Printers

[Cowabunga]

I have a rather good Canon Pixma 7750 photo printer. Two issues with it. It only prints to A4 maximum size and I would like to print some A3+. Secondly when printing lots and especially A4 photos, the ink cost gets very high even when using non-genuine cartridges.

I’m thinking of getting an Epsom 8550 ecotank model. This is a dye based inkjet, which is what my Canon is, and therefore does not print archive quality but they still should last 40 to 50 years in daylight. The attraction is the print quality and the low ink cost, which probably works out at about a tenth of a pigment ink printer, or even less if the printers are used only, say, weekly. This extra cost for low daily use is due to the extra cleaning cycles apparently needed for pigment inks to prevent nozzle blocking.
The downside is that this Epsom model is very slow printing high quality photos.

Anyone out there doing a fair amount of printing? What do you think? Have Canon, Epsom, HP or any other brand got better A3 photo printers with reasonable ink costs per print?

 

[Sals dad]

Hi, I have an Epson xp960 a3 printer, I use the cheapest eBay cartridges as it mostly does regular printing on a4 but I have a dozen a3 photos framed around the house and the quality is very good with no fading after 3 or 4 years using decent paper, the print speed is acceptable for the amount I do .It’s surprising how much better the same photo looks in the bigger size.
Martin..

 

[Cowabunga]

Yes the bigger size makes for a far more striking print in many cases. Not always of course. I’ve recently discovered that the quality and type of paper also makes a massive difference.
I’m still thinking about this and whether £500 or so to buy the Ecotank 8550 is worthwhile for the amount of A3 printing that I will do. Thing is, what will I do with dozens of A3 photo prints? There are only so many walls in the house and if I frame them, they will need storage even if not hung. I could give some away, but that hardly justifies getting the printer and I doubt very much whether there is much, if any, market for selling some.

As you can tell, I’m somewhat hesitant about this, especially as my current printer does superb A4 prints and I don’t do more than 20 or so that size annually at the moment. I do enjoy printing and the resultant prints though.