Recommend multifunction B&W printer?

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.periphs.printers (More info?)

My Dell printer (A940) is giving me grief, so I'm
considering getting a new one.

I don't need color; I use it just for documents, so I'm
guessing a laser printer is the right idea. I'd like to be
able to scan, copy & fax as well as print. Since I'm just
starting to look, I don't know what the suitable price range
is, but it would be nice not to have to pay an arm and a
leg.

I'd appreciate recommendations.

Thanks.
--

Bob

 

[zakezuke]

Archived from groups: comp.periphs.printers (More info?)

> My Dell printer (A940) is giving me grief, so I'm considering getting a new one.

I know a few people who have similar printers to the A940, the 920 I
believe. Problems from day one. I imagine it can be annoying not
being able to buy the lexmark ink at office depot due to the extra
notch Dell puts in. Cost per page is pretty high.

> I don't need color; I use it just for documents, so I'm
> guessing a laser printer is the right idea. I'd like to be
> able to scan, copy & fax as well as print. Since I'm just
> starting to look, I don't know what the suitable price range
> is, but it would be nice not to have to pay an arm and a
> leg.

Well in inkjet, there is only color, i've not seen a B&W inkjet sold in
eons. Some multifuctions oddly enough don't offer fax. Laser
multifuctionals seem to start at about $200 to $300 with fax at the
local office store where the more basic inkjets with fax are starting
at $100.00 to $200 with fax.

You could replace what you have with the Lexmark branded X5150. Same
thing but you can buy your ink from some place other than dell. Not
that I would, the cost of the ink is high and the output quality if
it's anything like the dell a920 is below average. Over 5c/page is
high.

I know Amazon and office depot have the (inkjet) Canon MP780 for about
$200 on sale (unknown shipping price). Tyipcal seems to be $300. This
was talked about in an earlier thread. I have the mp760 which is
similar except no fax, no auto sheet feeder, but a 35mm transparancy
adapter build into the lid. The MP780 lacks the color tilt LCD screen.
Basicly the 760 is geard more tward photos and the mp780 is geard more
tward documents and multisheet faxing, otherwise they are both basicly
the canon ip4000 printer with added features.

I paid more for mine two weeks ago to replace an old HP PSC 950. So
far i've been pleased with it. Cost per page for black is not as
*cheap* as some lasers, but it's real close. Any laser will give you
the benifit of thousands of pages without a refill and is worth
considering. Canon, the yield is listed as 500p black (2.4c/page).
Local price, $12.00 or so. Costco has nice 4 packs.

I looked at the (laser) HP3015 briefly for $300. I was thinking at
first I "had" a color inkjet already so didn't need a color
multi-fucational. But the toner costs $70 per 2000p (3.5c p) localy.
I can find it for $63 but we are still talking about 3c/page. The
brother multifuctionals were actually more reasonably priced in terms
of toner, but still on par with the canon inkjet in terms of cost/page.
The yields were slightly higher, 2500p.

In my case, I felt that two printers that took the same ink would be
more useful, esp if there wasn't a cost benifit to the laser. There is
almost always a quality benifit, a won't run in the rain benifit, a
designed to handle larger volumes benifit.

 

[zakezuke]

Archived from groups: comp.periphs.printers (More info?)

> Whoa! That's cheap.

I'm pretty sure the mp750 has NO fax. Do correct me if i'm wrong, i'm
going by the service manual for the mp750/mp780 and it's in german, but
according to it "FAX (nur MP 780)" [Fax (only MP 780)]. There might
be other models that offer fax, but not the mp750 or mp760.

> I don't know if it's justified or not, but I have the idea
> that laser printers are cheaper in the long run if all I'm
> doing is printing text

In the past when you shelled out $75 for a cart with 4000p/5000p
yields, without a doubt laser was cheaper. But these multi fuctionals
have smaller yields and not so much smaller price per cart. For the
entry level lasers there are on par with cheaper inkjets.

