HP 7960 vs CANON Pixma 4000

[Matthew]

OK, I am going nuts trying to figure out which to get. I have looked at
numerous reviews of both the HP 7960 and the new Canon Pixma 4000. I can get
the HP at Costco for the bargain price of $150.00.
I had a Canon i850 which I love but killed the print head. I am replacing
the head for $50 to give the printer to my son.
The HP looks terrific but the cost of the ink scares the hell out of me and
the card slots on the HP don't matter much to me. I like the Canons because
of their single ink tanks.

Any and all opinions of both of these printers would be appreciated!
Thanks,
Matthew

 

[Bill Sumrall]

I have the 7960. Nothing but good things to say about it. Ink cost is
expensive, really expensive. Started doing 'refills'. Cost is now
negligible.
Bill
-----

OK, I am going nuts trying to figure out which to get. I have looked at
numerous reviews of both the HP 7960 and the new Canon Pixma 4000. I can get
the HP at Costco for the bargain price of $150.00.
I had a Canon i850 which I love but killed the print head. I am replacing
the head for $50 to give the printer to my son.
The HP looks terrific but the cost of the ink scares the hell out of me and
the card slots on the HP don't matter much to me. I like the Canons because
of their single ink tanks.

Any and all opinions of both of these printers would be appreciated!
Thanks,
Matthew

Bill

 

[=?ISO-8859-1?Q?BenOne=A9?=]

OK, I am going nuts trying to figure out which to get. I have looked at
numerous reviews of both the HP 7960 and the new Canon Pixma 4000. I can get
the HP at Costco for the bargain price of $150.00.
I had a Canon i850 which I love but killed the print head. I am replacing
the head for $50 to give the printer to my son.
The HP looks terrific but the cost of the ink scares the hell out of me and
the card slots on the HP don't matter much to me. I like the Canons because
of their single ink tanks.

Any and all opinions of both of these printers would be appreciated!
Thanks,
Matthew

The Canon's are definitely superior because of the individual ink tanks. Doesn't
the ip4000 have a much better resolution and droplet size than the HPs.

 

[Bill]

OK, I am going nuts trying to figure out which to get. I have looked at
numerous reviews of both the HP 7960 and the new Canon Pixma 4000. I can get
the HP at Costco for the bargain price of $150.00.

Sounds like it's a refurbished unit? If not, it's a good price.

A friend just picked up the HP Deskjet 6540. And with the photo
cartridge we picked up for it tonight, it prints BETTER than my Canon
i850 with the default settings. I was pleasantly surprised.

I had a Canon i850 which I love but killed the print head.

Out of curiosity, how did you kill the printhead?

The HP looks terrific but the cost of the ink scares the hell out of me

Consumable prices for all original printer brands are very high. You're
not saving that much with individual ink cartridges.

The main reason I bought a Canon was for the easy to refill clear ink
tanks. Refilling them is very inexpensive, but if you're not refilling,
then ink costs can be similar across various brands and models.

 

[Bill]

The Canon's are definitely superior because of the individual ink tanks.

For refilling, the Canons are definitely easier. No argument there.

Doesn't
the ip4000 have a much better resolution and droplet size than the HPs.

Resolution is the same 4800x1200. Droplet size is smaller for the C&M
colours at 2 picoliters on the Canon. However, the HP can use six
colours instead of four and produces similar if not better photos.

My friend just bought the HP 6540 (basically the same as 7960 for photo
prints), and it produces better photos than my i850, which is similar to
the iP4000 except for the photo black ink.

I'd like to see side by side comparisons.

 

[Ron Cohen]

While refilling BCI-6 tanks is definately the least expensive route (and a
very easy one at that), third party tanks with quality inks are also
available at a very low price. I use bulk ink and tanks from
www.alotofthings.com. FWIW, I've had an iP4000 for a few weeks now and it is
a fantastic printer. It replaced an i950 that gave out on me. The printhead
wasn't clogged, but it started getting a heavy magenta tint to most prints.
The same old refilled tanks from the i950 were put in the iP4000 and the
prints came out beautiful. The same prints were also done using the OEM
Canon cartridges which came with the iP4000 and no difference in colors
could be noted.

 

[Ron Cohen]

The iP4000 is a five ink tank system - dye based CMYK and pigmented black
for text, the same as the i860. The iP3000 is the successor to the i850.
These lack the dye based black, but do have pigmented black for text. The
iP5000 uses the same ink setup as the iP4000 but has an even smaller droplet
size of one picoliter.

 

[xNokia3390x]

Sounds like it's a refurbished unit? If not, it's a good price.

It's new, I've seen it at Costco as well. Very cheap as you noticed.

