Guitar Gear Forum

My wife takes pictures constantly... we hang them all over the place, and give them as gifts and stuff. We usually have them printed for us, but her birthday is coming up and she wants a printer of her own to use at home. Just for small stuff, 5x7's, 4x6's, small squares.... what is a good printer we can get for under $150? Seems like the names that come up most are Canon, Lexmark, HP, and Brother. But for every good review i read of a printer, there is another saying that it was completely unusable and worthless. Its pretty damn confusing.... I just need something that will print small photos with good quality. Please help!

My gf has a HP small printer, I don't recall the model number but I will look when I get home. It's pretty good but the ink is expensive as hell and doesn't last too long. We found a place (local) that sell recycled cartridges and that's a bit cheaper, but still she spent the price of the printer many times over in ink over the years. The quality of the pictures is pretty good though.

A review from earlier this year: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,1872566,00.asp

The only one that is in your price point: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2354919,00.asp

Amazon has it for $165.

The problem with cheap printers like that is they are going to eat you alive in ink costs. We have some epson thing, and I have no complaints about the quality, but it chews up in and its one of those brilliant designs where it won't work even in black ink only mode unless all the cartridges are in and not empty.

That PCmag article is pretty handy.

ovid9 wrote:The problem with cheap printers like that is they are going to eat you alive in ink costs. We have some epson thing, and I have no complaints about the quality, but it chews up in and its one of those brilliant designs where it won't work even in black ink only mode unless all the cartridges are in and not empty.

That PCmag article is pretty handy.

I have an Epson at home and Brothers at work. Wait for one to go on sale on Newegg or TD and you're set, really. I didn't find ink costs too bad on any of them. I also get my ink and toner from LD products. Some people won't do reman cartridges, but I don't have any issue with them. Cheap enough and quality product. For the printers I own, LD has package deals of like 4 black cartridges + 2 of each color for like 40-50 bucks. I buy those GLADLY.

indienoise wrote:

ovid9 wrote:The problem with cheap printers like that is they are going to eat you alive in ink costs. We have some epson thing, and I have no complaints about the quality, but it chews up in and its one of those brilliant designs where it won't work even in black ink only mode unless all the cartridges are in and not empty.

That PCmag article is pretty handy.

I have an Epson at home and Brothers at work. Wait for one to go on sale on Newegg or TD and you're set, really. I didn't find ink costs too bad on any of them. I also get my ink and toner from LD products. Some people won't do reman cartridges, but I don't have any issue with them. Cheap enough and quality product. For the printers I own, LD has package deals of like 4 black cartridges + 2 of each color for like 40-50 bucks. I buy those GLADLY.

Yeah, that wouldn't be too bad. We bought one at Sams, and I think it might have been if not exclusive, heavily directed there because its pretty much the only place to find ink (except online which really isn't all that much cheaper).

It works fine though. I'm just annoyed by them forcing me to have all the ink slots filled when there is no reason to do so except make Epson more money in ink.