Now I'm sure someone will chime in about after market refills. I for
one ordered MIS bulk ink for mine. But everyone and their neighbor
refills the canon inktanks. Someone says their dealer sells them ink
at $1.00/each, $5.00each seems average, vs canon's $12.00 at the local
store. Either way you go is not a bad deal per page.


> I also kind of like the dryer print produced by a laser printer --
> something that really makes a difference when I use a yellow highlighter
> on the printed document -- documents recently printed by ink printers
> usually smear.

Fair comment. The canon uses a pigmented black. It's not as good as
laser, but it's very good. I've been using a printout as a coaster
for my iced latté for the past few days. The ink does run after a few
hours, but not as badly as you'd expect. It's not a smear but more of
a greyish bleed resembling fjords. I can highlight it... it will run
with a few strokes to some degree but not too badly. I'm sure the
local store has demos of the ip4000 which uses the same ink. Get some
and see what you can do with it.

Also fair comment is the fact that even the entry level lasers are
geared for a higher monthly volume than inkjets. But, as another
thread pointed out some lasers while they say they will do envelopes
don't do them well. Inkjets are often more forgiving when it comes to
odd sized paper.

> But I have an open mind about this, if the Canon is really
> the way to go.

It is very much worth considering. Though I'd say the mp780 because it
has fax.

 

[Bob]

Archived from groups: comp.periphs.printers (More info?)

On 13 Jun 2005 17:24:46 -0700, "zakezuke"
<zakezuke_us@yahoo.com> wrote:

>I'm pretty sure the mp750 has NO fax. Do correct me if i'm
>wrong, i'm going by the service manual for the mp750/mp780
>and it's in german, but according to it "FAX (nur MP 780)"
>[Fax (only MP 780)]. There might be other models that
>offer fax, but not the mp750 or mp760.

Looks like.

Given the price difference between the 750 and the 780,
though, I suspect I could do without fax if it came down to
it. I use that the least of any of the functions I'm looking
at.

I've never tried, but do you happen to know if there's a
work-around? For example, maybe scan in pdf and then fax the
pdf? Can that or something similar be done? If so, it would
be a PITA but not a big deal since I don't fax all that
much.

> [snip]

>Now I'm sure someone will chime in about after market
>refills. I for one ordered MIS bulk ink for mine. But
>everyone and their neighbor refills the canon inktanks.
> Someone says their dealer sells them ink at $1.00/each,
>$5.00each seems average, vs canon's $12.00 at the local
>store. Either way you go is not a bad deal per page.

It's been years since I looked at this, but way back when, I
was told by several people -- and fairly emphatically --
that refills weren't that good. Can't remember if they were
supposed to gum up the printer or whatever, but as a result
I never used them.

From what you say, though, they're just fine in your
experience? No downside?

>[snip]

>But, as another thread pointed out some lasers while they
>say they will do envelopes don't do them well. Inkjets
>are often more forgiving when it comes to odd sized paper.

I don't use odd sized paper (haven't to date, at least), but
I do need to do envelopes. The HP Laserjets that we have at
the office (which are pretty old as these things go, and
were expensive at the time) do envelopes just fine. Do you
know if the envelope problem is specific to particular laser
printers, or is the problem somewhat common among them?

Thanks.
--

Bob

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.periphs.printers (More info?)

Here is a link to a multifunction printer that was posted here earlier
in the group:
http://shop4.outpost.com/product/4311355?site=sr:SEARCH:MAIN_RSLT_PG

I have the same versiononly with fax capability and it works great. It
is also economical to operate when using compatible ink cartridges.

Bob Stringer wrote:
> My Dell printer (A940) is giving me grief, so I'm
> considering getting a new one.
>
> I don't need color; I use it just for documents, so I'm
> guessing a laser printer is the right idea. I'd like to be
> able to scan, copy & fax as well as print. Since I'm just
> starting to look, I don't know what the suitable price range
> is, but it would be nice not to have to pay an arm and a
> leg.
>
> I'd appreciate recommendations.
>
> Thanks.

