[KatherineW]

Ok, so my beloved Lexmark All-in-One bit the dust and I can't put off getting another printer for my office any longer. I've spent a lot of time perusing the Epson and Canon sites and can't make up my mind which brand/model I should go for. Does anyone here have a printer (current model) they love (or hate) that they'd like to share about? Here's my requirements:

1. Excellent print quality
2. Scan function
3. And yes, I have budgets restraints

[podiumchick]

I had an Epson. It was plagued with clogged ink jets. It was a problem across the model. I nursed it as long as I could, but with kids and school projects I had to replace it. My college kids have cheap HPs that drink ink. I liked the flexibility of having individual ink cartridges. I ended up buying a Canon MP620 (print, copy, scan). It has a card reader if you want to print from your card (I have not figured out how to just use it as a card reader to the PC--maybe you can't.) It also has a USB port so I can scan a photo directly to my flash drive if I want to. It seems to use a bit more ink than my Epson did, but it isn't a big problem. The only thing I find slightly annoying is the fact that it has two black inks. One is photo quality, I think. But if one is out the printer won't print. So i don't know when it uses which black! And I always keep current on ink replacements so I don't find myself out of one color and unable to print.

Good luck!

[podiumchick]

Oh, I should add that I used Thao's newsletter template for our Christmas letter last year and the photos printed beautifully on regular letter weight paper. I don't print photos much for myself, but these came out nicely.

[AggieB]

I have an epson 215, I believe. I have had other epsons in the past & have not had problems with clogged ink jets (unless I let it sit for a long time) and this latest model has never (yet) given me problems. I had one Kodak model whose price (especially the ink) was right, but I had a lot of mechanical problems. The current epson does have individual ink cartridges, which is good, because they are quite pricy.

[MLLatscrapgirls]

Lately I have used the HP Photo printers which have separate color ink cartridges (which I highly recommend). The more, the better as far as I am concerned - I seem to use some colors a lot more than others at times so I like being able to just replace one and not waste the rest.

However, when my last printer died, I decided to be clever and get a wireless one - BIG mistake! All it does it slow our entire network down to a crawl. And that includes its own printing speed. So while I figure out how to bypass that, I definitely recommend AGAINST wireless.

[Linda.E]

HP just came out with a all-in-one wide format printer - list price $299.00. It's the HP 7500. I think there is one version that is wireless. It's on my Christmas list.

[B&K Mom]

I have no advice for your, Katherine. I'm just here envying your position. I'd love a new printer...ours is just a pain (Epson all in one...). Hope you find a good one. Please let us know what you choose and give us a review.

[sarabethp]

I have an HP Photosmart all-in-one with individual color cartridges. I highly recommend the separate color cartridges. You don't have to replace all colors for 1 missing color. I haven't had any issues with the printing of it. Currently the lightscribe drive doesn't work (the driver is outdated and I can't find the new one) and I do know HP's customer service is very frustrating. I do love the prints on my HP though. I also only use that for scanning, photos, layouts and scrapping crafts.

My workhorse is my HP color laser. I found mine at a really good deal. We use it for all our everyday printing (it does a fairly decent photo, good enough for projects that aren't going on the wall.) The nice thing is that the toners last forever. We only replace them about once a year (the black goes more often than the colors.)

[SandiC.]

My Canon Pixma 1230 is pretty reliable...its an all-in-one. Its a couple of years old so I doubt its still available, but the newer version of that line might just be what you're looking for...and it was less than $100.

[michgirl]

My two cents

I have an HP Photosmart all-in-one. I also have the Epson 1900 wide format printer. I went to the all-in-one quite a few years ago, after tiring of so many gadgets on my desktop. I love the HP Photosmart printers. They have the individual ink tanks and their scanners do an excellent job on photos and the software that accompanies them for scanning is very easy to use. Their prints on the advanced photo paper are beautiful and truly rival my Epson 1900. I also like the Epson 810 all-in-one, quite sleek using. I haven't ever owned a Canon printer, so not opinion on that one.

But I bought my first HP color printer in 1996 and have been upgrading ever since!

I do have my HP on my network using the wireless connection for two other desktops and laptop and it works like a charm. Nothing slow at all

[KatherineW]

Alright I took the plunge and went with Epson Workforce 520 All-in-One. I spent about an hour reading all the printer labels in Best Buy, and this one seemed to be calling out to me. I can't wait to try it out!

[April Showers]

Enjoy your new printer!

[mimes1]

I'm due also. I'll be re-reading everyone's comments here to make a decision one of these days! Mark even asked "what did the girls say" about a printer to choose. LOL!

[B&K Mom]

mimes1, on 03 November 2010 - 01:26 PM, said:

Mark even asked "what did the girls say" about a printer to choose. LOL!

Crack me up, Amy. He knows that we "girls" know a thing or two about our scrapping gadgets! I love the respect! Thanks Mark!

[B&K Mom]

KatherineW, on 02 November 2010 - 03:35 PM, said:

Alright I took the plunge and went with Epson Workforce 520 All-in-One. I spent about an hour reading all the printer labels in Best Buy, and this one seemed to be calling out to me. I can't wait to try it out!

Oh boy, a new toy!! Enjoy. I hope it works well for you. I'll be waiting for your review.

[KatherineW]

Got it all hooked up, installed, and ready to go. Hooking it up to go wireless was a cinch, and the test print came out beautiful. Since the printer was on sale ($89.99 instead of $129), I splurged a bit and got the Epson Super White 24 weight paper and a pack of Epson premium presentation paper because I like to print out my class pdfs for a hard copy on hand. Can't wait to get back home and do some printing.

I'm so inspired that I might actually scrap a Christmas Card letter. Someone earlier mentioned Thao's newsletter templates, so I'm off to check those out.