Printer Reviews

As a graphic designer, I'm ALWAYS skeptical of anything that claims to be able to do "everything"...

Initially, I was in the market for a new scanner - I thumbed through some recent issues of MacWorld to try and find something decent and reasonably priced. I then stumbled upon a review for the RX500, because I also wanted to replace my clunky HP Deskjet- which was no good at printing photos, and it couldn't even do text that well either! Why was I keeping this thing?!

I went to CompUSA with the RX500 in mind, and there happened to be an EPSON rep. there, coincidentally in the process of selling an RX600 to someone else. Well, this person was ranting and raving over how great this printer was, and my wife and I just happened to overhear it. You married guys know how important it is to have the wife's blessing, don't you? Well, a couple of photo demonstrations and some copy tests, and we were walking out the door with an RX600 of our own!

I only gave it four stars, because I'm just way too critical of any photos & color prints that don't turn out perfect. But that's my profession, not a reflection on the product. I should have my wife write the review, because she's absolutely *thrilled* with the prospects of scanning & printing old negatives & slides, and printing directly from the camera's memory stick- no need for the nitpicky husband and his crazy Photoshop...

This unit can do it all (except fax). The software is a dream compared to the HP2150 I returned in order to get this. I got the HP because it had built in wireless/ethernet print server and a fax. But the software bundle is all or nothing, they didn't separate out the printer driver...so anyone who wants to just print on the thing must first install 1.5gb (thats GIGabytes) of crap the infects your registry like a cancer. This Epson RX600's software is a dream. They separated everything! Just want to print occasional black and white like me, driver is just 8mb. Want everything and do photo touchups and crazy things and photo albums and scan (like my wife) - just put in the cd and add what you want one app at a time. That's why we went with this printer and returned the HP. Also, one more plus is that the RX600 scans old negatives and can print them perfectly or digitize them for you forever - the HP can't. I LOVE this feature (and yes, it's a combo of mechanical and software differences that achieve this, I dare you to try on another machine). I do miss the HP's built in print server. I bought a Linksys Wireless-G for USB2.0, and it won't work with this printer. Epson wrote me back and confirmed this. This is why I docked this review by a star. You MUST be able to run your printers from a print server. My 4 year old HPLaserJet3150 hooked up no problem, but my new Epson fails? That sucks, and if my wife didn't love this so much, I would send it back strictly for that reason. I do like how it's USB 2.0, it is fast. Separate color tanks (...)are sweet, not like HP where if blue runs out, you're forced to buy all other colors again. This has 6 color tanks all independently replaceable. Nice.
PROS: USB2.0, individual color tanks, scan negatives,LCD screen, front loading usb input for cameras, built in card reader on the front,great b/w quality, killer photo print quality, minimal/incremental/customizable software/driver install (extremely flexible and lightweight)
CONS: doesn't work w/ LinkSys print servers

There are hundreds of products I could (or should) have reviewed. Some good, some bad. This is the first one I have ever felt strongly enough to comment on.

Being in the IT field I have always been skeptical of "all in one devices". However, after doing some research this is typical of those devices

Pros:
(1) It's photocopier - plain and simple. With or without the PC. Color, BW, enlarge, reduce, zoom - all the features of regular coper.
(2) Digital camera support - memory card or USB cable. Images can be viewed and printed directly - again, without a PC
(3) Ease of setup. Very easy to follow directions. Step by step. It works as advertised with no installation hassles (WinXP)
(4) Scanner & a printer. Attach to the PC via USB - scan to image, scan to application. Very easy to use, and again, it does everything it says it should do

Cons:
Honestly I can't offer any. Maybe the price, but even then you're getting a set of multi-funcitonal devices all in one. How much would a printer, a scanner, and a color copier cost separately. How much space and cabling hassle would there be?

Having been fed up with inkjets, I finally decided to purchase a laser printer for my household. The 2100M slots neatly between the 1100 and 4000 series machines. It is compatible with Apple's featuring localtalk modem port, and PC's with Parallel ports. There is a communication slot designed for either a USB card, or ethernet card to turn the unit into a print server.

While the 2100M is nearly double the price of the 1100, it has much more to offer. Featuring 1200x1200 dpi, text and corporate logos appear flawless. In addition the second paper tray is great when you need to print envelopes, or print on different types of paper without having to remove the paper tray.

The IR port has proved indispensable on numerous occassions. It is of the 4mb IrDA compatible and proves very fast. I often type on my laptop and normally, I would have to either plug the printer into the back of my laptop which in itself is a tedious process and then print. However with Infra red port, I simply align the back of the laptop with the unit within a 3ft radius, and print, voila!

