Printer choice

[ffutures]

After a lot of reflection I've decided to go with the Canon duplexing mono printer; at an effective price of £50 after cashback it works out at about 2.5p per page with the starter cartridge, 2p a page with high capacity cartridges. The last colour laser I looked at was very tempting, but in the end I think I have to accept that colour isn't something I need very often; I may buy myself a cheap inkjet for occasional colour work, I haven't decided yet.

The bottom line, I think, is that if this turns out to be a bad move I'm only out £50 (and possibly the price of an inkjet later), and have numerous family members who could make use of e.g. the mono laser if I do eventually decide I need colour for my main printer.

Later - looking at cheap inkjets, Staples are doing the HP deskjet 1000 for about £20 inc. VAT. Anyone know anything about them?

Comments

[pbristow.livejournal.com]

Slight caveat: Maximum DPI. That's one thing that *does* change within a range of printers that affects the *maximum* quality achievable. That said, even on my old model, I find the improvement given by going up from 300 to 600DPI isn't worth the slow down and the extra ink used. I can't tell the difference between 1200 and 2400DPI except on the highest quality photographs. But if your eyes are sharper than mine or you work a lot with fine print, you may disagree.

DPI is quoted as X x Y, indicating width-wise versus length-wise. The lower figure of the two is the one that will have the more obvious effect, so you can ignore the bigger one when comparing printers.

Gosh, this has been a useful refresher course for me! It's months since I was last left in charge of the printer section instead of the till... =;o}