Postscript still important for laser printers? How much RAMis enough? LexMark?
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From: Arthur Entlich on 26 Jul 2010 03:24 I'm not trying to challenge your personal experiences with the Canon versus HP printers, but to be fair, you really cannot compare a color laser printer to an inkjet. Even the printer divisions may be different in terms of support in the same company. For many years HP used Canon engines in their laser printers, and it was with those engines that HP developed the "never die" printer reputation. The BJ inkjet line was a poorly made product, such that even Canon recognized it and spent many millions of developing a completely new inkjet printer from scratch, the "i" series, which has been very popular and pretty reliable (as inkjet printers go). HP has produced both stellar and dog printers in both their inkjet and laser lineups, so one needs to look at the specific model, the cost of acquisition as well as cost of consumables and add ons, and reliability. I would not go on name or brand alone. They quality and costs vary widely between models. I would agree that, in general, the less you pay for a printer to buy it, the more the consumables will be, especially with laser printers these days. Art If you are interested in issues surrounding e-waste, I invite you to enter the discussion at my blog: http://e-trashtalk.spaces.live.com/ Tim Okergit wrote: > On 07/24/2010 01:37 PM, MD34 wrote: > >> I used to service Lexmark laser and color laser printers and hated them. >> Everything was hard to get to, tech support/parts order sucked big time. >> Documentation was terrible. > > In about a year, I'll buy a color printer for printing photographs. As > I've already said, years ago, I switched from A Canon BJ-300 to an HP > Laserjet 1012. I can almost say it was a change in lifestyle. > > The BJ-300 ink was so expensive it drove me nuts and dealing with Canon > Canada was a hooredous experience. OTOH, printing with the HP laserjet > has always been a no-issue experience (that is after they updated the > Linux driver about 6 months after I bought it). Here is how ot works: > > 1) Plug the printer into a power outlet > 2) Plug the USB cable into the computer > 3) Put some paper in the tray > 4) Turn the printer on > 5) CTRL + P > 6) Click "Print" > > and it prints, every time, without a dpi missing or being added. > > I don't have printer concerns anymore. The thing is there, it's a > printer, and it prints! > > So, I don't intend to go back to inkjet printing and cleaningprint heads > ebery tiem I print. As for Canon, it's out for the rest of my life. I > don't ever want to hear about Canon anymore. > > Though I won't print much, maybe 500 pages/year, I'd rather pay more on > the printer and less on consumables, even if it turned out to be cheaper > to buy a flimsy thing that brings profits on consumables. I don't agree > with this way of doing business and it infuriates me. (Note that the > Canon BJ-300 sold for $550... in 1989 and that ink cartridges that would > barely print more than 350 pages costed $30. I didn't consider this > closely enough when I bought.) > > So, given that I won't print much, that I want inkjet comparable > quality, that I don't need wireless or networking, that I need fully > compatible Linux drivers, which printer would you go for?