A friend just picked up the HP Deskjet 6540. And with the photo
cartridge we picked up for it tonight, it prints BETTER than my Canon
i850 with the default settings. I was pleasantly surprised.

I have the HP Photosmart 7350, and yes, the photo quality is superb.

Consumable prices for all original printer brands are very high. ***You're
not saving that much with individual ink cartridges.***

EXACTL:Y! I bought a Canon i560 just to see if the individual cartridges
would save me money. It saves me a bit of yellow, but nothing that's
noticeable. It seems like people get carried away with the whole
'individual cartridges' deal and fail to realize that unless you print a lot
of one color (ie. red logo) you will not save that much.

 

[SteveB]

And there's little advantage to single cartridges if refilling. Actually,
refilling HP cartridges is really easy, it's resetting the ink level
indicator to 100% that takes the time and can fail to work sometimes causing
much time to be wasted trying again until it does work.

 

[Bill]

EXACTL:Y! I bought a Canon i560 just to see if the individual cartridges
would save me money. It saves me a bit of yellow, but nothing that's
noticeable. It seems like people get carried away with the whole
'individual cartridges' deal and fail to realize that unless you print a lot
of one color (ie. red logo) you will not save that much.

I bought a Canon for one primary reason - the clear ink tanks are VERY
easy to refill. Beyond that, they have no serious advantage. And now I'm
concerned about its printhead life...

 

[Bill]

And there's little advantage to single cartridges if refilling. Actually,
refilling HP cartridges is really easy, it's resetting the ink level
indicator to 100% that takes the time and can fail to work sometimes causing
much time to be wasted trying again until it does work.

I found refilling my old HP cartridges was slow and tedious, and it had
to be done far too often because of the small cartridges. I switch to
Canon mainly for the easy refilling.

I thought the HP cartridges didn't have ink-level chips in them? So how
does the printer keep track?

 

[Bill]

The iP4000 is a five ink tank system - dye based CMYK and pigmented black
for text, the same as the i860.

Yes it has five tanks, but to nitpick it only has FOUR colours for
printing. The smaller droplet size does help with gradients though, and
that's where the 3&4 colour printers get their advantage. But current
six colour printers are still the best.

iP5000 uses the same ink setup as the iP4000 but has an even smaller droplet
size of one picoliter.

That only applies to half of the C&M jets though. The rest are 5
picoliters like the competition.

I'm curious to see if the small size produces greater clogging or more
wear on the printhead. It seems a friend's Canon i550 printhead just bit
the dust. Based on the number of ink tanks he used in it, it didn't even
get to the quarter-way point in the life expectancy. And of course, it's
out of warranty now (16 months) and he has to pay $60+shipping+taxes to
get a new one. He only used Canon ink tanks as well, not compatibles or
refills.

Obviously he's REALLY pissed off with Canon now and is thinking of going
back to HP instead. I don't blame him.

And now I'm getting worried that mine won't last either. My i850 is
about the same age, and it just started clogging and needs a printhead
cleaning each time I print with it now. With all the recent talk of
printhead failures, I'm concerned about it's future. If it fails, I
certainly won't buy another Canon again. My last printer (HP) was over
five years old and was stilling going strong when I sold it with my last
computer.

 

[Mr Jessop]

Yes it has five tanks, but to nitpick it only has FOUR colours for
printing. The smaller droplet size does help with gradients though, and
that's where the 3&4 colour printers get their advantage. But current
six colour printers are still the best.


That only applies to half of the C&M jets though. The rest are 5
picoliters like the competition.

I'm curious to see if the small size produces greater clogging or more
wear on the printhead. It seems a friend's Canon i550 printhead just bit
the dust. Based on the number of ink tanks he used in it, it didn't even
get to the quarter-way point in the life expectancy. And of course, it's
out of warranty now (16 months) and he has to pay $60+shipping+taxes to
get a new one. He only used Canon ink tanks as well, not compatibles or
refills.

Obviously he's REALLY pissed off with Canon now and is thinking of going
back to HP instead. I don't blame him.

And now I'm getting worried that mine won't last either. My i850 is
about the same age, and it just started clogging and needs a printhead
cleaning each time I print with it now. With all the recent talk of
printhead failures, I'm concerned about it's future. If it fails, I
certainly won't buy another Canon again. My last printer (HP) was over
five years old and was stilling going strong when I sold it with my last
computer.

considering how much genuine consumables cost for each printer you got your
moneys worth from the canon. I fortunately bought the 3 year extended
warranty. Finally, those monthly duty cycles are for 5% coverage not 95%
(which proper photos are).

