[lug] Seeking recommendations on multifunction printer/scanner/etc

[Daniel Webb]

On Wed, Jul 05, 2006 at 07:25:00PM -0600, Collins Richey wrote:

> Sorry that you folks have not had a good experience with Epson. My
> wife has used a Photo 890 for 2-3? years, and the heads haven't
> clogged up or caught fire. Occasionally it does need several rounds of
> head cleaning to maintain color quality. My CX4200 is still too new to
> have much history. I'm still on the initial set of cartridges.

Wow.  I should have added the caveat that we use the printer sporadically.
Sometimes we print every day for a week, sometimes we don't print for a month.
That's hard on any inkjet, but in the case of the Epson we had it was
impossible to clean.  The HPs and the Canon could be popped out, doused with
rubbing alcohol, and good as new.  Also, that was a long time ago so Epson may
have solved that problem.  But if they're impossible to clean (direct access
to the ink nozzles) then I probably still wouldn't buy one because I just
don't believe you can make an inkjet that doesn't clog during its lifetime
with the way we use it.

> I, too, prefer laser printers, but the HP unit I had was almost as
> slow as the Epson! Also, CUPS can screw up any printer, HP or
> otherwise.

Hehe.  So far the only problems I've had printing were KDE related.  CUPS in
Debian stable has worked very effortlessly for me.  I won't ever buy an HP
without doing thorough product research again.  Fool me once...

Right now at home we use an ancient (we're talking 1990 vintage here) HP IIIp.
Prints better quality than the HP I bought with my research money at school
despite being 15 years older.  A bit slow but it prints everything I throw at
it (it has the 2MB memory upgrade!)  It's so old I have to put a dab of dish
soap on the pickup rollers about once a month to keep them supple because
they're dry-rotting.  Incredible construction quality, I've seen very few
products ever that are built so well.  Well, I guess I do drive a 22 year old
Honda Accord that mysteriously keeps running, so I guess that's comparable.
And all my Thinkpad laptops are 7 years old at this point.  Guess I really
like products that are built to last...  especially since you can get them
dirt cheap since most people don't appreciate the value of them.