Laser Printers require time to warm up before printing. This one has proved extremely quick. If I leave it on in standby mode, it takes no longer than 5 seconds from the time i hit print from Microsoft Word to the when a page starts printing. When the unit is off, it takes no more than 15 seconds for the unit to warm up!

The HP 2100M is PostScript compatible and in my opinion, this is a must have option! Documents printed in PostScript form have absolutely stellar print quality. PostScript is a font technology developed by Adobe. PostScript is the defacto standard in font technology today.

There are a few drawbacks. There is no built in standard USB printer port. While USB for the most part is still considered a consumer technology and not really for enterprise, still the inclusion of a built in USB port would guarantee standard compability with newer Macintosh Computers that do not feature legacy ports.

I have had this printer for year now and it performs flawlessly. It does not print as fast as higher end, networked printers but its speed is satisfactory for a one person operation or even for a small group of people. The ony thing that I added was additional memory and I have to admit, it did not speed up the printing that much for documents with large file sized illustrations. If you buy memory, get the better brands. I recommend this printer to others.

I've owned this printer for two years and have never had to replace the toner cartridge, which is good because those cost around $100.00. The 2100M is a fast, reliable machine that has jammed only once. I've used it to print 500+ page manuscripts (which took an hour to print out on my inkjet), envelopes, labels, and index cards. The only major problem I had was printing out a banner. The file size was too much for the printer to handle. So, I wound up rebooting. Everything was fine after that. This is an excellent printer for the money. It works with PCs as well as Macs (including my obsolete Performa).

I just got my P-400 printer. Using XP operating system I found that they have not got a good print driver as yet but will sometime this spring. The print is beautiful. I still have much to learn about lightening the print. It seems to print on the dark side. Big drawback is the 7.64 x10 print rather than 8x10. It just barely covers under a frame and much harder to trim. I would like to know where the viewer from Olympia, WA gets their paper for 19.95 and ribbon for 39.95. Please write and let me know. Does anyone have a good price on these items? I want to keep costs down as I do a lot of printing. I am having trouble getting the USB port to print. It must be something I just don't know. I would not be worried about showing these prints to any customer. creativeimages2@earthlink.net.

I've used this paper with my A2 printer and the results are amazing. The printer is as close to true dye sublimation as you can get at home. If your looking to make full use of this type of printer you need the best paper for the job. The Olympus photo quality paper is that medium. The color was vibrant and the end result was amazing. It is worth the extra few dollars when you compare this paper to its competitors.

Everything as listed! No problems! Will buy through them again

Very Good value. Network feature is why I bought it. Easy to set up. Quality of output is excellent in this price range. It is a bit noisey when it starts up to print. Haven't experienced a paper jam or any other problems in over 6 months and 10,000 sheets.

I've owned Brother Laser printers before, and found the quality of the device and the prints to be quite high.

So, I was inclined to give this 5070N a shot when I was looking for a network-enabled printer. The interesting thing about my research was that no other company's network enabled printers came close to the price for this Brother.

I had an additional incentive to buy this printer: I'm using Mac OS X and wanted to take advantage of the Rendezvous feature. It worked like a dream, was remarkably easy to configure, and was network - connected within a couple of minutes.

My only criticism of this printer is the noise it makes while printing. The fan and motor are a bit loud for a SOHO setting. That occurs only while you're printing however; You can configure the printer to switch to silent standby mode in just a minute or two (via rendezvous) after it's done printing. All is all, it is remarkable quality for the price.

I have two Macs in my home office; one running OS 10.2.6, and an older Mac running OS 9.1. They are networked together through a Linksys Ethernet Hub, and this HL-5070N is ideal as a shared printer of great quality on a small network.
I previously had all kinds of trouble finding a way to get both machines to print to one printer (inkjet) using USB printer sharing - which does not work if one Mac is OS X and the other is OS 9!!!! So I had to go for a printer with an Ethernet print server in it so I could plug it into my Router. This was more expensive than say the HL-1440, but it was worth it, because I just plugged it in, installed the driver software on both Macs, and I was printing in 10 minutes. I considered buying a less expensive laser printer, and a third party print server, but after so much frustration with somthing as seemingly simple as PRINTING a page, I decided it was worth the extra money to get a solid unit that was easy to set up.
I do music, so I needed good print quality for music notation, and the quality of this KICKS BUM over an inkjet. Musical notes are crisp and clear and easily readable. Well worth the investement. Plus, since it works with Rendezvous, I will be able to keep this printer for several years, even after I replace my OS 9 machine with a new OS X Mac G5 or beyond....