From: Tim Okergit on 26 Jul 2010 17:43 On 07/26/2010 03:24 AM, Arthur Entlich wrote: > I'm not trying to challenge your personal experiences with the Canon > versus HP printers, but to be fair, you really cannot compare a color > laser printer to an inkjet. Even the printer divisions may be different > in terms of support in the same company. Canon Canada is Canon Canada. They don't make printers, they sell as many printers as they can. They're into advertising, merchandising and sales. Nobody there will get a red cent for fixing a problem on a printer that's out of guarantee. So they keep you waiting in line for the one word that would solve your problem hping that you'll get pissed off and buzz off. THis is the "division" that, as a user, you have to deal with. For me, it's "no more". > For many years HP used Canon engines in their laser printers, and it was > with those engines that HP developed the "never die" printer reputation. > The BJ inkjet line was a poorly made product, such that even Canon > recognized it and spent many millions of developing a completely new > inkjet printer from scratch, the "i" series, which has been very popular > and pretty reliable (as inkjet printers go). The problem with Canon Canada is that if the printer is no longer on guarantee and there a little 5¢ sponge that needs to be washed, they just won't tell you where the sponge is. The printer could be fixed in 5 minutes but all they keep answering is: "We"re got this new model at half the price. Why don't you buy one?" To me, the problem never was the printer but Canon Canada. I do understand that Canon makes the cartridge of my laserjet and that there's not much to the printer except this essential part, but I suppose the cradridge is made to HP's specifications and it really works well. I never had to deal with HP but I would think that their support is much better than Canon's. Canon has no take apart instructions online whereas HP provides instructions to take the printer apart to the last bolt. To me, this really spells a different attitude. At 90$, even shops can hardly buy every shop manual and they refer you to Canon who always say that you can get a new peinter for the price of the repair. So, my advice is, if you're into $550 (1990 price) throw away printers, Canon is for you. Otherwise, stay away for that bunch of thieves. Once again, in my experience, though I sometimes had to clean the print head with a Q-Tip, the BJ-300 was a sturdy work horse. The only problem was Canon withholding information in order to sell you another printer. > HP has produced both stellar and dog printers in both their inkjet and > laser lineups, so one needs to look at the specific model, the cost of > acquisition as well as cost of consumables and add ons, and reliability. From what I read here, though HP's score might not be perfect, customers are generally satisfied. If you stop looking for instructions all over the net and go to HP's site for a solution to a problem, you'll generally find one. For instance, in the thread "Multifunction HP C4380 printer scanner". Tobias had an unsolvable problem. I looked on HP's site and we never heard form him again. Otherwise, Bob Headrick would have provided a solution, just as you do for Epson. Who's Canon's... unofficial representative on this group? > I would not go on name or brand alone. They quality and costs vary > widely between models. I would agree that, in general, the less you pay > for a printer to buy it, the more the consumables will be, especially > with laser printers these days. Do you agree with Warren Block that laser color printing is still far behind inkjet printers?
From: Tim Okergit on 26 Jul 2010 17:47 On 07/26/2010 01:39 AM, Andrew Hamilton wrote: > On Sat, 24 Jul 2010 16:58:38 -0400, Tim Okergit<to(a)notme.com> wrote: > >> On 07/24/2010 02:41 PM, Andrew Hamilton wrote: >>> On 24 Jul 2010 15:11:56 GMT, Warren Block<wblock(a)wonkity.com> wrote: > >>>> That's a judgement call. I'd say yes. A PCL-only printer is livable, >>>> and some people can use a host-based printer without problems. But a PS >>>> printer gives you more options and is more versatile. >>> >>> Sounds like I really should have a Postscript printer. I am >>> self-employed and can't deal with printer limitation hassles. >> >> Maybe Andrew can explain further what he means by "more options and more >> versatile" -- I must admit my needs are fairly basic -- but PCL >> certainly does the job on my now old Laserjet 1012. (It doesn't feel old >> in any way :) > > Tim, > > That wasn't me talking about "more options ..." That was someone > replying to me. I was the OP asking about the continued importance of > Postscript. Sorry, Warren noted this already. I got the Who's who wrong :) I hope you read what I wrote about PCL. From what Warren wrote, it seems that unless you want to send printer files to a print shop, which is far from necessary, PCL is perfectly all right.
