Looking For Quality A4 Photo Printer

[alphawave]

Hi,
I'm in the market for a new A4 inkjet printer - specifically for
printing photo's as my trusty Canon i850 has bitten the dust -
literally, I dropped it down the stairs from my office!

I've used Canon for many years and I have read good things about the
PIXMA IP6700D - but I think this is no longer available.

My other option was the PIXMA IP4600 - but I heard that this was a
downgraded IP4500?

So now I'm not sure what to go for - is there a better Canon option
withhout going to the expense of the PRO range.

Or is there a EPSON/HP/ Or other make out there that tops the Canons.

Looking to spend £100 - £150 ish

But at the end of the day it's quality prints I'm looking for.

Thanks

Kev

 

[IntergalacticExpandingPanda]

I've used Canon for many years and I have read good things about the
PIXMA IP6700D - but I think this is no longer available.

My other option was the PIXMA IP4600 - but I heard that this was a
downgraded IP4500?

So now I'm not sure what to go for - is there a better Canon option
withhout going to the expense of the PRO range.

Or is there a EPSON/HP/ Or other make out there that tops the Canons.

Looking to spend £100 - £150 ish

If you're pleased with canon, go canon. Unfortunately you are
correct, the ip6700D has been abandoned, and the solution solution you
can likely get is the mp970, which offers 7 tanks, same compliment as
the ip6700D, but with an extra pigmented black. But I would guess
that will run you about £180 at PC world.

I would pick the ip4500 over the ip4600 due to the cost of ink being
LOWER per page for the ip4500, and the ip4600 has decreased the size
of it's text printing head. If you can't find an ip4500 you can find
a multi-function

http://www.dixons.co.uk/martprd/sto...null&sm=null&tm=null&sku=841385&category_oid=
£95.04

Here is a review
http://www.steves-digicams.com/2007_reviews/canon_mp610.html

I can only speak directly about the mp830, and ip5200, which are
slightly older models than the ip4500. Photo printing is pretty damn
good on them, but the ip6700D had an advantage over them in the fact
that it had small drops for yellow and black. You tend to see large
blocky areas on swellable polymer paper on the ip5200 and mp830 where
it uses yellow and black. Cyan and magenta have a choice of large or
small drops. Aside from that minor complaint, it's still a pretty
stellar photo printer and not a bad text printer either.

The ip4500 added medium sized drops, which I presume (haven't seen) is
good on papers that the small 1pl drops don't work well.

------

In the not canon you have the HP d5460 starting at £100. It's a new
model so I can't speak from direct experience, but Druckerchannel did
a review on it, and it's now in English

http://www.druckerchannel.de/artikel.php?ID=2353&seite=6&t=test_hp_photosmart_d5460

It might cost a little more to print black text, but there at least
seems like it does a slightly better job than Canon at least according
to druckerchannel. Photos I'd have to see side to side to tell.

-----
Epson is still offering their Epson Photo R285, Price inc VAT
£49.99. My last experience with Epson was the r200, well excluding my
a3+ printers. As such I can't fairly compare what I have vs the
R285. I can compare the r200 to the ip4000 and the r200 was certainly
better on CDs, and required less color tweeking for CDs to look good.
The blacks on the ip4000 seemed to be shifted slightly toward the
blue. For photos, the r200 won. Mine went kaput, and it was cheaper
for me to sell the ink and buy a canon, which to be fair offered the
better general purpose printer, then it was for me to continue using
the Epson.

One Epson drawback is it uses a pump to clean the heads. Installing
it for the first time sucks up the ink, and from my observation it
seems to waste much ink in the cleaning process. The benefit is the
fact the head doesn't typically suffer from burnouts, only clogs. The
Canon, you can throw money at it to fix a printhead. I presume the
same is true for the new HP as well.

----

So there you have it, three options to look at.

Canon AIO for 100 quid, the mp610
The HP stand alone also 100 quid
The epson r280 for 50 quid.

 

[alphawave]

If you're pleased with canon, go canon.  Unfortunately you are
correct, the ip6700D has been abandoned, and the solution solution you
can likely get is the mp970, which offers 7 tanks, same compliment as
the ip6700D, but with an extra pigmented black.  But I would guess
that will run you about £180 at PC world.

I would pick the ip4500 over the ip4600 due to the cost of ink being
LOWER per page for the ip4500, and the ip4600 has decreased the size
of it's text printing head.  If you can't find an ip4500 you can find
a multi-function

http://www.dixons.co.uk/martprd/store/dix_page.jsp?BV_SessionID=@@@@0....
£95.04

Here is a reviewhttp://www.steves-digicams.com/2007_reviews/canon_mp610.html

I can only speak directly about the mp830, and ip5200, which are
slightly older models than the ip4500.  Photo printing is pretty damn
good on them, but the ip6700D had an advantage over them in the fact
that it had small drops for yellow and black.  You tend to see large
blocky areas on swellable polymer paper on the ip5200 and mp830 where
it uses yellow and black.  Cyan and magenta have a choice of large or
small drops.  Aside from that minor complaint, it's still a pretty
stellar photo printer and not a bad text printer either.

The ip4500 added medium sized drops, which I presume (haven't seen) is
good on papers that the small 1pl drops don't work well.

------

In the not canon you have the HP d5460 starting at £100.  It's a new
model so I can't speak from direct experience, but Druckerchannel did
a review on it, and it's now in English

http://www.druckerchannel.de/artikel.php?ID=2353&seite=6&t=test_hp_ph...

It might cost a little more to print black text, but there at least
seems like it does a slightly better job than Canon at least according
to druckerchannel.  Photos I'd have to see side to side to tell.

-----
Epson is still offering their Epson Photo R285, Price inc VAT
£49.99.  My last experience with Epson was the r200, well excluding my
a3+ printers.  As such I can't fairly compare what I have vs the
R285.  I can compare the r200 to the ip4000 and the r200 was certainly
better on CDs, and required less color tweeking for CDs to look good.
The blacks on the ip4000 seemed to be shifted slightly toward the
blue.  For photos, the r200 won.  Mine went kaput, and it was cheaper
for me to sell the ink and buy a canon, which to be fair offered the
better general purpose printer, then it was for me to continue using
the Epson.

One Epson drawback is it uses a pump to clean the heads.  Installing
it for the first time sucks up the ink, and from my observation it
seems to waste much ink in the cleaning process.  The benefit is the
fact the head doesn't typically suffer from burnouts, only clogs.  The
Canon, you can throw money at it to fix a printhead.  I presume the
same is true for the new HP as well.

----

So there you have it, three options to look at.

Canon AIO for 100 quid, the mp610
The HP stand alone also 100 quid
The epson r280 for 50 quid.

Thanks Inter,
I'll have a quick Google to see if i can find a 6700D - but I'm not
holding out much hope!
I'm not a fan of Epson but I'll check out the HP and the Canon
Multi's.
The printer will be used 99.99% of the time for photos - usually use
office laser for documents.

Cheers,

Kev