[muglo] Re: Advice needed

on 3/6/03 11:18 AM, Kathryn-Jane Hazel at k.j.hazel@xxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

> Price is not an issue. I would rather pay for quality and have something
> that is reliable and lasts. The name I've heard mentioned most often as
> a good printer is HP. Canon  - at least their bubble-jets - have a
> terrible reputation.

Interesting... I guess it's all in the eye of the beholder and experience.

LexMark are the bubble-jets that I would steer clear of, especially now that
they're corrupt and anti-environmental enough to attempt to prevent others
from refurbishing cartridges using the US DMCA.

Apple's Canons were by far their best inkjet printers. Their brief foray
into HP inkjets (the 4500 and 6500) was a miserable disaster with oodles of
warrantee repairs and failures.

> What about some of the newer brands, like Samsung?  Their ads make them
> sound pretty good, of course, but I have no idea how they perform in
> actual practice.

As for lasers, if you want a printer that'll last you for another decade,
you should test drive the printer first and insist to see it in operation!

I would recommend *against* going with the low-end HPs!!! For long-term use,
I am not at all impressed by the HP 1200n (or any of the 12x0 series). It's
a pretty good printer for the price but it's of shoddy construction quality.

A neighbouring lab has a Brother 1870N. It's a fairly sturdy printer, does
auto-matic duplex printing and is quite a bit sturdier (it's also nearly
$1000 more expensive).

Any of the professional lasers (whether Canon, Brother, HP, Samsung -- I
would personally stay away from LexMark on principle, regardless of the
quality of their printers -- a company without principles should not get the
support of principled people) will fit your bill.

Expect to spend over $1000 if you want something with decent construction
quality and longevity.

If you can live with a 5-8 year life-cycle, any of the cheaper lasers ($300)
will fit the bill *and* you could also just get one now as a temporary
solution and buy a better pro laser in two or three years for much less than
today (prices are still coming down... colour lasers will be the standard in
two or three years, thereby forcing the price of pro b&w lasers down even
more).

As a final comment, I would stick with a high-end HP printer (LJ 5 or 6
series). They are *the* gold standard for laser printers (though, I find
that their inkjets are pretty hum-drum and of lower quality compared to the
others).

PS on an entirely unrelated topic... I don't think there will be a
replacement for CDs. The replacement will be a general category called
digital music. Now, with so many different storage mechanisms and media
available (100 GB HDs, 10 GB mini-HDs, 1 GB flash cards, etc.) no one format
will fit the bill anymore.

The only important thing will be USB 2.0 or BlueTooth connectivity (FireWire
is dead in the water except for niche purposes -- Intel is too powerful and
is successful in pushing USB 2.0... it's ubiquitous now in all computer
stores whereas FireWire can only be had in high-end or in Mac stores)


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