rebate and discount. The list price is usually around $140, so this is a pretty good deal.

This is an all-in-one photo printer that has good scanning and printing resolutions and is rated at 22 pages per minute for black and 17 for color. This machine is a little different than most Canon inkjets because it uses one black and one color cartridge instead of the individual ink tanks that you find in most of their machines. It is not going to make a difference in the actual results that you get, it’s just a question of whether you prefer buying one type of cartridge over the other.

We’re not sure how long the sale will last, but the $30 rebate is good until 6/30.

Before someone uses a refill kit for the first time, they often wonder how many times they can refill their cartridge. This is a difficult question because the answer can vary depending on a number of factors, but on average a typical inkjet cartridge can be refilled three or four times. A lot of cartridges can be refilled up to ten times, but there are some that can only be refilled once or twice - hence the average.

The reason the number of refills can vary is mostly due to the fragile nature of the print head. That shiny copper portion on the bottom of your cartridge is the most important part and it is how the cartridge communicates with the printer. If the print head is damaged or even slightly scratched, that can affect the performance or operation of the cartridge. This is why the print head comes with tape on it and the instructions tell you to never touch it. There are other internal parts on the cartridge that will wear out eventually, but they are not as fragile as the print head.

Another factor that affects the success of a refill is how old and dried out the cartridge is. If you have had the cartridge for a long time (over a year) and it goes unused for long periods of time between prints or refillings, then it will become dried out and the nozzles will not be able to dispense the proper amount of ink. It will become more clogged over time until eventually you will get no ink at all. At this point you can try soaking the cartridge, but eventually it will get dried out to a point where there is nothing that can be done to fix it.

Based on those two things, you can see that the way to ensure a long life out of your cartridge is to carefully handle it and to use it with some type of regularity so it does not dry out. If you have a standard inkjet cartridge where the print head is unscratched and the nozzles are clean, then you are most likely going to be able to get an above-average number of refills.

The Samsung ML-2010 is available for $50 (with free shipping) from Staples after a $50 rebate and a $30 coupon. This printer normally retails for $130, so even if you hate mail-in rebates and only want to use the coupon, you will still be getting a good printer for around $100.

The ML-2010 is a high-quality machine that is fast and produces good text results. It is a lean, mean machine (the first page supposedly comes out in 10 seconds) that doesn’t mess around with a lot of additional features. It is meant for a single user who doesn’t really need a fancy inkjet and just wants something for printing documents. For $50 you aren’t going to find a better machine, so if you run a home office or are a parent with lots of daily homeworks assignments to print, this would be a good machine.

The offer expires on 5/13.

After you take advanatage of if, you can find the ML-2010D3 cartridge on our site.

Anytime you want to print out something from a website, you always end up with a bunch of other stuff, right? You get all the ads that were on the page, or you get a page that has the copyright from the site and the rest is blank. Well you can do something about it so you are left with extra pages or pages you didn’t want to print in the first place. This site offers some tips on how to conserve ink when printing web pages and other documents.

The tips include using the print preview mode and taking advantage of the draft mode. Using the draft mode is a great way to save ink on color prints that aren’t that important to you. Every time you print out some directions from Yahoo Maps!, you don’t need to have it look nice. Print it in draft mode and you’ll save time and money.

Printing power tips [lifehacker]

Amazon has the Canon PIXMA iP4200 on sale for $74.99. A while back we posted a deal on this printer from them that was $99.99, so this current deal is obviously pretty good.

The PIXMA iP4200 is a good bargain and has received favorable reviews from a number of sources. It features a five-color ink system, good printing speeds and two-sided printing - something that is not usually found in such an inexpensive model. You can check out CNET’s review of the PIXMA iP4200 to see what they liked about it.

Once you take advantage of this deal, you can find Canon PIXMA iP4200 cartridges on our site.