I've now had this machine for a week and I must say, I'm quite pleased. I'm using it with my Macintosh G4/400 and without a hitch. This machine also works with Windows PCs via USB or an included Parallel cable.

You can get 12ppm, but only in the fast/low quality printouts... high quality printouts are a bit slower. The high quality printouts are just that... very fine quality in text and in photos.

I gave this item less than a perfect rating because while it's advertised as a USB printer, it doesn't include a USB cable. VERY FRUSTRATING to buy an expensive item like this, have it delivered and then have to drive 30 miles to a computer store to buy an overpriced cable!

I also could care less for the quality of the phone receiver. I have no idea why the phone receivers on fax machines are so flimsy... it hangs on the cradle by a hair and a slight jarring to the table it's on sends the phone flying.

Nonetheless, this is a fine machine and a great price for a laser printer even w/o the multi-functionality of a phone/fax & copier!

Bought this for a customer and loved it so much, I picked one up for myself as well.
Holds 200 pages, printing looks great and works well.
Easily connected to PC. I don't use the phone functions and strictly use this as a fax/printer so don't know much about how well other options works.

Our office bought a MFC8600 and we have had zero problems throughout the 6 months of heavy daily use. Quality and speedy printout plus stand-alone fax, copier functions make this machine the superman of the office.

After a thourough research between a few models that interested me: HP 3200, panasonic FLM600, brother 4600, I decided to go with a 8300 for myself, because of its speed, win2k/me compatibility and wonderful price. It's been a week and so far I'm very happy with it. In fact, I like it even better than the 8600, simply because at bootup after installing the software, the software installed does not complain about not finding the machine (should you choose not to connect it), as opposed to the 8600. The print quality is good enough for me and I've never had any problem with the limited ram (2Mb).

The only thing I would wish this machine had, is a few more buttons for the commonly used tasks, so that one doesnt have to press a bunch of buttons to access these features, e.g., "function", "1" , "0", "2" for a list of caller ID names. One more line on the LCD screen wouldn't hurt either.

The toner is cheap and the machine operates quietly. So far, I havent had a single crash, software conflict or print/copy/fax problems. Highly recommended!

I print on the go all the time, and sometimes, at conferences and events, it's been more than a lifesaver. Printing good photos on the go seemed a natural addition.

Problems with this printer include: need really good quality paper for decent prints (consistent with Canon printers in my experience); Canon's warranty is lousy (and they have screwed me before with products that broke a couple months after warranty expired); photo quality is less than a dedicated 6- or 8-ink desktop printer; expensive inks.

Primary use: printing at conferences or other public events that keep you away from an office. Kinkos beware--this thing handles most of the jobs that I'd run to a business center to do while on the go. HOWEVER, without buying the extra battery, you're still on the prowl for the power outlets, along with everyone else in the room.

Secondary use: traveling, where snapshots of friends can be handed over while still on the go. I tend to travel light, so carrying a printer is a bit nuts, and the inks run out quickly, but sometimes there's no replacement for printing a photo of some new friend and giving them a copy while on the go.

Tertiary use: desktop printer. There's cheaper, faster, better alternatives for this use though--but it does fine as a backup (or when I want to print from a room without a printer without getting up).

My recommendation? Wait a little longer: the quality will only improve, and eventually Canon will bundle the battery with their 'portable' printer (instead of charging an extra hundred bucks to make your portable actually usable on the go).

The canon i80 is a good portable printer-not a replacement for a good workgroup printer or photo printer. I've had it for around 2 months now and put it through lots of use. In general, the quality is fairly good-monochrome printing is almost up to par with lasers. Color graphics are pretty decent-but remember that this is not a dedicated photo printer Speed is a bit slow-somewhat slower than advertised, but acceptable. It does tend to use lots of ink, and the ink cartridges are fairly expensive, though you do get 2 of them per pack. On the good side, the ink cartridges are easily refillable with any standard kit-but you will need to drill holes on the top after you peel back the label. It only holds around 20-30 sheets of paper and you'll need to fan through them before loading them in the sheet feeder or it will often pull in more than one sheet at a time. It seems pretty durable-I usually carry it with a laptop so it gets lots of travel and there are no alignment problems at all. My only real complaint is that I got it for its bluetooth capability. There is a dedicated bluetooth unit made for this printer, but it's not currently available from Canon or anywhere else I looked. I could get a universal, but that would defeat the purpose of having everything built in. If you're looking for portability, then this is the only way to go. Otherwise, you may be better off with a larger inkjet or a monochrome laser.

