terminally unreliable HP

[zakezuke]

Considering the quality of my photo printing, I don't regard my i960's or
ip5000's as obsolete. I guess that if you need the (painfully slow)
duplexing function or dual paper path then one would regard the i960 as old
stuff. On the other hand, if you consider print quality they are still all
very good printers. Measekite used to chide me for buying "old technology"
when I purchased my i960's. Apparently he hasn't had the urge to move up to
any of the printers that have come out since his beloved ip4000.

The i960, not really obsolete. the ip5000, that's on par with the
current generation, and from my understanding can be tweeked to accept
the new color inks.

My point was, you own one printer which has a current generation head,
and to boot a printer with the older generation head. You are in a
position to judge and give advice.

I somewhat less so, as my canon base is limited to the ip3000/mp760/
ip5200/mp830 and a few older models in the i series.

Measekite owns an ip4000 and that's it.

Canon does make it somewhat difficult for someone to jump into their
printers, looking for solid review when they change models almost on a
yearly basis.

 

[Burt]

The i960, not really obsolete. the ip5000, that's on par with the
current generation, and from my understanding can be tweeked to accept
the new color inks.

My point was, you own one printer which has a current generation head,
and to boot a printer with the older generation head. You are in a
position to judge and give advice.

I somewhat less so, as my canon base is limited to the ip3000/mp760/
ip5200/mp830 and a few older models in the i series.

Measekite owns an ip4000 and that's it.

Canon does make it somewhat difficult for someone to jump into their
printers, looking for solid review when they change models almost on a
yearly basis.

Reminds me of a joke we used to tell in graduate school (actually no joke!)
that each year the professors kept the same answers but changed the
questions. Canon's upgrades are, more often than not, a yearly change in
the shape or color of the case. There may be some incremental changes in
nozzle numbers, etc, but you would be hard pressed to tell the difference
functionally. The major changes since I have been using Canon printers have
been one picoliter nozzles, duplexing and dual paper path (useless for my
needs), and the new inks which claim to have less fading. The upgrade that
is an absolute step backward is the chip on the cart. Forget about
aftermarket products for a moment - I see posts from people using these
printers with OEM original carts where the printer either doesn't recognize
the cart, sees it as a different color, or identifies it as empty when it is
as much as half full in the reservoir area.

The best buy in town at this point, as far as I can tell, is the ip4300
(probably pretty much equivalent to my ip5000) at Staples for $69. That
price may drop more as the ip4500 comes into the market place, but they may
then be very difficult to find. If anyone can find the deal on the ip4200
that I saw a few weeks ago @$40 they should jump on it if they want a decent
general purpose printer.

 

[zakezuke]

Reminds me of a joke we used to tell in graduate school (actually no joke!)
that each year the professors kept the same answers but changed the
questions. Canon's upgrades are, more often than not, a yearly change in
the shape or color of the case. There may be some incremental changes in
nozzle numbers, etc, but you would be hard pressed to tell the difference
functionally. The major changes since I have been using Canon printers have
been one picoliter nozzles, duplexing and dual paper path (useless for my
needs), and the new inks which claim to have less fading. The upgrade that
is an absolute step backward is the chip on the cart. Forget about
aftermarket products for a moment - I see posts from people using these
printers with OEM original carts where the printer either doesn't recognize
the cart, sees it as a different color, or identifies it as empty when it is
as much as half full in the reservoir area.

The big deal seems to be camera phone printing, and I saw reference to
lab quality.But aside from that, yes.

My grief was the fact they discontinued the ip8500. That was a pretty
stellar printer. My other grief is the lack of a non Japanese 7 tank
model the iP7500... as in pigment black, CMYK and light cyan/
magenta.

 

[Burt]

The big deal seems to be camera phone printing, and I saw reference to
lab quality.But aside from that, yes.

My grief was the fact they discontinued the ip8500. That was a pretty
stellar printer. My other grief is the lack of a non Japanese 7 tank
model the iP7500... as in pigment black, CMYK and light cyan/
magenta.

Interesting - combining the qualities of a six color photo printer with the
better text production of the pigmented black. I must say, however, that it
is difficult to tell which printer photos come from in my house - i960 or
ip5000. If the ip7500 had one picoliter nozzles plus six ink colors that
would be an interesting improvement. At arms length, however, I think we
would have difficulty seeing the difference. I used a jeweler's loupe with
8x magnification to compare prints from my Epson stylus 900 when I first
purchased the i960. What looked like beautiful prints with the Epson looked
pretty poor when analyzing the dot patterns under magnification. Of course,
there were some years of improved technology that also made a difference,
and the ES900 was not touted as an excellent photo printer. It was a great
workhorse, but it did tend to clog and need maintenance.

 

[Burt]

The big deal seems to be camera phone printing, and I saw reference to
lab quality.But aside from that, yes.

My grief was the fact they discontinued the ip8500. That was a pretty
stellar printer. My other grief is the lack of a non Japanese 7 tank
model the iP7500... as in pigment black, CMYK and light cyan/
magenta.

Zakezuke - check out this item from Broadway photo - chipped carts, but a
multifunction unit with seven carts! Not a bad price for a six dye-based
printer plus the pigment-based black plus other functions.
http://www.bwayphoto.com/product.asp?id=cnmp960

 

[zakezuke]

Zakezuke - check out this item from Broadway photo - chipped carts, but a
multifunction unit with seven carts! Not a bad price for a six dye-based
printer plus the pigment-based black plus other functions.http://www.bwayphoto.com/product.asp?id=cnmp960

Thanks for the heads up, I know that model the mp960. The last AIO I
bought was the mp830 which was on sale sub $200 and I needed a sheet
feeder. The frustrating thing isn't the fact that you can't get a 7
tank printer, it's the fact that the ip7500 in japan was priced in
between the ip4xxx/5xxx and the ip6xxxD... if you were willing to
ditch the LCD screen you could go with pigment and have a general
purpose really good photo printer.

But it's been out for a while.


http://dc.watch.impress.co.jp/cda/ijp2005/2005/12/13/2880.html
http://dc.watch.impress.co.jp/static/2005/printer/canon/ip7500/bridge.jpg