 

[Bob]

Archived from groups: comp.periphs.printers (More info?)

On Mon, 13 Jun 2005 18:57:20 -0400, "Michael Johnson, PE"
<nospam@ourhouse.com> wrote:

>Here is a link to a multifunction printer that was posted here earlier
>in the group:
>http://shop4.outpost.com/product/4311355?site=sr:SEARCH:MAIN_RSLT_PG
>
>I have the same versiononly with fax capability and it works great. It
>is also economical to operate when using compatible ink cartridges.

Whoa! That's cheap. Thanks very much. (I missed the earlier
post, probably because I was racing through the thread to
look for laser printers.)

I don't know if it's justified or not, but I have the idea
that laser printers are cheaper in the long run if all I'm
doing is printing text -- which is in fact all I'm doing. Am
I wrong about that? I also kind of like the dryer print
produced by a laser printer -- something that really makes a
difference when I use a yellow highlighter on the printed
document -- documents recently printed by ink printers
usually smear.

But I have an open mind about this, if the Canon is really
the way to go.

Thanks.
--

Bob

 

[ME]

Archived from groups: comp.periphs.printers (More info?)

> so I'm
>> considering getting a new one.

Samsung SCX-4100

I have one and like it a lot!

Chk it out!

 

[Bob]

Archived from groups: comp.periphs.printers (More info?)

On Mon, 13 Jun 2005 18:27:15 -0500, me@privacy.net wrote:

>Samsung SCX-4100

Just looking at it at buy.com -- only $135 after rebate.
Didn't realize laser printers went that cheap. (Last time I
looked, though, was years ago when my office bought a couple
of them).

How well does the scanner work? I scan with relative
frequency, and one thing I'll say for the Dell that I
currently have, it scans excellent copies, whether to pdf or
to rtf.

To be specific about the scanner -- one problem I've seen
with a *dedicated* HP scanner -- and it's a problem I can't
live with -- is that the scans, while they look ok, are
almost useless when the scan is set to convert to rtf. In
rtf documents small groupings of text are placed in what are
essentially text boxes. The document, in other words,
doesn't scan out as a continuous stream of text, as in the
original document. Drives me nuts.

On the Buy.com site, all the comments were 5 of 5 except for
customer, who gave it a 3 out of 5 because he/she said that
the feed wasn't very good (I'm guessing the 5 of 5's didn't
have the same problem). Have you had a good experience
there?

Thanks very much.
--

Bob

 

[Bob]

Archived from groups: comp.periphs.printers (More info?)

On Mon, 13 Jun 2005 18:19:36 -0700, Bob <xxxx@xxxxx.net>
wrote:

Oh. Does it have fax? After briefly Googling, I don't see
anything saying it doesn't, but nothing saying that it does,
either.

(Fax is the least important to me, though.)

Thanks.
--

Bob

 

[Bob]

Archived from groups: comp.periphs.printers (More info?)

On 13 Jun 2005 16:44:22 -0700, "zakezuke"
<zakezuke_us@yahoo.com> wrote:

>>My Dell printer (A940) is giving me grief, so I'm
>>considering getting a new one.

>I know a few people who have similar printers to the A940,
>the 920 I believe. Problems from day one. I imagine it
>can be annoying not being able to buy the lexmark ink at
>office depot due to the extra notch Dell puts in. Cost per
>page is pretty high.

Actually, I'm not that down on the 940. It's done good work
for me. The scans, in fact, are far superior to an HP
dedicated scanner we got at the office earlier this year,
(for almost $700, if I recall correctly). It has an
automatic feed (the main reason for getting it), but the rtf
documents it produces are useless, as I've mentioned in
other messages.

My biggest quarrel with the 940 is that ink is so expensive.
Plus, I have never figured out how to turn off the damn
warning that my ink is low and do I want to order more
online. Even after I've actually order the thing still keeps
popping up.

