Seeing the other thread about commectial printers got me thinking about PC printers, as in inkjets.

What horrible contraptions they are!

The cartridges cost a fortune

The heads clog up and frequently need cleaning (especially on Epsons)

Cleaning heads eats like 1/4 of your cartridge

Compatibles - don't even go there, on some models they can wreck your heads for good (our Epson 895 went the way of the dodo due to those)

Some of them spit ink all over themselves

Some of them occasionally fail to feed paper but still splatter ink all over the plastic where it should be

Many of them are noisy and take forever to power up (especially Epsons)

If you don't use one for a while, say goodbye to your heads or at least get ready for a *lot* of cleaning

Don't get the printouts wet...


Then you have Lexmark. It's cheaper to throw away your bloody Lexmark and buy a new one than it is to buy new cartriges for it! How daft is that?

I think Inkjets are going to be like disposable cameras: use once then throw away and buy a new one. I'm getting less and less impressed by our "throwaway society" full of crappy products which are probably especially designed to break.

The only exception some of the high-end Canons like the i950 (which we have)... very well built, quiet, reliable, unbelievably good prints, still works perfectly after it's been switched off and sat on a bed for 6 months etc... expensive, but just goes to prove that you get what you pay for.

For most printing you can't beat a laser.

Unless you rent a professional colour toner-based photocopier/printer machine like we have at work (Xerox Fiery X12) - absolutely amazing for everything including photos. I haven't even seen the rental cost, but I bet it's scary....

You seem to be strangely obsessed with printers.

If you hate them so much (which is stupid) - You could always just trace what you want from the monitor...

Go on, do it.

Obsessed? No, haha... just sprang to mind

This forum is all about picking random consumer stuff and ranting about it like it's the end of the world, or that's the impression I've had so far :D

Cloudane spouted:
It's cheaper to throw away your bloody Lexmark and buy a new one than it is to buy new cartriges for it! How daft is that?

From the consumers point of view, very daft.
From the OEM's point of view, not daft at all. Ink Jet printers these days can be had so cheap, the OEMs barely turn a profit on them, they make their profit on the consumables.

Cloudane spouted:
but just goes to prove that you get what you pay for./B]

Exactly. See above.

Cloudane spouted:
[B] For most printing you can't beat a laser.Unless you rent a professional colour toner-based photocopier/printer machine like we have at work (Xerox Fiery X12) - absolutely amazing for everything including photos. I haven't even seen the rental cost, but I bet it's scary....

We run a similar set-up, (Fiery 550C) and the results are good yeah, but indeed the copyplan charges are just licensed theft.

I'd never recommend an inkjet to anyone unless they were on a budget, just the basic principle of how they work (i.e spraying ink onto a page) means the results will never be satisfactory if you require high definition output.

You can pick up a pretty descent thermal dye sublimation printer for as little as £500 these days & the results leave even the best of the inkjets standing.