Saturday, July 07, 2007

New Printer Required?

My current printer is an Epson Photo Stylus 950, a *huge* beast of a printer that produced stunning photo prints, but costs an absolute fortune to run... seems that almost all 7 cartridges run out within a week or two of each other and they cost £8 (7dayshop) to £11 (everywhere else) *EACH*

But it seem that the end is in site for the 950, Epson are stopping producing the ink cartridges for this printer (Seems to be a unique design for this model), so once this last set expire, I need a new printer.

My short list so far is
Epson Stylus DX6000 - £63 (Amazon.co.uk)
Takes 4 cartridges at £25 per set

HP Deskjet 6980 - £85 (Amazon again)
Takes two cartridges at £27 per set

Cannon Pixma iP5300 - £85 (Once again - Amazon)
Takes 4 cartridges at £30 per set (includes 50 sheet 6x4 Photo Paper)

The advantage of the HP printer is that it can be network connected (Ethernet or 802.11b wireless), so would be easier to use with the laptop, but the Cannon won the recent PCLabs for quality, speed and economy. I need to investigate running costs, speed and quality on these two, and keep a look out for any other serious candidates in the meantime... I should have a month or two before the 950 runs out of ink again....

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