HP Photosmart Premium Fax CQ521B
You’re getting a lot of all-in-one for the money with this SOHO machine. Like the Epson Workforce Pro, it’s happy to handle general correspondence, as well as photos. It has a duplex scanner as well as duplex print, wireless connection and full fax functions. It produces 15 x 10cm photos in around a minute and the extra photo black helps it produce good quality photos. Photos show natural pastels in landscapes and bright primaries in more artificial surroundings. Best price is around £95, making it an excellent, all-round offering.
Kodak hero 5.1
Kodak has revamped its all-in-one range and come up with a smart set of machines, with this one at the entry-level. It has a smallish, fold-up LCD and front panel memory card slots. There’s only one paper tray, so you swap between plain and photo paper, though the machine does offer duplex print and wireless connection as standard. 15 x 10cm photos print in under 40s, which is impressive, as is the quality of the images, with natural colours and precise details. The main selling point continues to be low ink costs, with a cost of around 5p for an ISO colour page.
Next page: Kodak hero 9.1
COMMENTS
Rubbish Reviews
How long does a set of ink cartridges last in a turned off printer?
How much does a replacement set of print cartridges cost?
The major failing with the last 3 ink-jet printers I have owned (Cannon, HP and Kodak) has been that if you leave them untouched for 3 months then come back to print something the ink has dried all over the heads and you need to buy new.
Often a new printer is cheaper than a set of ink-cartridges.
Now I send them off to snapfish or take them to the local print-shop, it's cheaper and gets better results.
cost per print?
Your analysis is all well and good, but you give no indication of the total cost of ownership. (Ie cost of replacment ink), and consequent cost per page of printing.
Given that for example HP seem to follow a 'loss leader' approach with their printer pricing, to lock you into buying their expensive ink refills, the price of the printer is a small proportion of the cost over the life of the device.
Why not get someone who knows what they are talking about?
"Inkjet printers produce better quality photos than traditional silver halide" There was really no point in reading any more of the article if the writer has such a poor understanding of image quality that they seriously believe that statement.
Inkjet printing has many advantages over optical printing but quality isn't among them.
I bought an inkjet a while back and while it's pretty good quality, I mostly use it for printing out boarding passes and not much else. Consequently the ink runs out and costs a fortune to replace (it's a Canon).
If you want to print out photos, the best thing to do is to take your photos to a photo developers (remember those?) and they'll do a high quality print-out for not much cost.
Of course, if you print out all of your photos then this probably isn't so cost-effective, but if you print out one or two every now and again like I do then this is the way to go.
Get a cheap printer with cheap ink for those boarding passes.
Most importantly
Which one DOESN'T come with 100mb plus of bloated "drivers" that asks to download updates from the Internet every 5 mins?
