HP 7960 vs CANON Pixma 4000

[xNokia3390x]

printhead which carried no warranty. I seriously doubt they meant for you to
send the entire printer to check a consumable printhead when all they would
need is the printhead.

Well I'm glad you know what they told me. What would I know, I just talked
to them. I didn't have an extra printhead to test the printer (nor was I
about to spend $50 to find out) and for all I know it was the printer
itself. They wanted the entire printer mailed back to them on my dime, I
refused and trashed it.

If it needs to be explained to you, then it probably does not matter as
chances are you would not undersatnd (or admit it if you did)

You're very arrogant. As if your experience with computers makes you
almighty. Give me a break.

I don't know, I have several, some which get used very infrequently and
never had a problem nor do I have to run all these cleanings. Now you don't
suppose you got a bad one? Nah...that could never happen. I mean really a
manufacturer sell millions of units and have some exhibit problems! That

You keep stating the obvious, it only shows your ignorance.

simply can't be. By the way, did you hear the news that HP has closed their
call center and will be discontinuing technical support because you have
never had an issue with their printer!

Really? All I've read just says they opened up a call center in India. I
guess you conveniently forgot that eh? I wouldn't mind a link to an article
that says HP has closed their call center(s) and no longer offers technical
support. What's that? Can't find anything? Ha ha...good one.

 

[xNokia3390x]

I guess then you hear what you choose to hear as I alone have mentioned my
5+ good experiences.

WOW! Five whole years... That is just absolute proof of how good Canon's
printers are!

 

[xNokia3390x]

Never said 'my usage determines the norm', but owning 5 myself and working
in the computer and peripheral service industry where I deal with theses
printers on a daily basis, I can say that running out of all colors
simultaneously is not. Does it happen, probably, but hardly the 'norm'
anymore than the fact that because a handful of folks out of the millions of
units sold come to a newsgroup whining about there dead printhead or other
problem indicates that the companies knowingly produce bad printheads.

I don't care what you consider the "norm" to be, I'm just stating my
experiences because you seem to think that your experiences are the usual.
As far as people coming here to whine, well, I guess you're too pro-Canon to
realize that there are problems just like any other printer company. All
you seem to be doing is defending Canon. Do you work for them? My HP's are
slightly more expensive to run, my Epson uses slightly more ink on each
printhead cleaning and my Canon may not last as long. I'm not so incredibly
biased as you are toward one particular brand.

 

[PC Medic]

Really? All I've read just says they opened up a call center in India. I
guess you conveniently forgot that eh? I wouldn't mind a link to an
article
that says HP has closed their call center(s) and no longer offers
technical
support. What's that? Can't find anything? Ha ha...good one.

I rest my case

 

[PC Medic]

WOW! Five whole years... That is just absolute proof of how good Canon's
printers are!

Hmmm, do you see the word 'years' in my statement?? That is two consecutive
posts which you have not read what you are replying to.

I have actually owned Canon printers for about 11 years now with a BJC-600e
being my first.
Had an HP or two over the years as well (before and after my first Canon
purchase, but choose to no longer use them as both I had failed as did their
tech support.

 

[PC Medic]

I don't care what you consider the "norm" to be, I'm just stating my
experiences because you seem to think that your experiences are the usual.
As far as people coming here to whine, well, I guess you're too pro-Canon
to
realize that there are problems just like any other printer company. All
you seem to be doing is defending Canon. Do you work for them? My HP's
are
slightly more expensive to run, my Epson uses slightly more ink on each
printhead cleaning and my Canon may not last as long. I'm not so
incredibly
biased as you are toward one particular brand.

Make that 3 times you have read wrong or what you want to see.
My statements are based off of industry statements, experience in working on
all the various printers and independent studies.
I am not Pro-Canon or anti other brands, and am not biased towards one or
another. I also have not said they do not ever have problems, only that
because yours (or others) broke before you thought it should have does not
make them a bad product when you consider the small percentage to units
sold. This is the same for HP and Epson and others. I have actually owned
several HP's and a few NEC lasers. Had constant clogging issues with my 520C
and 600C had constant paper jams. NEC decided to abandon those superscript
owners that moved to Windows XP less than a year after their purchase
because they were getting out of the 'consumer printer market'. I do not
however spend my days here with "HP Sucks!" or "NEC screws its customers"
type posts.
I move on to what IMHO (and experience) I feel is a better product. I tell
others who question about my experiences, and help those who have products I
am familiar with.