 

[Bill Sumrall]

http://www.alotofthings.com/supportforrefillers/HP565758_rotatingcartridges.html

Above link describes:
ROTATING YOUR CARTRIDGES
HPs built-in reset.
According to Hewlett Packard documentation the printers using the #56,
#57 & #58 only retain the information of the last two cartridges that
were in the printer.

Article goes on to say if have 3 cartridges (of same type), rotating
will cause printer to register 100%. I have found that it works on my
7960 - and refilling doesn't take much time.

Bill
-------

And there's little advantage to single cartridges if refilling. Actually,
refilling HP cartridges is really easy, it's resetting the ink level
indicator to 100% that takes the time and can fail to work sometimes causing
much time to be wasted trying again until it does work.

Bill

 

[Bill]

considering how much genuine consumables cost for each printer you got your
moneys worth from the canon.

Perhaps, but that doesn't make me feel any better about Canon quality.

The printhead should have lasted a lot longer than the measly 2500 pages
my friend got out of his i550, that's for sure.

 

[Bill]

http://www.alotofthings.com/supportforrefillers/HP565758_rotatingcartridges.html

Above link describes:
ROTATING YOUR CARTRIDGES
HPs built-in reset.
According to Hewlett Packard documentation the printers using the #56,
#57 & #58 only retain the information of the last two cartridges that
were in the printer.

Article goes on to say if have 3 cartridges (of same type), rotating
will cause printer to register 100%. I have found that it works on my
7960 - and refilling doesn't take much time.

That's good info. Thanks.

 

[puss]

considering how much genuine consumables cost for each printer you got your
moneys worth from the canon. I fortunately bought the 3 year extended
warranty. Finally, those monthly duty cycles are for 5% coverage not 95%
(which proper photos are).

To me the Epson is the cheaper printer to run in the long term and NO PRINT
HEAD ROT, like Cannon..

Read the Article on Tomshardware web site.

HP's are not cheap to run as you have to buy a new print head each time you
need a new Cartridge, but that does get over the head rot thing..

 

[xNokia3390x]

To me the Epson is the cheaper printer to run in the long term and NO PRINT
HEAD ROT, like Cannon..

I'm not so sure about that. I have a C84 that has received VERY limited use
and it has used half the ink in each cartridge already! I've tried leaving
it on 24/7, or just switching it on and off each day. It makes no
difference. I'm going to switch out my i560 and start using the C84 as my
daily printer and see how that works. But so far, I am not impressed. The
print head cleaning on power-up is overkill.

HP's are not cheap to run as you have to buy a new print head each time you
need a new Cartridge, but that does get over the head rot thing..

I haven't found them that expensive to run. I have a DeskJet 930c and a
Photosmart 7350. Once my i560 dies, I will trash it - and believe me, I
won't be looking back. I'll just stick with HP. I tried Canon (since the
new "i" series came out a few years ago, I've heard rave reviews up until
recently since print heads are starting to die...which is what I was worried
about, due to previous bad experiences with Canon), tried Epson and will end
up right where I started with HP.

 

[xNokia3390x]

I bought a Canon for one primary reason - the clear ink tanks are VERY
easy to refill. Beyond that, they have no serious advantage. And now I'm
concerned about its printhead life...

Yup, I don't refill because the OEM cartridges are cheap enough at Costco.
I see no advantage either, despite the advertising gimmicks. I had to try
it for myself, and now I am satisfied that I can go back to HP knowing it's
good enough until the next line of seriously revamped printers from another
comapny comes out. I too am getting concerned about the print head life.
It's very humid here in Hawaii and previous experiences with a Canon BJC5000
and BJC4300 have left me with a bad impression of Canon's printers. Once it
dies though, I'm trashing it and not looking back. I am not in the market
for a disposable printer

 

[Matthew]

I appreciate everyone's feedback.
In response to Bill: My printhead abruptly stopped printing color completely
while printing a color web page. Several and I mean SEVERAL DEEP cleaning
cycles got back some magenta and yellow but the cyan was shot. I have read a
lot that the aftermarket inks are to blame. Maybe this is a scare tactic...I
don't know. I was using inks from 123inkjets.com. I'll tell you one thing
though, the colors on photos SUCKED with the aftermarket ink.
I actually did order a replacement head for my i850 which I was very happy
with. I'll give to my son...and I'll be using OEM ink
My CANON theory is this: All 5 tanks OEM for the PIXMA would run ~$60.00.
All 4 tanks for the HP7960 we're talking ~$110.00. I have absolutely no
desire to refill these things myself.
Even if I have to shell out $50 for a new print head after 2 years for the
Canon, I am still ahead with the price of the ink over the HP.
Just my additional thoughts...
Matthew