Printer Recommendations other than HP

I have an HP Photosmart printer that is horribly S-L-O-W on my G4 under
OSX but is very fast under my wife's Dell Latitude with XP Pro. I will
never buy another HP printer due to their lame Mac driver software. I
would like to hear some success stories on other printers. I don't do
pictures and really don't care about color.

In article
<REMOVEarkay-0D8E9A.09511017112006@newsclstr02.news.prodigy.com >,
aRKay <REMOVEarkay@qsl.net> wrote:

> I don't do
> pictures and really don't care about color.

I don't have a specific recommendation because I haven't researched
printers in a while, but if you don't care about color, you should
definitely rule out inkjets. The ink is *absurdly* expensive, and you
can get a great deal on a laser printer these days.

I have an HP laser that I've been using for NINE YEARS that's still
going strong, and I'm on my third toner cartridge. ~$70 per cartridge
for 4000 pages, versus $33 per cartridge for ~300 pages on my Epson
inkjet, which I ended up throwing in the trash after it clogged again.
(It would clog if I didn't print something at least every few days.)

For black-and-white, a laser print really is the only way to go.

Just browsing compusa.com, for example, I see a Brother HL-2070N for
$149.99. It's network-capable (Ethernet), and prints 20 pages per
minute. Reviews are generally good on it, although many report that
it's somewhat noisy.

There's just one example... Browse around, stop by your local office
supply store or computer store, and compare the output. I think you'll
be very pleased with the kind of laser printer you can get for the money
these days.

On 2006-11-17 07:51:10 -0800, aRKay <REMOVEarkay@qsl.net> said:

> I have an HP Photosmart printer that is horribly S-L-O-W on my G4 under
> OSX but is very fast under my wife's Dell Latitude with XP Pro.

If you want it to go faster, try changing the quality settings. The
speed is limited by the mechanical action of the printer, not the
driver software, and that's true in all modes.

-jcr

John C. Randolph <jcr.nospam@nospam.mac.com> wrote:

> On 2006-11-17 07:51:10 -0800, aRKay <REMOVEarkay@qsl.net> said:
>
> > I have an HP Photosmart printer that is horribly S-L-O-W on my G4 under
> > OSX but is very fast under my wife's Dell Latitude with XP Pro.
>
> If you want it to go faster, try changing the quality settings. The
> speed is limited by the mechanical action of the printer, not the
> driver software, and that's true in all modes.

Though the speed is limited by the mechanical capabilities of the
printer it is frequently affected very much by the computer and driver
software. 2 different machines printing to the same printer will not
necessarily get the same speeds, in my experience. Perhaps this
difference has lessend in recent years, with powerful computers, but
this used to be a significant issue on some older Macs.

--
Adrian

Garner Miller wrote:
> In article
> <REMOVEarkay-0D8E9A.09511017112006@newsclstr02.news.prodigy.com >,
> aRKay <REMOVEarkay@qsl.net> wrote:
>
>> I don't do
>> pictures and really don't care about color.
>
> I don't have a specific recommendation because I haven't researched
> printers in a while, but if you don't care about color, you should
> definitely rule out inkjets. The ink is *absurdly* expensive, and you
> can get a great deal on a laser printer these days.
>
> I have an HP laser that I've been using for NINE YEARS that's still
> going strong, and I'm on my third toner cartridge. ~$70 per cartridge
> for 4000 pages, versus $33 per cartridge for ~300 pages on my Epson
> inkjet, which I ended up throwing in the trash after it clogged again.
> (It would clog if I didn't print something at least every few days.)
>
> For black-and-white, a laser print really is the only way to go.
>
> Just browsing compusa.com, for example, I see a Brother HL-2070N for
> $149.99. It's network-capable (Ethernet), and prints 20 pages per
> minute. Reviews are generally good on it, although many report that
> it's somewhat noisy.
>
> There's just one example... Browse around, stop by your local office
> supply store or computer store, and compare the output. I think you'll
> be very pleased with the kind of laser printer you can get for the money
> these days.

I recommend the Brother printers. For the entry to mid-level range they
are probably as good as it gets. I have one that is several years old
and has never given me any trouble.

I am planning to purchase a network model before too long, and nothing
else in the price range had such good reviews.

I use mine with a PC, but I haven't heard of problems getting them to
work with Macs.

Best of luck,

Dave

I have a Canon Pixma IP3000 that I'm most pleased with. Fast, 4-cart
(CMYK) AND it prints double-sided! Gotta love it! Cheap too!

In article <2006111817255750073-jcrnospam@nospammaccom>,
John C. Randolph <jcr.nospam@nospam.mac.com> wrote:

> On 2006-11-17 07:51:10 -0800, aRKay <REMOVEarkay@qsl.net> said:
>
> > I have an HP Photosmart printer that is horribly S-L-O-W on my G4 under
> > OSX but is very fast under my wife's Dell Latitude with XP Pro.
>
> If you want it to go faster, try changing the quality settings. The
> speed is limited by the mechanical action of the printer, not the
> driver software, and that's true in all modes.
>
> -jcr

I don't think this is a printer problem. It is an HP software problem.
When I say print on Mac it takes like what seems forever for the Mac to
communicate with the printer. After many seconds the printer light
showing something is coming in starts flashing. Once it starts printing
it cranks out the paper with reasonable speed. Another reason I say it
is a lame software driver implementation is I can hook up the same
printer via the same USB cable to my wife's Dell Latitude D-600 running
XP Pro and as soon as I say print the light on the printer starts
flashing and it prints in just a few seconds. Apple did not write the
driver software for the Photosmart line of printers. The drivers were
done by HP and they are pretty lame. I don't think the quality of the
print has anything really to do with the delays from print command until
something starts printing.

aRKay

In article <eju40a$o11$1@aioe.server.aioe.org>,
MalcolmO <user@domain.invalid> wrote:

> I have a Canon Pixma IP3000 that I'm most pleased with. Fast, 4-cart
> (CMYK) AND it prints double-sided! Gotta love it! Cheap too!

How much is the ink per page, though? I got really soaked on ink costs
with my now-dead Epson.

aRKay <REMOVEarkay@qsl.net> wrote:

> I don't think the quality of the
> print has anything really to do with the delays from print command until
> something starts printing.

True.

--
Adrian

Adrian <nonesuch@place.com> wrote:

> aRKay <REMOVEarkay@qsl.net> wrote:
>
> > I don't think the quality of the
> > print has anything really to do with the delays from print command until
> > something starts printing.
>
> True.

Same story with their scanner software for osx. Luckily my laserjet has
a "native" apple driver, so the really slow HP software is not needed
:-)

~ Jørgen