The other problem I had (for the last two weeks)
coincidentally got solved just this afternoon, after I
posted my initial question -- when I discovered that a cat's
claw was the culprit that was screwing up the feeder.
(Aargh!)

Now that the feeder problem turns out not to be a problem, I
don't think I really need to move to another inkjet. A
decent laser printer, though, still interests me now that I
see how inexpensive they've become.

But thanks for the suggestion.
--

Bob

 

[zakezuke]

Archived from groups: comp.periphs.printers (More info?)

> Oh. Does it have fax?

Samsung SCX-4100
No fax
No auto document feeder
Good page yield and cost per page, on par / cheaper than Canon.
Doesn't come with a full toner cart, only a low yield starter one
Doesn't scan to PDF near as i'm aware, that was one cool Lexmark
feature that I believe Canon shares.
Maintance cycle at 60,000 pages paper-feeding and transfer roller and
fuser-unit replacement

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.periphs.printers (More info?)

Bob wrote:
> On Mon, 13 Jun 2005 18:57:20 -0400, "Michael Johnson, PE"
> <nospam@ourhouse.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Here is a link to a multifunction printer that was posted here earlier
>>in the group:
>>http://shop4.outpost.com/product/4311355?site=sr:SEARCH:MAIN_RSLT_PG
>>
>>I have the same versiononly with fax capability and it works great. It
>>is also economical to operate when using compatible ink cartridges.
>
>
> Whoa! That's cheap. Thanks very much. (I missed the earlier
> post, probably because I was racing through the thread to
> look for laser printers.)
>
> I don't know if it's justified or not, but I have the idea
> that laser printers are cheaper in the long run if all I'm
> doing is printing text -- which is in fact all I'm doing. Am
> I wrong about that? I also kind of like the dryer print
> produced by a laser printer -- something that really makes a
> difference when I use a yellow highlighter on the printed
> document -- documents recently printed by ink printers
> usually smear.
>
> But I have an open mind about this, if the Canon is really
> the way to go.

Personally, I think using compatible cartridges with a Canon printer is
no more expensive, and possibly even less, than a laser printer. The
inkjet will probably smear more under a highlighter and, IMO, the print
isn't as crisp as a laser. I guess which one you choose will depend on
your needs. I can tell you that the MP780 I have has been very reliable
and seems to be very well engineered. I have an HP 2100M that I use for
most of my B&W printing but I must admit I do use the MP780 more than I
thought I would for printing graphics (from Autocad) and text. Also,
the duplexing feature has been very handy on occasion.

 

[Bob]

Archived from groups: comp.periphs.printers (More info?)

On Mon, 13 Jun 2005 19:59:30 -0400, "Michael Johnson, PE"
<nospam@ourhouse.com> wrote:

>Personally, I think using compatible cartridges with a
>Canon printer is no more expensive, and possibly even less,
>than a laser printer.

I guess I have to consider further then. One thing that's
been putting me off about the Dell is shelling out more
money for a 3 pack of cartridges than the printer cost me in
the first place.

>The inkjet will probably smear more under a highlighter and,
>IMO, the print isn't as crisp as a laser

That inclines me toward a laser, but not a deal breaker.

>I guess which one you choose will depend on your needs. I
>can tell you that the MP780 I have has been very reliable
>and seems to be very well engineered.

Important too. It's been maybe seven years, but I'm still
almost in a state of shell shock from how often my first
printer kept breaking down (well, it was a cheapo, so I
guess I asked for it).

>[snip] Also, the duplexing feature has been very handy on
>occasion.

I wasn't even aware affordable printers would do that. Good
to know.

How does the Canon do with scanning? As I just mentioned in
reply to another message, I've had one particular problem
with a *dedicated* scanner that bugs the hell out of me.
It's virtually useless for scanning to rtf because in the
resulting document small groupings of text are placed in
text boxes; the text doesn't appear as a continuous stream.
So ... does the Canon create a serviceable rtf document when
it scans?

