Consumer Reports recently updated their advice on buying an inkjet printer. Of course, it’s not as good as one of our guides, but it’s still helpful. Their guide is definitely for beginners, so if you are looking for specific printer recommendations, you best look somewhere else. Their information is more for people who don’t know what kind of inkjet printer they want and need to know what to look for.
Here are a couple of the tips they have:

- Be skeptical about advertised speeds.
- Consider supply costs as well as a printer’s price.
- Decide whether you need scanning and copying.

All these are good advice, and we have mentioned similar things in the past. By now, everyone should know that advertised printer speeds are totally inaccurate, but it’s still worth reminding people. Considering the cost of ink when you buy a printer is very important, since a lot of times the initial purchase price can be misleading. You need to know how much your printer is going to cost you over your lifetime. Lastly, it’s a good idea to decide if you really need a scanner/copier or whether you just want one.

Buying advice [ConsumerReports.org]

Amazon has a deal on select Brother printers this week where you can save up to $50 on certain printers. All but one of the deals is just a regular sale, so you don’t have to deal with any mail-in rebates and since it’s Amazon, there shouldn’t be any tax.

One popular printer included in the sale is the Brother HL-2040. It’s the one printer with a mail-in rebate, but you can get it for $90 even without the rebate. The HL-2040 has been around for a while, but it’s a popular printer that has received good feedback from most people. If you are looking for an entry-level laser printer, then this would be a good choice and we would recommend it over similarly-priced HP laser printers.

Here is a helpful article from your friends at the Lehigh Valley Morning Call. It’s an introductory article, but helpful nonetheless. They recommend the HP Photosmart 8250 as the best value among standard inkjet printers, the HP Photosmart D7360 as a photo printer and the Canon PIXMA iP6700D if you want a fast photo printer. For all-in-one printers, they recommend the PIXMA MP830 and MP800 along with the PIXMA MP160 for value.

The article talks about individual ink cartridges and how they are “becoming more common.” This is a little bit inaccurate, since really the only thing that has changed lately is that HP has added individual cartridges to a couple of printers. Other than that, Epson, Canon and Brother continue to almost exclusively sell printers with individual color cartridges (Canon offers a small amount of printers with only two cartridges, such as the PIXMA MP160, while Epson and Brother offer none). Also, the article mentions how in their experience, individual cartridges did not save them money. This is likely the exception rather than the rule. It can be very costly to throw out ink cartridges when only one color runs out, and if you aren’t interested in refilling your cartridges, then that’s what you have to do. For those that print in color, and especially those that print photos, having individual cartridges will definitely save you money in the long run.

Buy the best printer for your needs [Mcall.com]

That’s what a former employee of HP is saying. Karl Kamb, who is being sued by HP, filed his own lawsuit today that HP paid someone to spy on Dell just prior to their entry into the printer market. HP sued Kamb in 2005, saying that he was secretly involved in a rival company while still working and HP and that he stole secrets, resources and possibly money from HP.

Back around the end of 2002 when Dell was about to enter the inkjet printer market, HP allegedly paid Katsumi Iizuka, a former Dell president, to supply them with information. HP funneled those payments through a corporation that Iizuka set up. HP doesn’t deny that they hired him or that they paid fees to his company, they just deny that they were spying. Supposedly there are some emails where Iizuka gives out inside info like release dates for Dell printers. All this is just another headache for HP in their string of their troubles last year with spying.

HP accused of spying on Dell’s printer plans [CNET]

Ah, the eternal question. Well, we might have an answer for you. We just updated our printer guide explaining which manufacturer is best for you. It breaks down the major manufacturers (HP, Epson and Canon) and gives pros and cons for each one, along with information on other brands like Lexmark and Dell.

Here’s a sneak peek:

HP
Pros - availability, dependability, name recognition
Cons - no individual ink cartridges on almost all models, long term costs

Epson
Pros - good photo printing, individual ink cartridges
Cons - some maintenance issues, can’t refill cartridges, machine may not last forever

Canon
Pros - excellent photo printing, reliability
Cons - some lack of selection/availability of machines

Now, go….read.

Recently we posted a review of the relatively new PIXMA mini260 photo printer. Now we have a deal for it. Amazon has the PIXMA mini260 on sale for $115. This is a regular sale, so there are no mail-in rebates and there shouldn’t be any tax or shipping.

This printer has been well-received so far, so the low price makes it a good deal. It has a 9600 x 2400 resolution and 1,536 precision nozzles to produce one picoliter sized ink droplets. It has a 2.5″ high definition TFT display for previews of your pictures. It’s got a bunch of connectivity options and you can also add Bluetooth connectivity to it.

A couple people have reviewed it on Amazon in the past few days and pretty much all of them liked it. Most reviewers have noted how good the quality of the prints is.

As usual, since this is Amazon we don’t know when the deal is going to end.

