Experiences with the new A4 tank printers?

[ChrisR]

I'm interested in these, as my current printer is playing up. I'm probably more interested in the cheaper all-in-one printers than the proper photo printers like the Epson ET-8500 (see Keith Cooper's review). While I'd love something like that, it's just too expensive (cheaper elsewhere, but £650 from Epson).

As far as I can see, most of the cheaper tank printers have 3 dye-based colour inks and one pigment black. Keith reviews the Epson ET-2850 (£310 from Epson) here. He concludes "On matte media, including thin card [needs to be for inkjet use] and art papers, the results could look very good. Not an optimal solution if you are looking for glossy photo snaps – one of the ‘4 dye ink’ versions of the printer may be more suited..." For black and white, he writes "On glossy papers, the lack of black ink makes B&W photo performance of dubious utility. For matte papers B&W performance was variable." Hmmm.

I'm not sure which printers have 4 dye inks, rather than one pigment and 3 dye colours?

The Canon G650 (£280 from Canon) has 6 dye-based inks, which is promising. Black, CMY, red and grey. Availability seems a bit low. I've not seen a review, and wondering how it does for black and white.

But there seem to be so many options, so I'm wondering if any folk on here have experiences they could share, with these cheaper tank printers for occasional photo use?

 

[superpippo]

I am no expert but wanted to try and bought the G650 from JL

Canon PIXMA G650 All-In-One Wireless Wi-Fi Printer, Black

Buy Canon PIXMA G650 All-In-One Wireless Wi-Fi Printer, Black from our Printers range at John Lewis & Partners. Free Delivery on orders over £50.

www.johnlewis.com

I signed up for the MyJohnLewis promo which was simple and got the 10% off
Also JL give a 2 year guarantee on electrical items.
Keith Cooper reivews it as ok on a Windows machine

 

[ChrisR]

I am no expert but wanted to try and bought the G650 from JL

Canon PIXMA G650 All-In-One Wireless Wi-Fi Printer, Black

Buy Canon PIXMA G650 All-In-One Wireless Wi-Fi Printer, Black from our Printers range at John Lewis & Partners. Free Delivery on orders over £50.

www.johnlewis.com

I signed up for the MyJohnLewis promo which was simple and got the 10% off
Also JL give a 2 year guarantee on electrical items.
Keith Cooper reivews it as ok on a Windows machine

Just read through that review; he's not very happy with the lack of driver on Macs (AirPrint only). I have not yet understood what he means by his profiles, since earlier he said the AirPrint driver didn't do profiles! Will need to read through again and maybe watch a couple of his videos. Altogether it was a slightly disappointing review (it didn't even seem to satisfy him as an office printer). However, I do keep reminding myself that he is oriented to very high end printing...

 

[Dryce]

The Canon G650 (£280 from Canon) has 6 dye-based inks, which is promising. Black, CMY, red and grey. Availability seems a bit low. I've not seen a review, and wondering how it does for black and white.

Keith Cooper did a review of another printer in the same family - the Canon G550 - which AIUI is the same underlying printer as the G650 but without the scanner.

 

[droj]

Not the answer being looked for, I strongly suspect, but the best answer environmentally is probably not for everyone to have home printers.

I admit to having a mono one here for postage labels & other humble on-demand stuff. But all photo prints, whether just for myself or to exhibit or sell, go to a lab ....

 

[ChrisR]

Keith Cooper did a review of another printer in the same family - the Canon G550 - which AIUI is the same underlying printer as the G650 but without the scanner.

Yes, it's the same review, covers both printers. He's only interested in the printing bit...

 

[superpippo]

Just read through that review; he's not very happy with the lack of driver on Macs (AirPrint only). I have not yet understood what he means by his profiles, since earlier he said the AirPrint driver didn't do profiles! Will need to read through again and maybe watch a couple of his videos. Altogether it was a slightly disappointing review (it didn't even seem to satisfy him as an office printer). However, I do keep reminding myself that he is oriented to very high end printing...

He does review in depth but you are right that he specialises in high end machines and can be a bit dismissive of cheaper ones.
But on the G650 I thought that he was only really concerned about the driver re Macs but provided a compatible paper is use on a PC it seems Ok.
For my level of expertise, I could not justify the £600 plus (and rising) which is the level that KC seems to think that decent printers start at. Also, I wouldn't have the space for an A3 printer
The reviews on the JL site are positive.