Oh and by the way, stop panicing...HP is not really closing their call
centers and discontinuing support. That was sarcasm that you apparently
missed! Though the fact you have pointed out that they are moving it to
India is one more reason I assume many would not consider their products.
While I feel they are just as knowledgeable and well educated, the language
barrier is not something that many like to deal with when contacting
'technical' support. This has had a major impact on Dell and is one of the
reasons they are moving technical support back to the U.S.

Hope you enjoy your HP's and Epson's as much as I do my Canon's and Minolta

 

[Mr Jessop]

Canons print heads just die.
Epsons clog
Hp replaces it print heads with every cart and charges the price of the
printer to replace them. Even more if you go for the extra photocart.

Considering the overall running costs of my printer i can easily afford a
new printhead. every 10,000 pages. How much would ink carts cost for canon
and hp over that period. Enough to buy a print head or two from canon i'll
bet. As for clogs the easily removeable print head cures most of those
problems not that i've had any that a simple deep clean didn't cure. I
cannot say that for epson. However, epson will send a man in person to
collect your printer and drop off a new one at their expense.

Epson
All in all the epson customer service strategy seems to be the best at least
for the first year of ownership. If they are using their overpriced inks to
subsidise this fantastic service then the few extra quid over the canons may
seem worth it.

I don't know what the current state of affairs is with epson and the chipped
carts. Do this years models have that problem?

I see epson have embraced the individual ink tank system too. Toms hardware
calculated the cost of ownership over five years. the cost per page was
down to o.04 per six by four. thats 4 cents. Considering they are doing 5
and 6 colour printers for the price of canons 4 i think that is impressive.
Quality wise epsons have had the edge. They are now picking up on speed.
However their individual tanks.

Canon
Canons optical ink tank system is the best. No guessing and can be visually
checked if you really don't believe the software. I've also had apart
canon, epson hp and lexmark. only canon tanks are full of real ink not just
foam. Then there is the low cost. No attempts to stop refilling. Canons
have concentrated on speed but now have caught up with epson on systems with
more colours. Even the rabidly devout epson owners at the photo club i'm a
member of admit that epsons drivers are terrible. Some even resort to third
party written drivers.

As for neil slade i agree, if you are serious about your printing then get
at least a £100 printer and find the running costs lower.

Canon paper until the last 6 months has been over priced. Their claims for
longevity are far in excess of the truth. Their customer service could be
better too.

HP.
Print quality has come along way. Their 5 ink system are getting good.
Their cost per page is astonishingly bad.
If you want quality at any price then go to a lab.

Lexmark
harumph!!!

As far as a4 printing and is concerned and cheap text i would only suggest
inkjets as a cheap all rounder.

For 6x4 at home get a dye sub. Quality, longevity, no printheads at all.

A4 and bigger are astonishingly expensive but should improve.

A3. Astonishingly expensive. Inkjets come into their own at this point.
But massive initial outlay, massive space requirements. i still read the
reviews and research but still haven't bought one.

I could buy alot of A3 lab prints for that price. If i was honest i don't
have too many prints worthy of A3 enlargement.

(leaving myself open for snide comments there but that will be just as
telling about anyone making them).

Mono laser (yes even hp) are good buys these days. Then go to the lab for
your 6x4 in bulk and occasional enlargements make the most financial sense.

 

[Panos Stokas]

WOW! Five whole years... That is just absolute proof of how good Canon's
printers are!

xnokia whatever, you are obviously not to be taken seriously in what
is supposed to be an non-biased conversation. You may have had some
bad experiences with your Canon printer(s) but in your last posts you
seem to have generalized them to a point of nonsense.

