Community poll forum: What brand of printer do you own, and are you happy with it?

I have a Canon i9900, which is a larger printer. I have worked with all kinds of printers (I'm in the printer repair business) and this printer in the best of the ones I have tried. Though I don't print photo's on plain paper as a rule when I do it doesn't come out soggy. It is FAST. Setup is a breeze and never had a problem.

I have an HP officejet 5510 all-in-one and I am very happy with HP printers, I have had several.

I am not very happy with it. I have had it for a few years but it is on the slow side, if you change even one cartridge you have to re-calibrate it and the ink is very expensive. I buy my ink on line but I would like to purchase a photoprinter that has individual colors since if I use say red repeatly I have to replace the entire cartridge and not just the red color. Also the printer is very sensitive to paper jams and I have to remove the back cover and unplug the entire unit to reboot it. This always happens when I am in a rush and I put more than three photo papers in the feed also it will grab more than one paper.

Pros:
Crisp text. Fast. Great duplexing. Perfect envelopes. Efficient paper handling from all trays. All functions operate well.

Cons:
Fold-out trays are more delicate than the slide-in trays. Toner saver is either ''on'' or ''off''; no graduated scale.

Full user opinion
As one who has owned two excellent Apple LaserWriters, I have high standards. This Brother 5170 meets those standards. I bought the 5170DNLT and use the extra paper tray to recycle paper which still has one clean side. All the trays feed and align perfectly. The multiuse tray will stack and feed up to 50 sheets of varied media (labels, transparencies, thick paper, etc.), or several envelopes, or even 4x6 cards. My envelopes were perfect , and the index cards were beautiful as well (both printed from Microsoft WORD). The text output is very crisp, and the smallest, delicate details of even elegant script fonts or symbol-type fonts are sharp and precise. The toner density is preset, but the black output is just what it should be. The 600 DPI is so good that I probably won't need the HQ1200 DPI very much. I'm delighted with the duplexing feature. It operates flawlessly. Although this is a printer primarily for text, I tried printing an 8x10 photo at 1200 DPI. It was really good output--crisp details and smooth grayscale. I decided againt the HP1320 when I saw that one has to feed items one-at-a-time into the printer; nothing can be stacked in the manual tray. I was able to do a simple comparison of HP 1320 and Brother 5170 because a friend who has the 5170 printed out a test sheet and a sample sheet of the installed fonts. I brought these into a Staples store and got a test sheet from the HP. The sales associate's comment says it all: ''Brother has caught up.'' I paid $1500 for my first laser printer. The Brother 5170DNLT was just $300 and with more features. Kudos to Brother. (I use Staples' Multiuse Paper for everyday work; it doesn't jam.)

Does a good job printing but I hate the software that comes with it. Also, it has one cartridge for multi colors. Such a waste of ink. I'll buy a Canon next time. Better software and individual ink tanks.

Where is 'None' option?

I use an aging HP Photosmart 1115, which does a good job for my current needs. My only complaints are really some incoveniences concerning printing speed and that the 4x6 paper loading from the special tray results in prints that are not square to the borders regardless of how often I clean the rollers. As for paper, I use either HP or Kodak and cannot tell the difference.

I have two Epson printers, Stylus 640 ( old but sure ) and C84 (faster but ink cost more money). Very happy with both of them. I don't bother using Photo Quality Paper. I just use bright white # 40. Works for me. Fredtech2

My first Photo printer was 4 years ago and is an Epson 870....an awesome photo printer that I use for my bigger prints to this day....5x7, 8x10, etc. with great clarity. Then I have one of those small HP printers that do just the 4x6 prints, Model 240. This is the one we use the most....it's portable, creates a print in about a minute or two and we just love it. We can take pics all day and send friends and family home with pictures of the day...everyone seems to find that very cool. We also have two other HP printers, the 6110xi, All-in-One version and the 7450 Photosmart...both of them use that specific #58 Photo Cartridge and product very nice prints. My theory on this whole printer thing is that I didn't want a bunch of printers using all different cartridges, all of our HPs use #56, #57, and #58 cartridges to make it easy to stock replacements, only the Epson is different.

HP 1320 monochrome laser printer. I like this printer but I don't like HP's rebate program. You may wait for months for it to appear.

Ghamim

It serves the purpose for me.

My Lexmark X1180 is a good allround printer,but uses ink quite quickly,and refills are dearer than Epsom and Cannons!, My 'Picturemate - photolab' is very good for a quick handy size photo,but for larger one I use my Lexmark,as this also has a builtin scanner!
regards, Terry.

I have 2 Epson printers. The oldest, a Stylus Color, one of the first ones, no model number in the name has been a real work horse since 1995. I haven't printed many photos on it, but did find that the Epson photo paper and transfer paper (Kid T shirts) worked better. I also use epson ink. Bought a different brand ONCE, what a mess.

My new (4 months) Epson is a Stylus Photo R1800. Terrific! Great pictures and I like the larger format available. Epson ink, Epson photo paper, except for the 'temporary' pictures - like kid school projects, etc. For those I save money and use the cheapest photo paper - they don't need to last.

So far, so good. Got the printer from the HP Calcutta Express. Referb, but working well.

i have had many epson printers .. most had no serious head clog problems until i used after market inks ... my epson 3000 (large format) printed thousands of nice looking photos using epson and and "extreme gamut" ink without problems .. but the epson ink was $250 for all carts ... the extreme gamut was $350 .. so very expensive .. then i found after market ink for only $12 per cart X4 ... i though i really had a find until all the black jets clogged over and over again leaving the printer not usable after a while . also many of the prints are fading now (abt 2 years) ... my epson 9?? printer also clogged badly using after market ink .. in fact i had to clean it so often that i scrapped it ...

i also have a little canon portable that wasnt used for about 3 years ... i hooked it up and after one cleaning cycle it printed perfectly (quite suprised) ...

now i have an epson R300 .. it does a good job and i guess i havent learned my lesson.. i bought lots of after market ink for it ( was getting very expensive with epson ink since i print a lot) .. then i read a report that the aftermarket ink wasnt to good .. it said that it fades fast and caused head cloggs .. i wrote the ink supplier to make sure they would stand by their claim that its equivalent in every way to epson ink .. i wanted them to assure me that i wasnt going to have fade problems and clogged heads ... weeeellll they wont answer me .. so i guess we are stuck with a one supplier very expensive ink .. at least it works ..

"but its probably the most expensive fluid you will use anytime in your life"

i think long term idle head clog problems depend on how well the seals work when the head is parked .. when they get dirty you cant expect them to work well .. maybe we should have a cleaning kit for them .. my last few epsons rarely have problems with that since i have reluctantly been using epson ink in them ..

i have several HPs also with about the same head clog rate .. the photos on the HPs are good but not as spectacular as the epsons but they have an advantage if the printer is not going to be used for a long time .. you can just replace the cart and you have a new head ..