Need some printer advice!

[Bert Bates]

Hi Guys,

I'm very cranky about printers right now.

I'm feeling that Canon designed the printer I bought from them specifically to rip me off - it's a color printer and because my "yellow" cartridge is out of ink, the printer won't do anything. It won't print in black and white, it won't even let me scan a document directly to a thumb drive. grrr...

So, I'm looking for a new printer / scanner that's better behaved. One that'll print in b/w even if a color cartridge is empty, one that'll scan regardless of ink status...

Any suggestions?

Thanks!

[Bear Bibeault]

Not helpful but: I avoid all-in-1 units just for this type of nonsense. My printer prints, and my scanner scans. The scanner isn't talking to the printer (I think they had a tiff over which USB connector type was superior a while back), so it could care less if the printer is out of ink or not.

[Bert Bates]

actually helpful! i'm leaning in that direction - towards a barebones printer who's orientation is "i'm going to print come Hell or high water". vs. the Canon's approach of "i'm only going to work if all the stars are aligned and I'm feeling up to it".

[Bear Bibeault]

Montgomery Scott wrote:The more they overthink the plumbing, the easier it is to stop up the drain.

[Seetharaman Venkatasamy]

over thinking is required to think at least...

[Paul Anilprem]

I have been using HP J4580 for past 3-4 yrs. and an HP F4200 at another location for 3 yrs. Both all in ones. Both have been occasionally out of ink but have never refused to scan. So I guess not all all in ones are bad

Maintaining two devices probably is a little more robust setup but takes more physical space, more drivers, more ports, more adapters, more cables (or more switching). So I am ok with all in ones

[Pat Farrell]

Start off by giving up on the concept of an all-in-one. They are cheap combinations of each part. You are much better off with a scanner, a color photo printer and a b+w laser printer.

Fundamentally, printers are free, and the brand makes all its money off of the consumables (toner and ink). So look at the prices the way you should look at an iPhone price. Its not $200, its $2600, for the phone and 24 months of $100 a month service.

My wife's machine (desktop computer) died about six months ago, no problem, we picked up a new one for $400. But neither her scanner nor her printers would work, since
the new computer has Windows 7 and the old one ran XP. There were no drivers for either printer and none for the scanner. All worked perfectly with XP. So we got to buy three items, a new scanner, a new b+w laser and a new photo printer.

We went Canon, because our last ones were HP and we felt screwed by their lack of driver support.

Sometimes print is a four letter word

[Mark Reyes]

Hi Bert,

I used to have this problem until I have decided to have my printer be converted to what they call as 'Continuous Ink Supply System'. CISS

The ink is cheaper also.

Note though that this would void your printer warranty if it exist as they will tamper your printer's ink source.

Another thing is that, I am not sure if this is legal in your place. Mine is acceptable and I already said goodbye to the problem that you are encountering now.