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Canon WAS a good printer company until they started following HP, Epson etc. and patented their ink cartridges too. Now the ink has become almost as expensive as gold and they give away the printers almost for free.

I got tired of the ink drying out as well and went with a laser printer, the Xerox Phaser 6120. I got it for $350 from CDW back on 6-7-07.

 

It came with standard toner cartridges, 1500 pages for the color and 4500 pages for the black. I've not yet replaced any of the cartridges. The color has 240 pages left so I'll probably have to replace them by the end of the year.

 

It's a networked printer and supports Apple's Bonjour which makes it very handy when friends or family visit. For the rare few visiting with a Windows laptops I just have them install Bonjour for Windows.

 

I already had a stand alone Epson Perfection 2480 Photo USB scanner that I'd picked a number of years ago from Fry's for $50. It was a refurbished unit.

I've had some success with refilled ink cartridges. They usually go for half price or less, and I've never had an issue with the quality of the ink. The only disadvantage I've found is that the printer knows they are refilled and refuses to monitor the ink supply, so you have to guess when they might run out.

I got tired of the ink drying out as well and went with a laser printer, the Xerox Phaser 6120. I got it for $350 from CDW back on 6-7-07.

I don't do enough printing at home to justify getting a laser printer. Although the prices are certainly a lot more competitive now.

 

I already had a stand alone Epson Perfection 2480 Photo USB scanner that I'd picked a number of years ago from Fry's for $50. It was a refurbished unit.

Epson still makes great scanners. We use the GT-15000 (now the GT-20000) at work. It's an excellent 11x17 scanner, and the fastest one at that size we've found - just a few seconds per scan (which is important in animation).

I don't do enough printing at home to justify getting a laser printer. Although the prices are certainly a lot more competitive now.

I didn't think so either, until I started to factor in how much the ink was costing me(especially considering how much was getting tossed because it dried out) and the amount of time I spent fighting with the printer. Lack of frustration is priceless

 

Epson still makes great scanners. We use the GT-15000 (now the GT-20000) at work. It's an excellent 11x17 scanner, and the fastest one at that size we've found - just a few seconds per scan (which is important in animation).

That they do - my prior scanner was an Epson 1650. I replaced it because I started to do a lot of scanning and it was a painfully slow USB 1 scanner. A few seconds is wicked fast, especially for 11x17. Of course I would expect that for something that cost over 20x what I paid for mine.

I have an Epson printer/scanner, but it too needs 6 different color cartridges. So I got another printer. I use the Epson for scanning and the other one for printing.

I didn't think so either, until I started to factor in how much the ink was costing me(especially considering how much was getting tossed because it dried out) and the amount of time I spent fighting with the printer. Lack of frustration is priceless

We used to have Epson 3000 (large format) inkjet printers in our labs where I work, and finally we got rid of them a few years ago (talk about maintenance nightmares), and put in an HP Color LaserJet 9500. We go through about $12,000 worth of toner per year, but the thing is rock-solid reliable.

 

A few seconds is wicked fast, especially for 11x17. Of course I would expect that for something that cost over 20x what I paid for mine.

Our original animation scanners (bought in '97) were by Fujitsu, and they scanned very fast as well, but were grayscale, and cost $5000 each. (Had we bought them a year earlier, they would have been $15,000 each!) So $1100 is a downright steal as far as we're concerned. Our other previous large format scanners that did color were by Umax, and they were over $3500 each, and took over 90 seconds per scan. When the Epsons came out, we replaced everything with them. The only drawback is there's no Mac software with them, but VueScan takes care of that very nicely, indeed. (In fact, I'm trying to get it to work with my Canon, since I prefer its interface.)

I have an Epson printer/scanner, but it too needs 6 different color cartridges. So I got another printer. I use the Epson for scanning and the other one for printing.

I still have my 12-year-old Umax scanner hooked up. Probably more for sentimental reasons than anything. I suppose I should just reclaim my desk space and finally retire the thing.

I picked up an old Apple Personal Laserwriter 320 at a thrift about 5 years ago for $15. Pretty much the greatest computer related purchase I've ever made.

 

I've spent maybe $30 on toner over those years. Of course, I don't print much color, and when I do, I have to drag out my... Epson.

I unplugged my old scanner today. I may still miss it, since it was about the only scanner that had a completely flat top (glass was flush with the edge of the frame, so you can scan oversized items easily), but I can always use the Epsons at work if I need to.

 

VueScan is happily recognizing the Canon now. I had to unplug/reconnect the USB cable once, but then everything was fine. VueScan even prompted me to do that, since it initially could see the scanner, but couldn't connect to it. Very smart software. Canon's scanning software is pretty decent (very much improved over their previous version), but I'm just so used to VueScan now, I prefer using it. Plus I paid for it.

 

If everything goes well today, I may be able to write up Part 2 of Good riddance to bad rubbish. I'm hoping so.

So, when I bought this printer, I said...

The downside? It came with "starter" ink cartridges. Apparently this is becoming common practice with inkjet printers. The ink cartridges are the same size as normal ones, but have about 1/4 the internal capacity, so about the first thing you have to do... is buy more ink.

...and I've yet to have to replace the "starter" cartridges. As I said, I don't print a lot of stuff, but I certainly expected to have used 'em up by now. I'm still very happy with this printer, and the scanner and copier functions have been getting some good use, too.

I too bought a Canon printer recently, based partly on your recommendation. I don't print a ton either but was surprised that my starter inks are still going strong too.

Finally replaced the first ink cartridges in the printer today - magenta and cyan. I'm rather pleased with that.

I also got a color laser (Dell 1320c) for the same reason as SpiceWare - I got tired of having the ink dry out. The other big plus is the output doesn't run when it gets a little wet.

 

One gotcha with modern printers and scanners is they require drivers to operate. Unfortunately, once the printer/scanner has been sold the hardware maker doesn't have any interest in creating new drivers.

This takes care of the scanner problem. I don't use anything else, and it supports almost every scanner I've thrown at it.

 

Usually with printers, it isn't so much the driver that's the problem, it's the utility software. Being able to check ink/toner status, run cleaning cycles, that sort of thing. That's what they never bother upgrading.