Printer Brands Tips

What brand of printer is a reliable option for the home or school?

Which printer brand can I take with me on vacation to print photos?

Which brand of printer is a best buy for printing text and graphics?

What brand of printer is good for light duty home office tasks?

Which best buy inkjet printer should I avoid?

What brand of printer is compact, inexpensive and prints photo lab quality photos?

What brand of printer is a reliable option for the home or school?

Which printer brand can I take with me on vacation to print photos?

Which brand of printer is a best buy for printing text and graphics?

What brand of printer is good for light duty home office tasks?

Do I have to deal with all these different cartridges all the time?

How many cartridges are best?



What brand of printer is a reliable option for the home or school?
The Canon Pixma iP4200 is a great little printer. It handles paper exceptionally well with dual paper trays (with 150-page capacity in both the base tray and upright feeder in the back) and double-sided printing capabilities. It uses five printer ink cartridges (three color, two black), producing good color graphics and also creating high quality glossy photos. It has a solid plastic case and fast print speeds, but falls a little short on printing high quality text. Still, for a printer that calls itself a “photo printer”, it offers a reliable option for most home and school projects making it a best buy inkjet printer.
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Which printer brand can I take with me on vacation to print photos?

Want to print a photo for less than 30 cents? Try one of the Epson inkjet printers! The Epson PictureMate Printer is a dedicated photo printer that will print photos that match in quality to the photos developed from your 35mm camera. It is limited to 4 x 6 sized photos but prints are both waterproof and smear proof. The PictureMate prints directly from the camera or from a memory card and it uses one inkjet cartridge (with six colors of ink). This printer is designed to look like a mini boom box and its convenient handle makes it portable enough to take with you on your travels!
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Which brand of printer is a best buy for printing text and graphics?
The HP Desktop 5940 printer offers great speed as well as quality print output for text and graphics on plain paper. It has a tray capacity of 100 pages input and 50 pages output. You can replace the black HP ink cartridges with photo ink cartridges for six-color photo printing but it is not the best photo printer. There are banding problems on glossy prints. It also lacks a media card slot but you can print directly from a digital camera. This model is a solid all purpose ink jet printer you can find priced less than $100.
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What brand of printer is good for light duty home office tasks?
Of all the Lexmark inkjet printers, you’ll be excited about the all-in-one capabilities of the X8350. For around $150, you’ll appreciate the ability of this printer to scan, copy and fax. Plus, photographers will have the convenience of printing directly from their digital cameras or from memory cards. It has a 50-page automatic document feeder and a modem (so it can work as a standalone fax). This printer can be ink cartridge intensive, so stock up on low cost compatible printer ink cartridges or recycled ink cartridges (it uses one black cartridge and one tricolor cartridge). This printer is also slow to print, and text quality is a less than professional quality. But as a light duty home office printer, it can fulfill your printing needs.
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Which best buy inkjet printer should I avoid?

The Lexmark Z735 is advertised as a best buy inkjet printer at a price of less than $50, but it may be a best buy in price alone. The single cartridge uses three colors of ink: cyan, magenta and yellow. Where’s the black? Lexmark claims that the color inks create the black ink, but testing by PC World revealed that the Z735 produced very poor text and graphic images in its output. This printer also lacks the capability of printing directly from a digital camera, and it does not have a media card slot. It also has a flimsy plastic case, and is slow to print – rounding it off to be one of the worst choices in inkjet printers for your home or school.
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What brand of printer is compact, inexpensive and prints photo lab quality photos?

No bigger than a toaster and priced less than $100, the Photosmart A516 delivers much more than you would expect at first glance. It offers true photo quality and prints nearly waterproof output. The A516 can print from your digital camera, memory card or computer from one color inkjet cartridge (that includes three ink colors). On the downside, speed is a little slow and the LCD is small and non-adjustable. However, this HP Inkjet printer won PC Magazine’s Editor’s Choice Award, who said “the overall [output] quality was easily a match for photos you'll get from your local drugstore or other typical consumer photo labs.”
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What brand of printer is a reliable option for the home or school?
The Canon Pixma iP4200 handles paper exceptionally well with dual paper trays (with 150-page capacity in both the base tray and upright feeder in the back) and double-sided printing capabilities. It uses five printer ink cartridges (three color, two black), producing good color graphics and also creating high quality glossy photos.
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Which printer brand can I take with me on vacation to print photos?
The Epson PictureMate, which prints only on 4x6" paper and looks a little like a portable cooler, uses a flat, wide ink cartridge that contains six colors of ink and loads from the rear of the inkjet printer. You may be able to save money by looking into a high-quality compatible printer cartridge. Look for part number T5570.
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Which brand of printer is a best buy for printing text and graphics?
The HP Deskjet 5940 printer lets you replace the black HP ink cartridges with photo ink cartridges for six-color photo printing, and allows direct printing from digital camera. For the best value, look for remanufactured inkjet cartridges in color (model numbers C9369WN, HP 99) or black (C8767WN, HP 96).
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What brand of printer is good for light duty home office tasks?
The X8350 is an all-in-one solution, a newer model in the line of Lexmark inkjet printers. This printer can be ink cartridge intensive, so stock up on low cost compatible printer ink cartridges or recycled ink cartridges (part #18C0032 black, 18C0033 color).
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Do I have to deal with all these different cartridges all the time?
The Lexmark Z735's single cartridge (#18C0781) uses three colors of ink: cyan, magenta and yellow. Where’s the black? Lexmark claims that the color inks create the black ink. Reviewers have been less than enthusiastic, but if you're tired of buying and stocking two different kinds of cartridges, this inkjet printer may be worth a try.
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How many cartridges are best?
If photo quality is the top priority for you, you may be intrigued by printers that use a single cartridge to deliver three or even six colors of ink. If you're on a budget, however, you may want to think twice about a system that requires you to get a new cartridge when you run out of only one color of ink. More practical, perhaps, are the Canon and Epson systems which package each of four or six colors in a separate cartridge, so that you need only replace the one that's out.
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