Epson released the RX580 last fall as one their first “hi-definition” models. These models use Epson’s hi-definition Claria inks, which, according to the company, produce “the ultimate combination of photo quality and longevity.” Hyperbole aside, it seems like these newer printers do produce high-quality prints, which does set them aside from some models.

The Stylus RX580 is a six-ink all-in-one photo printer that prints, scans, copies and also prints CDs (like a lot of all-in-ones these days, it does not include fax capabilities). Epson rates it at 30 ppm for both black and color, which would theoretically make it one of the fastest personal inkjets for color printing. Of course, the actual speed is nowhere near 30 ppm and based on reviews and feedback, it seems like the RX580 is merely above-average when it comes to printing speed. So, it seems like this printer does live up to the hype as far as the print quality, just not the speed. In their review of the RX580, Macworld noted that it took about 20 seconds to print a one-page document at normal quality.

The RX580 comes with a 2.5-inch LCD to edit your photos, memory card slots (for CompactFlash, Memory Stick, SD and the not-popular xD) and PictBridge capabilities. This printer offers a couple of different scanning modes, all of which are supposedly hi-definition. In their review, Macworld noted that the scanning process was easy and the results were good. The RX580 is marketed to people who want to scan old pictures and then print out new copies, so you will find that a lot of the features are geared towards that. The ability to print directly onto CDs or DVDs is a pretty nice touch considering that there are still a limited number of inkjets that can do that these days.

The big deal with this printer is the print quality. It uses dye-based inks instead of pigment-based, which is usually the opposite of what you’d expect from a fancy photo printer. Dye-based inks are more common and supposedly fade faster than pigment-based inks. But, dye-based inks are also better generally brighter and have more of a color range than pigmented-inks. Supposedly Epson has taken the good parts of pigmented inks and used them to make a good dye-based ink for the RX580; based on early feedback from reviews and customers, it seems like they have succeeded. But, there is one downside to this printer with regard to the ink as right now, the biggest customer complaint on Amazon is the amount of ink the RX580 uses. This is a common complaint with Epson printers, but one that has become more noticeable lately. This is something to be aware of if you intend to use this printer frequently.

If you own this printer, please leave us some feedback about it.

Buy this printer Buy Epson Stylus Photo RX580 ink cartridges

This isn’t exactly breaking news, but more of a general update to the people who come here looking for news about when they can get their benefits from Epson. Recently, Epson filed an appeal challenging the settlement. This is what the official settlement site says:

Appeals have been filed challenging the Judgment and order granting final approval of the Settlement and application for attorneys’ fees. As a result, the distribution of Settlement benefits is on hold until the appeals process is completed.

Originally, they did note that the benefits would not be paid until the Court had given final approval and all appeals had been “expired”, so this isn’t a total surprise. This is somewhat interesting since Epson originally settled this back in April of 2006, and now they are appealing it, but basically this is always what happens with these types of cases. Maybe it has something to do with lawyer’s fees, maybe one person isn’t happy about it, I don’t know. All this stuff goes on behind the scenes, so unfortunately at this moment, all everyone can do is continue to wait.

First off, I don’t know why Canon does all this weird stuff with capitalizations. They have the PIXMA and the imageRUNNER. Why does RUNNER need to be capitalized? Why isn’t the ‘i’ in image capitalized? Is PIXMA an acronym for something? We may never know.

Anyways, Canon is releasing four new imageRUNNER printers, the 3045/3035/3030/3025. These models are all monochrome laser printers that are more geared towards small to mid-sized business; in other words, they are not meant for home users. Canon rates the imageRUNNER 3045 at 45 pages per minute, which is pretty dang fast. Of course, it won’t actually print 45 pages in a minute, but just for it to be rated that high means something. The other three models are rated at 35 ppm, 30 ppm and 25 ppm, respectively. They all come with 512 megs of memory and a 20GB hard drive to store endless TPS Reports. All of these models come with dual 550-sheet paper trays and with expansions, you can store up to 4,950 pages. Awesome.

All these printers are designed to be shared by a bunch of people, so they have a bunch of technology that helps them do that. None of that technology means anything to most people though. If I told you that these models have Canon’s imageCHIP (Concurrent Hyper Intelligent Platform) technology, would you know whether I was making that up or not?

Now the fun part: the prices. The 3045/3035/3030/3025 will cost $11,600, $9,200, $6,600 and $5,200, respectively. Start saving those pennies now.

Canon U.S.A. ‘’Personalizes'’ Office Technology with the Introduction of the imageRUNNER 3045/3035/3030/3025 [Press Release]

Just a friendly reminder that you can go to a site like this: http://www.driversplanet.com/printers/makes.aspx

You don’t need the CD because the actual driver file isn’t that big, especially for older printers. Using a site like this is also a littlle easier than going to the manufacturer page, since most of their sites are pretty big and difficult to navigate through. Also, sometimes it’s better to just install the drivers themselves instead of all the crap software that the printer manufacturers want you to install.