printer recommendations <$200

[Savagelogic]

I'm in the market for a printer to be used to print out images from my 10D, post Photoshop of course. I've been reading good things from Canon's i960 for about $150 but the new Canon ip5000 for $175 looks pretty nice too. Canon says it gets its minimum drops down to 1 picoliter which should be better than the i960.

Any thoughts on this? Also, does anyone know of bulk ink system to be used with a printer you buy? My school has 2 Epsons setup with bulk ink coming out of 4 bottles with hoses leading into the printer. They brought up a website showing where to get them one time but I can't remember the address.

[robertwgross]

Trying to confine yourself to a particular printer based on its initial cost is futile. It is smarter to look at the entire cost, which will be mostly based on consumables, and the biggest factor to consider is ink cost. Yes, continuous ink systems reduce that cost a lot, but to many users, they are only practical if you print a lot.

Another thing to consider is the maximum paper size that the printer will accept. In the old days, we were happy with color printers that could do 8.5x11 inches. Now, many are moving up two or three sizes from there.

To a certain extent, your choices boil down to Epson versus Canon.

---Bob Gross---

[Hellashot]

What I've found with printers is that for the most part when you see small differences in printer prices within a brand the only difference is printing speed. If you look at print resolutions the low end ones are usually the same and prices increase giving you only added speed. There are jumps that go up in overall quality. Unless you're printing a lot there's no need to pay extra for speed.

If you're reall into higher quality prints on photo paper you need to go into the $250 and up price range.

[CyberDyneSystems]

I've been very happy with the Canon printers ever since I switched to them with the i950.. I now have an i9100 and it is very nice.

For under $200.00 I would highly recomend the i960