A3 Photo Printer (Feb 2012 recommendations)

[sonofsanta]

Not been a similar thread in a while, so thought I'd make a new one rather than going for some necromancy.

I went on a bit of a crusade a couple of years back and purged these walls of inkjet printers. However, I'm starting to feel like I've done a disservice to Art and their Photography students, and actually, they could do with a nice quality inkjet for printing out final photo assessments.

Looking about the web for various reviews, the general consensus seems to be that the following models are contenders:

• Canon PIXMA Pro 9000 Mark II - £363
• Epson Stylus Photo R2880 - £454
• Canon PIXMA Pro 9500 Mark II - £526
• Epson Stylus Photo R3000 - £557

(all prices inc VAT as I cba to work it backwards to get ex VAT)

They all have various pros and cons - not least the £200 price range there - but do you really think that A-Level photography students will particularly notice the difference between the top and bottom end models there? Do you think they will mind that the PIXMA Pro 9000 is dye-based rather than pigment-based and thus won't have a 100 year lifespan? Bearing in mind that, at the moment, most of them get their printing done at Max Spielmann, so obviously they're not too fussy...

Any personal experiences/thoughts? I know that the Canons are USB only, but that's all I need as it'll only be used on one computer to try and keep usage down (deliberate awkwardness is the best restriction).

[soveryapt]

Howdo

I'm very similar and purged the walls here of InkJets (just had to do it again with a school merger that we've just completed) but as we've started a photography course we needed a photo printer and I bought a HP Officejet 7000 E809a. It works a treat for what they need, and I even made use of it to redo the staff photo board in our reception.

We paid £142+VAT for it from Unique Business Solutions: Home

[enjay]

Given the quality of colour lasers nowadays, I'd be inclined to get them one of those instead.

[MGSTech]

have a look at the Oki C801 Does A3 colour and seems to quite like photo paper!

Mine came with a £100 cashback and a 3 year on site warranty for around £575 inc the rebate

Steve

[sonofsanta]

Given the quality of colour lasers nowadays, I'd be inclined to get them one of those instead.

They have a colour laser (Brother 4040cn and an Oki ES5460) but neither of them work well with photo paper; they're plenty good enough whilst they're working on the project, but when it comes to final, photo quality hand ins, they're not up to snuff I fear.

[enjay]

neither of them work well with photo paper

Of course, didn't think about photo paper.

[soveryapt]

Depending on the printers abilities, could you not get some silk or gloss stock to put through the laser. It's one option we looked at here, but I did still go for the inkjet in the end, but you never know, might be a slightly easier way to look at things.

The reason we went for the HP in the end was the fact that they wanted their own printer in the artroom, so this was the cheapest way of doing that without going down the laser route (though we did price lasers too as they would fall in our existing budgets and printer agreements, but it was too ££).

[K.C.Leblanc]

Depending on the printers abilities, could you not get some silk or gloss stock to put through the laser.

Make sure you get photopaper intended for a laser printer. If you put inkjet photopaper through the results will be messy.

[soveryapt]

Make sure you get photopaper intended for a laser printer. If you put inkjet photopaper through the results will be messy.

aye, sorry, should have made that clearer .. get the laser silk or gloss stock .. sorry, I'm a designer too and sometimes assume people get what I mean when talking printers and what not .. my bad ..

It can be quite pricey, but if it's only for final pieces than it might work out cheaper than having to get an inkjet and such ..

[sonofsanta]

aye, sorry, should have made that clearer .. get the laser silk or gloss stock .. sorry, I'm a designer too and sometimes assume people get what I mean when talking printers and what not .. my bad ..

It can be quite pricey, but if it's only for final pieces than it might work out cheaper than having to get an inkjet and such ..

Might be worth getting a pack in just to test it - as you say, will probably work out cheaper than spending £300 on a new inkjet.

Any in particular I should be looking for? As annoyingly, Amazon's "Office Paper Products › Paper › Laser Printer Paper" section is full of bloody inkjet photo paper.

[soveryapt]

This >>> http://www.amazon.co.uk/Color-Copy-C...8619918&sr=1-9 <<< kind of thing should do it .. Do you have printer agreements in place, or do you just buy all your toners and what not as if you have a company that supplies your printers and toners as part of an agreement, they will know what stock will work best and might even send you some gratis to test it out ..

[sonofsanta]

This >>> http://www.amazon.co.uk/Color-Copy-C...8619918&sr=1-9 <<< kind of thing should do it .. Do you have printer agreements in place, or do you just buy all your toners and what not as if you have a company that supplies your printers and toners as part of an agreement, they will know what stock will work best and might even send you some gratis to test it out ..

Oh bums - didn't think of that - just ordered some HP stuff as I was getting something else from Amazon and thought I may as well chuck it in the basket while I was there... cos yes, we are on contract, and they might have sent some over :/ ne'ermind!

[earlyriser]

Just came across this thread. We have 2 Canon Pro9000Mk2 printers in our art department and in themselves they have performed well over the last 3-4 years. We clean the ink heads in an ammonia solution every year, and use genuine inks as experiments with 3rd party inks were a disaster. The printers probably churn out between 1500 and 2000 pages per month during assessment time. We do have issues though, but they are due to the fact that we are networking the printers with USB print servers. We have tried a number of different servers but haven't been able to achieve a consistently reliable state. These are great printers if you want a solid, standalone unit. If you think you need a network capable unit (even if it's sometime in the future), then steer clear of them.