If you want a portable printer, this is what are you looking for. Excelent quality, small size, portable, no noise, good looking, and awesome!.

I agree with the first 3 comments. I did buy the LCD screen but because I use smart media I (I use an Olympus4040) cards I had to buy a different PCMICA adaptor. ... The prints are excellent especially with Photo Pro paper. However, I wish Canon made a wider variety of papers - satin, matte, watercolor, canvas, etc. However, I have had success with Epson Colorlife photo paper and some other Epson papers - just use the highest resolution which is the color transparency setting. The prints are just as good as with Photo Paper Pro (but probably use more ink).

This is one of the best photo printers that is currently available on the market. It is quiet, uses 25+ year inks, prints near-lab quality prints, and does it quickly. And did I mention that its quiet? I dare you to find a quieter printer on the market. In any case, here are some notes to help you to maximize your experience with this printer:

1. First and foremost, use the recommended Canon photo papers. There really is a difference in the output quality when you use other brands. I used some generic papers and the ink smeared all over the place. Other name brand papers, such as Kodak, gives decent quality, but none that can match the quality of the Canon papers.

2. The S820D is the same printer as the S820 except with the ability to print directly from a PC card. If you do not require this option, go with the S820 and save yourself (money). If you do need this option, note that THIS PRINTER DOES NOT SHIP WITH AN LCD SCREEN FOR VIEWING YOUR PICTURES WITHOUT A COMPUTER... In my opinion, the direct PC card feature is useless without the LCD screen. Why? Well the whole purpose of the direct PC card slot is to be able to use the printer without a computer. But to do that, you need to be able to navigate through the card by using the LCD screen. Without the LCD screen, the only way to navigate through the card is by using a computer. And if you need to hook up to a computer, why have the direct PC card access in the first place? My advice to most users: Go with the S820, buy a cheap USB card reader, and save yourself (money).

3. As with most inkjet printers, ink is expensive. Canon uses six separate ink tanks on this printer, which is a big benefit from the standpoint of not wasting ink, but which is not easy on the wallet come replacement time.

4. If you are using this as your main PC printer, realize that it is significantly slower than most standard PC printers, even in draft mode. It is fast for a photo printer, but slow for a desktop printer. So if you need a fast desktop printer, I would use the S820D as a photo printer only, and have a second desktop printer which does not print photo quality.

My overall advice, this is a fast, quiet, high-quality photo printer if you want to print directly from PC cards without a computer. However, because of its intended purpose, I think Canon should have included the LCD panel with this printer because, without it, it is no better than the S820 which is ...cheaper. If you do not need the direct PC card slot, step down to the S820 and save yourself some money. If you do need the direct PC card slot, you will need to spend ... more and buy the LCD panel from Canon. If they included the LCD panel, this would easily be a 5-star stand-alone photo printer. Without it, 4-stars is the best I can give it.

This printer is a great companion to my S30 camera ... fast, quite, and vivid colors. I do not have to power up my laptop for printing ... just insert compactflash card or connect the camera to the printer. Be sure to use Canon papers to archive the similar quality as photos through Ofoto.com

The print is beautiful, but this is the nosiest laser printer I have ever owned and I have had two previously. Maybe defective. I am disappointed so far!

I purchased this printer 12/03 and I am a satisfied customer to date. The print quality is excellent, no smudges and it prints pages at a high speed. I thought a starter toner cartridge would be included with the printer but I went though an entire tax season printing numerous returns and IRS publications and I am still using the same cartridge. One minor problem is the noise level. It is loud! At first, you may be tempted to "dash" out of the room. I actually has mine in a closet (it is connected to a linksys wireless print server). Setting up the printer was relatively easy and if you decide to connect wirelessly that process is easy as well.

I recommend the printer for the quality print, the small size and the cost per page. (...) I believe a USB cable is included with the printer but not a parallel cable.

I bought this printer to replace an old HP Laserjet 2100TN. The 2100TN is five years old and still runs flawlessly.

Anyway, this 2300 is great. The noise level doesn't matter to me, but it seems to be about the same noise level as any other black and white laser I've owned - no better no worse.

This printer is definitely very fast. I also like the ability to set so many options through the buttons on the front and to see information on the display. My old printer didn't have a display, just colored lights, so this is a big improvement.

I was even more pleasantly surprised when I found that I was able to take my network card from my old Laserjet and put it in the new one. Surprised once again when I found that my optional extra paper tray worked on the new printer too. And lastly, memory upgrades for this unit are quite inexpensive, and easy to install.