The first inkjet printer I owned was a small Canon BJ10ex. It was 12
years ago. It still works without problems, although cartridges are
expensive and hard to find. Very slow though, so I offered it as a
present to my nephew and went to buy an HP 2000C.

HP was so frantic about this printer, they even made a special website
for it: www.hp2000c.com. The printer had separate ink carts, very fast
speed good paper handling. It sold (and was named as) a professional
printer. I bought one of them immediately and after 50 pages the
yellow ink was reported low. Absurd, there wasn't a single yellow
pixel in my prints. I joined the hp2000c.com forums to find out a
horde of users having problems with this expensive printer.

Apparently, HP had "invented" an utterly flawed system to count
remaining ink (a smartchip and a pumping shaft) that once it found a
cartridge to be out of ink it would burn information into the
smartchip and render the cartridge useless. There were people in the
forums who had horror stories to say about problematic pump shafts
which turned bunches of 4 carts to junk. I soon became part of these
stories.

The printer sucked and sucked and sucked money until I found out that
I had to replace my entire ink station. Costed about $100. Printed for
a few months without problems and then one fine day a window appeared
on my computer and informed me that this printer would no longer print
unless I replaced the magenta printhead. Amazing. Immediately I stored
the printer away and went to buy a new printer, a Canon i850. I went
to the store prepared to buy it but then I found an HP
multifunctional, PSC2115, which was priced as high as the Canon
printer and would offer photo printing option. So I got myself into HP
again.

First observation: The HP driver was a ridiculous 150MB installation
that's larger than my MS Office!!! Parts of the driver are written in
javascript and the HP applications feel like internet explorer. I
didn't have an option to prevent the HP imaging software from getting
on my computer. This was disgusting.

I returned the first PSC2115 in 2 days after discovering that it would
produce white streaks when photocopying (it would print normally
though).

I returned the second one after removing the black cartridge for
replacement and the printer tried to force the cartidges back to the
station. Essentially, the printer broke itself!

The third one worked for some time and I was glad to find that I could
refill those 56, 57 and the photo 58 cartridges quite easily.
Unfortunately, after a few months the printer would miss lines and a
month after the 1 year warranty the printer stopped in the middle of a
printjob making a horrible noise. It was a carriage jam and was
repeated many times in the days to come. One day I left it printing
and returned to find it jammed, both printheads dried. I opened the
printer and I discovered that it was an extremely complex device
relying on a plastic disc with black marks passing through an optical
sensor for roller calibration. The disc was dirty and the black marks
a bit scratched and that explained my missing lines.

A second HP printer now adores my storeroom.

I was determined that I would not make the same mistake again and
searched the web for a Canon printer. I found the new PIXMA
multifunctionals which offer all the things I need. U-feeding,
CD-printing, two-side printing and reportedly good speed. They also
use separate carts, a long forgotten feature of my old 2000C. I
searched the web a little more and I found that Canon is doing it
RIGHT. No smartchips, no pump-shafts. Just a simple optical sensor.

Unfortunately these new products have not yet arrived in my country
(expected this month). But I needed a printer, so I went to the store
and purchased a cheapo HP in order to finish my remaining unopened HP
cartridges when the pixmas would arrive.

To my amazement this cheapo multifunctional (PSC1210) works well.
Although it shares the same silly driver with PSC 2115 (apparently HP
is supplying this bloat to all its imaging devices), I've inspected
the mechanism and it seems HP is using a much more simple mechanism
for this line of printers. Of _course_ it's cheapo and slow and not
photo, of _course_ I am going to buy the new Canon when it comes, but
this HP will probably turn to be a good gift to my parents.

My experience with HP is that

1) It is not what it used to be. HP products used to be american
products with all the virtues of american products: strong build, good
support, quality software. Today's HP seems to have outsourced
everything to Asia: neither hardware, nor support not even software
seem to come from experienced US engineers. They all seem to share the
cheapo feel of many Chinese or Pakistani products.

2) HP is a good purchase if you are going for cheapo. People who print
less than 30 pages per month should definitely buy an HP, it will last
for many years and cartridges are easy to find.

3) If you are in serious need of printing you should avoid HP inkjets.