 

[zx9]

I have been using a ET7550 which is a five colour A3 printer and scanner that is four dye plus photo black pigment. When it is good it is adequate for printing photos for display around the house, when it is bad it is a messy little thing. This could be in part others in the house sending A3 spread sheets to it whilst it is loaded with A4 paper, causing it to spray ink either side of the A4 format, why is it not capable of refusing to print on the wrong size media, I don't know.
As you are looking at an A4 printer with the same or similar head set up you will avoid the pitfall above.

I will add that the dye inks are not very waterproof, getting caught out in heavy rain on a trip to site resulted in a lot of un readable A3 drawings, the ET7550 was bought as a home office / photo printer replacing an Epson Workforce pigment A4 which I don't remember been troubled by a bit of moisture though the colours were never photo quality.

 

[Faldrax]

We have an Epson ET-3850 as an 'office' colour printer - and for that purpose it's great - reasonably quick print speeds, auto duplex, scan, etc.
It's not being used to produce prints for hanging on the wall, but with regular general A4 paper the quality is good - where pages have images on them they are clean and sharp, no particular colour bleed, etc.
Cost wise, it seems to be worth the expense - in the time we've had it we would probably have needed a couple of sets of replacement cartridges for our previous printer, and the tanks are still ~ 2/3 full from the original fill (this is a bit of a guess on ink use, I've not gone back and checked frequency of ordering cartridges)

 

[ChrisR]

I am no expert but wanted to try and bought the G650 from JL

Canon PIXMA G650 All-In-One Wireless Wi-Fi Printer, Black

Buy Canon PIXMA G650 All-In-One Wireless Wi-Fi Printer, Black from our Printers range at John Lewis & Partners. Free Delivery on orders over £50.

www.johnlewis.com

I signed up for the MyJohnLewis promo which was simple and got the 10% off
Also JL give a 2 year guarantee on electrical items.
Keith Cooper reviews it as ok on a Windows machine

I was all set to order one of these, but remembering something from the KC review, I checked the manual. In my MG5250 there's a load of plain paper in the bottom cassette, and I load photo paper into a rear tray. But with the G650 it appears (from what I can see) that all paper has to be loaded into the rear tray, leaving it sticking up and paper exposed to the air unless you load it each time. Is that your experience?

 

[superpippo]

I was all set to order one of these, but remembering something from the KC review, I checked the manual. In my MG5250 there's a load of plain paper in the bottom cassette, and I load photo paper into a rear tray. But with the G650 it appears (from what I can see) that all paper has to be loaded into the rear tray, leaving it sticking up and paper exposed to the air unless you load it each time. Is that your experience?

Yes that is true for photo paper in my experience. But for me that is ok as I print only one at a time.
I must stress that I am only a dabbler at printing, but I feel it to be a valuable use of my time.
I have not had it a long time but it fulfils my needs at the moment.
I have a few prints of shots inside York Minster whic were printed by a lab a few years ago and you have prompted me to carry out an experiment whereby I print one of them and compare.

 

[ChrisR]

Further investigation seems to confirm that it only has one paper tray, the rear one. Quite suitable for photo printing, as you say, as choosing a paper is part of the printing process. But I don't think it's at all suitable as a household printer that also does photo printing, which is what the "all-in-one" approach would suggest. It appears most of Canon's G series tank-based printers suffer from this issue, although ISTR there was one that did not (but that one had the very common pigment black and dye CMY issue; fine if you print text or colour photos, not so much if you want to print black and white, according to Keith Coopers review of an Epson equivalent, the ET2850).

The Epson ET8500 A4 all-in-one has 6 inks and has both a cassette and a rear tray. Looks a great printer, well reviewed... but it's over £500!

 

[superpippo]

but it's over £500

That was a problem that I had. I did not want to spend more than about £200 in the first instance because i was not sure how much printing I would do.
As it happens, not as much as i thought.
Before I bought the Canon, we had an HP Envy 5530 which is an all in one and we have the HP ink subscription.
We still have this for everday printing and the Canon sits on top of it.
But it is very poor for colour photo printing, nowhere near the quality of the Canon.

 

[steve_lyt]

The et-8550 comes with ink equivalent to buying 8 sets of cartridges. On some printers that cost £60+ using original cartridges, so the in alone is worth £480, and refill ink costs approx £90 that’s a big saving, and the same goes for the et-8500 the a4 version