Buyer's Guide: 11 Color Inkjet Printers

Kind of disappointed that this is only an overview of specifications and not a head to head comparison of output quality between the low end and midrange printers... to see if the added cost is worth the improved output quality or if it is just for added features.

-mcg

Thanks for summarizing the best sellers. If I were in the process of buying a new printer, you probably saved me at least a minute or two. Too bad there wasn't actually anything new in this article.

I have to agree with above comments - this review was extremely poor - I want to know more on quality of output - how does it print colour photos, how does it print black and white. I want a comparison using the same standard for each printer on the cost for output - based on ink prices - what is the cost per cartridge? How many cartridges do you need - and how much ink in each cartridge. My current HP inkjet has 17ml cartridges - that are completely useles for any kind of volume printing - and they cost $40 each - I'm curious if these new crop of printers offer better value - but theres simply not enough info in this review to find out - so I wont be using this as my buyers guide.

idd with other posters - there was no reviewing going on here.
The key points are:
Cost/page - does it have indvidual carts, can I use cheap quality 3rd party replacements.
Quality of both text, and photo prints.
Print speed - does it take 10 mins to print an A4 photo.
Life of photo prints - i.e. how fast they fade.
Reliability - what can I do when my print head gets blocked up.

I actually registered for this forum only to voice my disappointment over this article. I come to Toms to get comparisons and quantitative measures of performance that are important but rarely reliable when reported by manufacturers (in this case things like cost per page and actual printing speed). If I wanted a rehash or advertisements I'd go to any of the hundreds of other sites offering this.

If you want to know how a printer really performs, especially regarding photos, go to a photography site or two. That's a forum that's about the results, not the equipment, so you'll get some meat in the article.

FWIW I recently bought a HP Photosmart C6180 printer/fax/copier/scanner that has built in Wi-fi, six cartridges, multi-slot card reader built in. Other than a small paper tray it's been great. Super results, quick enough, very reliable, and after about a month of general use I'm still on the original cartridges that came with it. The built in wif-fi makes it very easy to set up because you can just plugin the power cord and it's good to go. I'm far more satisfied with it than I've been with the last couple of HP or Epson models I've dealt with. But it did cost roughly $250 with a rebate.