Thanks much.

--

Bob

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.periphs.printers (More info?)

Bob wrote:
> On Mon, 13 Jun 2005 19:59:30 -0400, "Michael Johnson, PE"
> <nospam@ourhouse.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Personally, I think using compatible cartridges with a
>>Canon printer is no more expensive, and possibly even less,
>>than a laser printer.
>
>
> I guess I have to consider further then. One thing that's
> been putting me off about the Dell is shelling out more
> money for a 3 pack of cartridges than the printer cost me in
> the first place.
>
>
>>The inkjet will probably smear more under a highlighter and,
>>IMO, the print isn't as crisp as a laser
>
>
> That inclines me toward a laser, but not a deal breaker.
>
>
>>I guess which one you choose will depend on your needs. I
>>can tell you that the MP780 I have has been very reliable
>>and seems to be very well engineered.
>
>
> Important too. It's been maybe seven years, but I'm still
> almost in a state of shell shock from how often my first
> printer kept breaking down (well, it was a cheapo, so I
> guess I asked for it).
>
>
>>[snip] Also, the duplexing feature has been very handy on
>>occasion.
>
>
> I wasn't even aware affordable printers would do that. Good
> to know.
>
> How does the Canon do with scanning? As I just mentioned in
> reply to another message, I've had one particular problem
> with a *dedicated* scanner that bugs the hell out of me.
> It's virtually useless for scanning to rtf because in the
> resulting document small groupings of text are placed in
> text boxes; the text doesn't appear as a continuous stream.
> So ... does the Canon create a serviceable rtf document when
> it scans?

I'm not familiar with the rtf reference. As for scanning quality, I
don't think it is on par with some of Canon's better stand alone units
but it does pretty good. I like that it saves to the pdf format. Also,
being able to batch scan is quite handy.

 

[ME]

Archived from groups: comp.periphs.printers (More info?)

>How well does the scanner work?

The scanner on the SCX 4100 works great!

I've no complaint at all with the scx 4100!

 

[ME]

Archived from groups: comp.periphs.printers (More info?)

>Oh. Does it have fax? After briefly Googling, I don't see
>anything saying it doesn't, but nothing saying that it does,
>either.

The SCX 4100 doesn't fax. Sorry

 

[ME]

Archived from groups: comp.periphs.printers (More info?)

In message <tidsa19te7db2ntemiuko56nshkmoeqjah@4ax.com>, Bob
<xxxx@xxxxx.net> writes
>I don't use odd sized paper (haven't to date, at least), but
>I do need to do envelopes. The HP Laserjets that we have at
>the office (which are pretty old as these things go, and
>were expensive at the time) do envelopes just fine. Do you
>know if the envelope problem is specific to particular laser
>printers, or is the problem somewhat common among them?

I've had IIp and IIIp neither of which were particularly successful with
the envelopes I tried - to be fair they weren't special laser envelopes,
so the heat from the drum tended to melt the glue a bit.

--
Timothy

 

[ME]

Archived from groups: comp.periphs.printers (More info?)

In message <t4csa15q7duib0ceuiju5cogl3hj63btf9@4ax.com>, Bob
<xxxx@xxxxx.net> writes
>
>To be specific about the scanner -- one problem I've seen
>with a *dedicated* HP scanner -- and it's a problem I can't
>live with -- is that the scans, while they look ok, are
>almost useless when the scan is set to convert to rtf. In
>rtf documents small groupings of text are placed in what are
>essentially text boxes. The document, in other words,
>doesn't scan out as a continuous stream of text, as in the
>original document. Drives me nuts.
>
Have you tried different OCR software?


--
Timothy

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.periphs.printers (More info?)

