Can Anyone Recommend an A4/Letter Printer?

My printer - a Canon i455 - seems to have died. The print head just keeps getting blocked and no amount of cleaning will rescue it for long. I'm left with streaky, poorly coloured prints and text.

Can anyone recommend a replacement?

I need, ideally:

• A4/Letter sized-max prints. A3 not required.
  
• Good (but not spectacular) photo quality. Any "proper" prints get sent off to a lab. The home printer is just for quick print-offs for my wife to stick in her diary or to give to visitors.
  
• Decent general-purpose print quality. It will probably print more e-mails / web pages / etc. than photos!
  
• Something that can cope with not being used for a while. This seems to be where my i455 falls down. I clean it all out, get it working, and then, if I don't use it for a week, the heads have clogged. Again.

Before you buy a replacement try cleaning the heads with a piece of damp paper.

Get a piece of kitchen roll about 20cm by 8cm and fold in four to make a long strip; dampen it. Get it under the print head and move it very gently back and forth.

This will quite likely solve your problems. It may completely ruin the printer but then you were going to buy a new one anyway.

I did it to my Epson R800 and got a very good result.

Good Luck

Thanks for the suggestion - but I've tried cleaning the heads with kitchen paper and warm water numerous times. It sometimes works for a while, but then just blocks again.