You can get an awesome photo printer for $300 or less these days. I have an
Epson Stylus Photo R200 and it is impressive when printing digital, high
resolution photos. I would suppose that the R300 would be equally
impressive. My R200 is also great at document printing, but I have a laser
printer that I use for documents. Ink jet printers are not the most
economical choice for document printing jobs.
If you stay with printers from Epson, HP or Canon, you can't go wrong. You
can see comparisons at sites like
www.pcworld.com.
I would go with a flatbed scanner and a printer as opposed to a
multifunction machine. As you have discovered, some multifunction units do
not do everything well. The printer might be great, but the scanner may
suck. Or the fax interface may be fantastic, but the printing is awful.
"fan" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> I've recently purchased a new Dell 8400 computer (WinXP) and Dell 942
> printer/scanner (http://snipurl.com/e9r2). The computer is great but
> the printer is poor. I'm going to return it and get a better, non-Dell
> printer/scanner, which will be used for document printing and
> photographs.
>
> What would be the best inexpensive printer (under $300) to replace the
> Dell 942 with? It'd be nice if it could also scan, but not absolutely
> essential.
>
> Thanks for all suggestions.