what do you get for your money

clud17

clud17

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Chris
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I have a HP photosmart d5400, cost about £70-80 last year. I just printed out a couple of shots and im not happy, sometimes i get a good print, sometimes they have lines accross every 1cm. on the larger print it isnt even printing straight.

So im thinking do i need to go out and buy a better more expensive printer say £150-200.

So what do i get for the extra money?
Is it worth it?
and can anyone recommend a model if i should upgrade

any advice will be most welcome, thanks
 
If it's within warranty, HP are excellent at sorting you out with a replacement. You put your old unit in the box the replacement arrived in and, after you've assured yourself everything's working OK, the old'un gets sent off to Bulgaria or wherever there's cheap labour and a market for refurbs.
 
im not sure really, is it the usual 1 yr with HP, ill have to make some enquiries. im still curious what the extra £100 or so pounds will give me, presumably a better print quality? what printers do members use themselves? Or do you prefer to have them printed professionally?
 
Yup, the usual year with HP. Mine was end of range and cost less than £40 from eBay. It was described as new and under warranty, but would've cost me carriage to/from the seller whereas it was all covered by HP. The Photosmart range has a good reputation and I bought it as continuous ink systems are available, but yes, there's not much point other than convenience and control, in owning your own printer.
 
Good printers which prints full frame sheets goes for 600-1000 + (CAN)
But in the long term, paying for ink and whatever... I just prefer going to a print where they can make me quality prints for really cheap...

I only print contact sheets on mine now, then I check which are the most interesting and I get to have them printed.
 
Is the OP using genuine HP carts? How long is it between printing sessions? Has he tried new, genuine carts?

I mainly use a Canon iX4000 A3 printer (£229, WHE price). It's a 4 colour printer (CMYK) with seperate carts for each colour. Carts usually come from 7dayshop but sometimes from our local Tesco who do packs of the CMY carts with 50 sheets of 6x4 paper at a good price (sometimes). Don't know how much it costs per print but it does give me full control of the printing process and is well calibrated to my monitor.
 
Nod said:
Is the OP using genuine HP carts? How long is it between printing sessions? Has he tried new, genuine carts?

I mainly use a Canon iX4000 A3 printer (£229, WHE price). It's a 4 colour printer (CMYK) with seperate carts for each colour. Carts usually come from 7dayshop but sometimes from our local Tesco who do packs of the CMY carts with 50 sheets of 6x4 paper at a good price (sometimes). Don't know how much it costs per print but it does give me full control of the printing process and is well calibrated to my monitor.
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I always use HP cartridges, new and genuine. The frequency of prints fluctuates, i only print out the occasional A4 print when i get a good shot and these are rotated around the house in frames. I wondered if the lines accross it were due to the instability of the table its on, any thoughts?
 
clud17 said:
i only print out the occasional A4 print when i get a good shot <>, any thoughts?
Click to expand...

Buy a budget Epson or Canon printer for £50 or £60. You will be impressed by the prints and the cost of replacement inks. I used to like the idea of getting a new print head with a new HP cart but a replacement set of carts for my old HP cost more than buying the Epson R200 I have now. The Epson is 3 years old now and the print head is still fine despite using compatible carts since day 1 costing around £1.25 ea.
 
If you've never been satisfied with the results then the printer must be faulty. BTW, mine's the D7160, which uses six cartridges.
 
Got a Lexmark X6570 wi fi, cost about £100 full price, inks are very expensive and photo prints are cr**p......also just got an Epson SX400 for around £60, all 4 inks for £14 (compatible) and the prints are really good, I only bought the Lexmark because I need two printers and it was on offer, false economy or what
 
I went to get a Lexmark on offer a couple of years ago but whilst I was in the shop I checked the prices of the ink and if I wanted to buy genuine carts then it would've been cheaper to buy a new printer everytime. Ended up with a Canon iPixma which I can't fault, only cheap and cheerful but ink is reasonable and once you've cleaned the heads it prints a pretty good photo :thumbs:
 
I've never been happy with quality or cost of home printing so I just pop down to Boots or a local specialist when I want prints.
 
If you're getting lines across the print where it's not laying ink down properly, and they are all parrallel to each other then it's likely there's a problem in the print head.

With the HPs, the print heads are generally in the cartridge, so you would need to replace the whole cartridge.
 
barneyrubble said:
If you're getting lines across the print where it's not laying ink down properly, and they are all parrallel to each other then it's likely there's a problem in the print head.

With the HPs, the print heads are generally in the cartridge, so you would need to replace the whole cartridge.
Click to expand...

Thats interesting, i ran a test y'day and it showed one of the carts had lines on it, it also mentioned it could be the vents on the cart, ill try switching it.
 
I used to have an old HP printer and it suffered terribly from blocked heads if it wasn't used very regularly - leave it more than a week between printing sessions and you'ld have to run a full clean cycle to get decent prints. I found that it was worth doing at least 1 A4 print per week to keep the nozzles clear, a pracise I try to stick to with any printer now.
 
I mostly print out "online" ie photobox, but on occasion I'm printed using my Canon IP4300 (now IP4500) and the quality has been remarkably good (original carts).

It may not be a professional 10-ink A3 system, but the best value for money I could find.

Current model is the IP4600 which should be just as good, except that they've cut the ink capacity, no doubt in an effort to boost profits. I explicitly shopped around for a discontinued 4500 when the head on my 4300 went faulty.
 
maybe they've improved but I hate Epson cheap printers with a passion that borders on obsessional...
so my view may...urrm...be slightly influenced.

however, I think that you can't go wrong with a Canon PIXMA.
cheap ink, removable print head for cleaning or replacement, cheap printers, awesome quality

as for the HP printers, always quite liked them
the OP is using geniune carts...great
has the OP aligned them properly?? this is well worth the time and is sometimes the reason for lines appearing
also what paper? HP printers are much better on HP top quality paper.
the same with Canon's

for a budget you can use ilford or decent kodak stuff, but I always recommended using the right paper with the right printer if you're keeping the stuff

canon's come, or use to at tht least, in three flavours.
CMY and cheap black
CMY and cheap black and a photo black
CMY and a photo black plus two other photo colours.

if you're into photography go for the latter two, if you're printing lots anyway , then the 2nd, like a pixma ip4600
 
planetf1 said:
Current model is the IP4600 which should be just as good, except that they've cut the ink capacity, no doubt in an effort to boost profits. I explicitly shopped around for a discontinued 4500 when the head on my 4300 went faulty.
Click to expand...
I didn't know that!!! the tarts!
 
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