On Mon, 13 Jun 2005 15:02:38 -0700, Bob Stringer <xxxx@xxxxx.net>
wrote:

>My Dell printer (A940) is giving me grief, so I'm
>considering getting a new one.
>
>I don't need color; I use it just for documents, so I'm
>guessing a laser printer is the right idea. I'd like to be
>able to scan, copy & fax as well as print. Since I'm just
>starting to look, I don't know what the suitable price range
>is, but it would be nice not to have to pay an arm and a
>leg.
>
>I'd appreciate recommendations.
>
>Thanks.

I am very happy with my Samsung SCX-4100. It's a fine document
printer. Photos don't look great though. The copier is wonderful.
The PC needn't even be on to make copies.

However, No fax.

As for scanning, the quality is fine, but it suffers from a slow USB
1.1 interface. If you scan a lot you might need something speedier.

 

[ME]

Archived from groups: comp.periphs.printers (More info?)

>As for scanning, the quality is fine, but it suffers from a slow USB
>1.1 interface

Dint know that!!

I thought it had a USB2 interface!

 

[zakezuke]

Archived from groups: comp.periphs.printers (More info?)

Update...

Omnipage SE that comes with at least my mp760 does not save OCR read
documents to PDF, but it does save to RTF. The help file was nice
enough to point out this is a feature of the PRO edition. $150 home
edition $600 office edition. It did do a decent enough job peforming
OCR and breaking up paragraph blocks into different locations and
keeping the background graphics. A CD cover with a Sun slate blue
background and white and black text was successfully read and converted
into an .rtf but it ignored the black text, only read in the white
text. It was very nice and coverted columns into a table. I haven't
had cause to OCR in a long time. As a bonus, it wasn't keyed to my
Canon, in fact it's first choice was scanning from my HP 950.

The "Scan starter" will save to a PDF but not peform OCR on it. It
looks like a useful feature if you want to e-mail a page to someone
else like it was a fax.

The "MP Navigator" seems easy enough to use. It autocrops and image
then allows you to either save / save as pdf, copy, e-mail, or
edit/convert to text. Not sure if there is an option to popup the Scan
starter so I could manualy crop. Clearly designed for people who want
to do something with an image in as few mouse clicks as possible. What
is not clearly defined is fax. There is only a copy button that brings
up a window emulating the layout of my printer, and doesn't allow me to
define another printer like the microsoft fax. But, the e-mail button
gives me a choice to either open up my mail software or manually attach
something, where in turn it drops a PDF in a folder and pops the folder
up. It's the same thing as "save as PDF" except under a different
folder. But whichever, open in your favorite PDF view and print to
the fax. Nice in the fact that everything you fax is saved in a
format that can easily be viewed with standard software unlike fax
packages of old that used some propriority TIFF standard, but annoying
in the fact that it adds mouse clicks to a process that other scanner
springboards either include, or pop up windows's print window.

I'd have to see if uninstalling "easy photo print" would allow me to
use the Navigator, select print multiable copies, and then trigger
window's print engine rather than canon's.

It's somewhat sloppy of them to offer a copy fuction and not allow you
to choose another printer. Personaly for the most part I plan to just
continue importing directly into whatever software I use. Keep in mind
that this is the MP760, while similar to the MP750 / MP780 is geared
tward photo features rather than document features.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.periphs.printers (More info?)

On Tue, 14 Jun 2005 11:08:47 -0500, me@privacy.net wrote:

>>As for scanning, the quality is fine, but it suffers from a slow USB
>>1.1 interface
>
>Dint know that!!
>
>I thought it had a USB2 interface!

Nope.

Interface:

USB 1.1 (Compatible with USB 2.0), IEEE 1284 Parallel

http://tinyurl.com/a8jwv

Bummer.

 

[Bob]

Archived from groups: comp.periphs.printers (More info?)

On Mon, 13 Jun 2005 15:02:38 -0700, Bob Stringer
<xxxx@xxxxx.net> wrote:

> [snip]

I'm still pondering what I'm going to do, since the
suggestions gave me a lot to think about. But I just want to
say thanks to everyone for the advice.
--

Bob