From: Arthur Entlich on 27 Jul 2010 05:24 Canons unofficial rep? Why it used to me Measekite, wasn't it? ;-) While Bob Headrick actually worked for HP in their inkjet cartridge division, I have no affiliation with Epson other than that I use their printers, and found their customer support wanting so I decided to jump in and help other owners. To provide the "other side" of the fence, I also live in Canada. My dealings with Canon have only been with their digital camera support, and while not perfect, I have to say the information was there when I needed it, although the guy I spoke with was arrogant and not very pleasant. Luckily, the product I bought has been very reliable, and I haven;t needed a lot of product support. On the other hand, I bought two HP products which were absolute dogs, one a slide and print scanner, and one a digital camera. The slide scanner issue never got resolved although the unit was replaced twice (by HP US, since they had no presence for that division in Canada at the time). In the end I went back to my retailer who, even a year later took the unit back, and got a credit from HP Canada, allowing me to use the money to buy a Minolta branded product to replace it (which they special ordered). The digital camera story is even worse... much worse. The camera had a known defect (well, I didn't know about it until it happened to mine and I started researching it on line). It ate batteries for breakfast (I was using NiMH), due to bad Chinese caps in it which drained the batteries and didn't hold their charge. It turned out a huge portion of these cameras were defective, and the problems included the whole line up in this series. HP refused to admit the problem they repaired my camera several times unsuccessfully. HP Canada was very unhelpful, and it was only after I sent them about 1/2" thick of documents from the internet, plus my own testing and evaluation that they finally agreed to replacing the camera with one from a different series. Then, the last minute someone "above" the customer rep who had facilitated the exchange pulled the plug on the whole deal and dug in his heels, again starting with "there is not problem with this model of camera" all over again. It was infuriating. I sent a copy of the whole correspondence, including the on-line print outs to head office in California to show them the problems occurring here in Canada. What did they do? They sent the whole parcel back up to Canada to deal with it, and it ended up going to the same guy I had the problems with. I eventually got some inside help from someone I met from HP who helped me to get a new camera from them which was a new model which replaced the defective one, but the whole process took nearly a year from the point where I had begun. After speaking with my retailer about my experience, they told me they had dozens of bad HP cameras which HP refused to take back, and that they had a lot of angry customers. That retailer, a large big box in Western Canada, stopped selling HP cameras soon after my discussion with them, and have never brought them back to their stores. As I understand it from discussions with retailers, HP Canada is still a mess, be happy you haven't needed them. I would agree they do make some reasonable priced printers, although their consumables can be very costly. As to your other question, while I wouldn't go as far Mr. Block to completely discredit color laser printers for photographic output, I would agree that inkjet is a better technology for that purpose. Color laser printers do not have the same gradient values as inkjet, and it is not just due to toner opacity or the number of ink colors inkjet printers provide. Laser printers do not have the resolution of most better inkjet models. The dots are bigger and therefore the blending is poorer. Also, while inkjet papers can absorb the inks and leave a smooth surface, laser toners sit on top of the paper surface, and often look glossier or more matte than the paper surface itself. This gloss differential doesn't look good. I don;t buy the opaque toner leading to less mixing. If the dots were the same size and used similar patterns to distribute the colorant, they would probably look similar. Toner is not opaque, it is translucent, and so is pigment inkjet ink colorant. I expect that eventually, if the demand is there, laser output could come very close to rival inkjet, but for most applications, people aren't that demanding. I have received some recent color laser samples that from a foot or so away almost rival photos, and I know of people who sell laser output as "fine art" prints, and that includes photographic subjects. Laser isn't quite there, but the right machine can brink it pretty close. More dots and more sophisticated dithering patterns can make color laser pretty good. For that photo-like surface however, you must select a paper with similar reflective qualities to the toner after fusing, or laminate the surface after printing. Art If you are interested in issues surrounding e-waste, I invite you to enter the discussion at my blog: http://e-trashtalk.spaces.live.com/ Tim Okergit wrote: > On 07/26/2010 03:24 AM, Arthur Entlich wrote: > >> I'm not trying to challenge your personal experiences with the Canon >> versus HP printers, but to be fair, you really cannot compare a color >> laser printer to an inkjet. Even the printer divisions may be different >> in terms of support in the same company. > > Canon Canada is Canon Canada. They don't make printers, they sell as > many printers as they can. They're into advertising, merchandising and > sales. Nobody there will get a red cent for fixing a problem on a > printer that's out of guarantee. > > So they keep you waiting in line for the one word that would solve your > problem hping that you'll get pissed off and buzz off. THis is the > "division" that, as a user, you have to deal with. > > For me, it's "no more". > >> For many years HP used Canon engines in their laser printers, and it was >> with those engines that HP developed the "never die" printer reputation. >> The BJ inkjet line was a poorly made product, such that even Canon >> recognized it and spent many millions of developing a completely new >> inkjet printer from scratch, the "i" series, which has been very popular >> and pretty reliable (as inkjet printers go). > > The problem with Canon Canada is that if the printer is no longer on > guarantee and there a little 5¢ sponge that needs to be washed, they > just won't tell you where the sponge is. The printer could be fixed in 5 > minutes but all they keep answering is: "We"re got this new model at > half the price. Why don't you buy one?" > > To me, the problem never was the printer but Canon Canada. I do > understand that Canon makes the cartridge of my laserjet and that > there's not much to the printer except this essential part, but I > suppose the cradridge is made to HP's specifications and it really works > well. I never had to deal with HP but I would think that their support > is much better than Canon's. > > Canon has no take apart instructions online whereas HP provides > instructions to take the printer apart to the last bolt. To me, this > really spells a different attitude. At 90$, even shops can hardly buy > every shop manual and they refer you to Canon who always say that you > can get a new peinter for the price of the repair. > > So, my advice is, if you're into $550 (1990 price) throw away printers, > Canon is for you. Otherwise, stay away for that bunch of thieves. > > Once again, in my experience, though I sometimes had to clean the print > head with a Q-Tip, the BJ-300 was a sturdy work horse. The only problem > was Canon withholding information in order to sell you another printer. > >> HP has produced both stellar and dog printers in both their inkjet and >> laser lineups, so one needs to look at the specific model, the cost of >> acquisition as well as cost of consumables and add ons, and reliability. > > From what I read here, though HP's score might not be perfect, > customers are generally satisfied. If you stop looking for instructions > all over the net and go to HP's site for a solution to a problem, you'll > generally find one. > > For instance, in the thread "Multifunction HP C4380 printer scanner". > Tobias had an unsolvable problem. I looked on HP's site and we never > heard form him again. Otherwise, Bob Headrick would have provided a > solution, just as you do for Epson. Who's Canon's... unofficial > representative on this group? > >> I would not go on name or brand alone. They quality and costs vary >> widely between models. I would agree that, in general, the less you pay >> for a printer to buy it, the more the consumables will be, especially >> with laser printers these days. > > Do you agree with Warren Block that laser color printing is still far > behind inkjet printers?
From: Tim Okergit on 27 Jul 2010 13:34
On 07/26/2010 10:16 PM, Warren Block wrote: > Tim Okergit<to(a)notme.com> wrote: > And that's ignoring common problems like air bubbles or mini-clogs that > waste photo paper and need a nozzle cleaning that sucks lots of > expensive ink. And labs won't ship you prints with air bubbles and mini-clogs and numerous other problems? Why is it that I have serious doubts... > It would be nice to have some definite numbers. Choose a printer. I > suggest the Epson R1900, which seems like a good price/performance break > and can handle up to tabloid size and panoramas; their web site has the > refurb R1900 with full ink for $379 US. It sells for $399, new. Almost no ink in the cardridges, I suppose? The comments seem very positive but $400 for an inkjet printer seems a lot of money to me. The ink seems resonably priced, though: http://www.epson.com/cgi-bin/Store/BuyInkResults.jsp?oid=63073901 The cost per sheet is listed here: http://www.redrivercatalog.com/cost-of-inkjet-printing-v1.html An 8x10 would be 65¢ for ink + paper, ~24¢ = 89¢ > See how many prints you can get > from a set of ink, and report it here, or at least let me know by email. That would be in a year from now. I'm following the 4x3 format evolution. Amongst other things, it would be so nice if someone came out with a rangefinder camera that could stay on all the time, not drain batteries and that you could brace against your face for stability. I can keep dreaming though. These mechanics, that I had on my first camera, a Yashica Lynx 5000, would undoubtedly be too expensive to produce nowadays. > Come to think of it, the forums at dpreview.com ought to have someone > with serious photo print experience and recommendations. Yes, this seems like an interesting option. |