This is a fabulous printer, and I can't say enough good things about it.

I bought this unit last January. It was easy enough to hook up on my old Toshiba 4010CDT P2 266mgh laptop. Basically, the unit is fantastic EXCEPT for the scanner which still doesn't work properly. I must say that Brother support is not fantastic. I had several sorties with no postive outcome. I even offered to take both units to them even though I have bought an on site warranty. The support guy thinks my Windows 98 o/s is corrupted and suggested I format C and rebuild. This I do not believe as I have a friend who has exactly the same laptop as me and he had his rebuilt just a couple of weeks before. I borrowed his laptop and the scanning software perfomed very poorly. It was extraordinarily slow and cumbersome. My old HP5200 was fantastic as a scanner so I new what to expect. The real test will be when I buy a new laptop soon. If the scanner doesn't work I will take them to task.

This device is perfect for our needs for copying and printing. The laser quality is terrific and it prints much faster than similar ink jet models. The printer connected to the home network right away and both our Windows and OS X computers were able to print. The browser-based printer configuration over the network is really nice. The paper feed on the top never jams or rotates the page. This multifunction device is a great value.

I wish that I could comment on the scanner abilities except that neighter the Windows or OS X TWAIN drivers work. I've submitted a request for help twice over the past two weeks from Brother's online support page and have not received a response. It sounds like other people have very limited success with Brother's phone support. I have doubts that this company is willing to resolve issues that people have with their products. Be prepared to return the device if all functions don't completely work right out of the box.

I bought this Brother MFC-8820D multi-function (MF) machine from Dell for $511.95. It seems to run great.

The real story is in the hideous tech support from Brother. The printer did not ship with a the OCR software CD for Win2K. There was only a Mac CD. I called Brother and they told me that I would have to buy the OCR software from ScanSoft, even though it was supposed to be included in with the MFC-8820D unit. I told them that that was crazy and I asked them to send me the CD. Then the printer support person told me to send the MFC-8820D back to Dell and ask them them to ship a new unit. It can't be very efficient to ship printers around the country when you really just need a CD! I guess Brother doesn't mind spending Dell's money.

I called Dell. At first they didn't give me a final answer about resolving the problem. Then to my surprise, Dell told me today that they shipped me a new printer. I can't believe that in order to get a replacement CD that Dell should have to ship a new system. Laurel to Dell, a Big Dart to Brother and extra work for me to send back the first printer.

It's great if you don't print much. Very quick & quiet. But the toner is twice as expense as my Brother 1250 printer. My Brother & my Samsung were printing side by side 2000 sheets. The Samsung jammed way too many times (50). The Brother 1250 jammed only a few times. The Brother toner cost less and lasted just as long. The Brother stops printing when low on toner. The samsung keeps printing faint copies and wasting paper. The duplex feature is great for a once and a while duplex operation. It's a lot of paper moving for anything over a couple of pages. My Brother 1250 & My Samsung blow away my HP Laserjet. The Laserjet is old but never made into the second cartridge before Goodwill got it. HP didn't even stand behind it. The said they would sell me the repair kit. Brother is a good printer.

I bought tnis to replace an HP4L that had served me well for over 12 years. Since I have found that the more recent consumer level HP's are not up to the build quality of the older models, I shopped around for other brands. This Samsung was highly rated by most users. The thing certainly looks sturdy, and the build quality appears to be excellent. The print quality is superb, and everything works perfectly, including the duplexer. I followed the suggestion in the manual to use the drivers from the included cd, rather than the defaults from Win2K. I really like the fact that the main media tray takes a full ream of paper, while the secondary input takes 100 sheets. I also like the fact that I can load cardstock for booklet covers in the auxillary feeder, and instruct the printer to print the first page from there, and subsequent pages from the main tray. Pretty slick for an under $400 printer! Overall, I'm quite impressed.

I cannot explain the experiences of the reader from Austin, TX. I purchased my ML-2150 8 months ago because I was going through reams (literally) of paper for doctoral research and badly needed duplex capability. After 8 months, I just saw the first low toner signal. The first several months were in Hawaii and the remainder in Albuquerque, spanning extremes of humidity and temperature. It has not jammed once. Performance has been flawless. Speed is more than adequate for a heavy home user or small workgroup. I've had three HPs and will will not have another. Long ago, HP had an excellent support program, now you must pay quite a bit just to get a call through to say you can't get a new HP up and running. The new HPs are not as dependable or sturdy as the old III, IV and V models. Bottom line, I can't believe I got such an excellent duplexing printer from Samsung for $460.