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Epson Stylus Office BX300F
by james_bodysculpt
I am a big fan of all-in-one printers, as although I very rarely use the scanner or the photocopier, its hady to have them there 'just in case'. And they have proved useful in the past. The added bonus of this is it can also fax, although I must admit I never send faxes, so i cant comment on this feature.
I have had a few ... Epson's in the past, so when my old printer went wrong, I decided to put my money in a name I could trust again. This one is suits my needs as a personal user, and it was at a good price. It also looks quite stylish and different, being black. One of the things I look for before buying the printer is how much will the ink cost me. This printer has 4 different cartridges, each cost around the £10, so not too bad compared to some other makes and models.
The printer itself looks very smart with a control panel on the front, with buttons to photocopy, buttons for the fax faciltiy, and stop/start button etc. The control panel makes the printer look very business like!
The scanner unit operates by lifitng the top compartment. I must say I was a little bit dissapointed by the strength and quality of this, as its not the studiest and stronegst feeling thing I've ever felt, and is a bit wobbly and uneven. Also, when you come to change the ink, you have to lift the lid by one side, which makes it feel a bit ackward. Getting onto the ink, this is where the printer lets itself down. I am always one to buy the geniune Epson ink, but i have had 3 occasions now where when i replace the ink, after a few uses, the printer fails to recognise the cartridge anymore...no matter what you do. Essentially in the end, all you can do is go out and buy a new cartridge, and throw the old one away, which is very frustrating considering that theres plenty of ink left in the old one! I am at the stage now where i am going to have to take this back to the shop if it happens anymore.
The print quality itself is what you would expect of a inkjet printer, and is good for what i want. It must be said howver, that it does take a while to print, so dont go buying this expecting to be doing any fast printing!
Thge paper tray is also a downside in my view. Its quite ackward to fit a lot of paper in the upright tray, as there is a annoying plastic flap that gets in the way, and keeps falling every time you want to put paper in there.
Overall, Im begginig to think maybe I should try a different make of printer i the future.
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HP PSC 950
by LucyToons
I purchased this printer about 7 years ago; due to starting at college I found that it was something I was going to need. I had the PC already with Windows XP on and it was compatible with this as well as easy to use.
CARTRIDGES...
Well it only requires 2 of these, 1 black and 1 colour. If you go for the HP ones you can ... look to pay upwards of £20 for the black and £40 for the colour, this includes on the high street in shops like Rymans; however you can use compatible carts which can be purchased from many places over the net, the cheapest I found was £8 for black and about £15 for colour. Then there places like Cart World who will refill the carts for £14 for the black and £20 for the colour, so it depends on what you prefer to use and pay in terms of what you want quality wise. I didn't find much difference of quality between the HP originals and compatible carts; however when it comes to using Cartridge World ones I found they were ok from the start but after a bit of use the printer decided it didn't want to go any more and stopped working giving an error of check black/colour cartridge, first cart replacement it gave the error regarding the colour cart, the next replacement to fix his it was the black. For about 3 or 4 months it wouldn't work because of this error, took it to Cartridge World to be looked at, they had for 3 days, went to pick it up and although they hadn't managed to look at it, they plugged it in and hey presto! it worked, so I took it home plugged it in and yep it wasn't a fluke, until about a week later when it came up with the error again for the black cart.
INSTALLATION...
When I first installed this printer it took about 5 minutes from plugging in to being able to use it; although it was recognised by Windows XP I did use the Software CD provided and found this simple to use and easy to understand the instructions.
QUALITY...
Despite the trouble with the carts, when it did work the quality was amazing for text, the lines were clean and it didn't use too much ink, enabling it to dry quick. This also applied to coloured printing, images were the best I'd seen compared to my printer before this and this made me even happier for use of printing some photo's, the quality wasn't perfect for this type of printing but it gave me the flexibility of being able to edit my photo's on screen for things such as red eye and cropping before printing.
SCANNER...
The scanner was great for scanning in images from books or magazines as the lid gives you about a centimetre lift ability to fit thicker pieces of paper medium in without having to struggle to get what you want on the screen.
OTHER MEDIA...
It can read media cards such as Compact Flash I and II, Smart Media and Sony Memory Stick; however, I have never used the smart media reader on mine as I had this facility on my PC which seemed easier and more convenient to use.
PAPER FEED...
Although it is supposed to be able to hold 100 sheets in the paper tray I found that it was best to load a few less than this each time, as when you put so much in the tray it had a habit of attempting to feed the paper through and often leaving a black line mark along the bottom of the page, which for college meant that each sheet this happened to went straight for recycling as it couldn't be handed in.
FAX...
I can't possibly review this function of the printer as I never actually used it, didn't even test it! But I don't apologise for this as it has the alternatives of e-mail, regular mail and telephone to contend with.
SIZE AND WEIGHT...
You can't say that this printer is small by far, but you can see where the weight and size is distributed. The lid holds the scanner and photocopier part, along with the LCD display for options for the printer/fax/scanner and photocopying options (all of which I found you could access via the PC as well). The base holds the paper feeder, inner workings, print carts and media readers, so although bulky, it certainly holds everything it should and doesn't waste much empty space. Despite its size it is quieter than you would expect, I admit it's not silent but when you're printing off pages of 1 assignment whilst trying to concentrate on another it certainly won't put you off your thought pattern.
Brand new this printer cost me about £150.00 and for what I've used it for, for the last 7 years it was a well spent £150.00 at the time. Now-a-days you can pay around £30 for all-in-one printers but whether you'll get the quality of print, cost of cartridges is uncertain. I can say that all-in-ones are certainly lighter and smaller now-a-days though, which is a plus, but considering I bought this when all-in-ones were fairly new to the market I would say it was a spot on buy for me at the time.
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HP Officejet 6500 Wireless All-in-One
by CLD-PJY
This is a great little all in one printer/scanner. It is neat and compact although granted it is not the smallest option out there. Set up and installation was simple and easy. I use this product wirelessly and have found it to be very reliable, with no problems with connectivity. The quality of print is quite good, with ink usage being ... fair and replacement ink cartridges are not too costly. As the black and colour cartridges are divided this also helps to increase printing efficiency. Scan quality and options are very good, with the document reader working very well (my last all in one scanner printer used to get paper jammed in the document reader frequently!). One issue I do have is that the printer gives you an estimated level of your ink on the front display which is great, but it is very quick to say you are low on ink, when in fact, you have quite a lot of ink left. So be careful not to switch cartridges too soon! Overall I think this is a very nice printer for low-medium useage and would definitely recommend it.
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