Gah! Why is it impossible to find a printer that does what I want?!

[motulist]

I've been searching for a printer that does what I want literally for about 6 months now on and off. I'm at my wit's end and I'm hoping you can help me. Here's what I want:

Required Specs:
- color
- printer, copier, scanner
- wireless
- Mac OS X 10.6 compatibility
- good easy software for printing & scanning that works easily and well on Mac
- costs a maximum of approximately $800. (of course less expensive is definitely better.)
- it'd be nice to have edge-to-edge printing, but this isn't a necessity


Required Elements:

1. Works reliably for long periods of time while requiring extremely little upkeep. I don't want to constantly be cleaning print heads, replacing ink cartridges, having ink cartridges drying out, having to reprint because their was a streak of a color smudge running down the side of the page, etc. - I presume this means I want a color laser or LED printer, but if you know of an inkjet that fits the bill that'd be fine too.

Similarly, the machine shouldn't have paper jams often, shouldn't have weird error codes, shouldn't stop printing for no reason until you do something stupid like open and close the paper drawer, etc.

2. Good quality color printing for photos and line-art illustrations. I don't need it to be *perfect* image printing, meaning I don't care about perfect color reproduction, and I don't care about any sort of professional-level stuff like publishing offsets or whatever. I'm just saying that I want it to be able to print reasonable fine lines and able to produce color without visible dithering dots of banding or anything like that.



Things that are NOT needed:
X- super fast speed isn't required. It shouldn't go slow, but I also don't need anything like 30 ppm. Approximately typical speed is fine.
X- double sided printing or scanning
X- envelope printing
X- large size paper printing (I only ever print normal letter size paper
X- auto-feeder for scans or copies
X- ethernet
X- camera card slot or camera connectivity
X- fax
X- photo-editing software, OCR software, or any non-print&scan software like that


THE BOTTOM LINE:

I want an all-in-one that outputs great quality text and images, and "IT JUST WORKS"!

 

[jerestun]

hmm how about HP psc 2355?
actually there are a lot of printer that quite fit in your needs..

 

[caspia]

I've been searching for a printer that does what I want literally for about 6 months now on and off. I'm at my wit's end and I'm hoping you can help me. Here's what I want:

Required Specs:
- color
- printer, copier, scanner
- wireless
- Mac OS X 10.6 compatibility
- good easy software for printing & scanning that works easily and well on Mac
- costs a maximum of approximately $800. (of course less expensive is definitely better.)
- it'd be nice to have edge-to-edge printing, but this isn't a necessity


Required Elements:

1. Works reliably for long periods of time while requiring extremely little upkeep. I don't want to constantly be cleaning print heads, replacing ink cartridges, having ink cartridges drying out, having to reprint because their was a streak of a color smudge running down the side of the page, etc. - I presume this means I want a color laser or LED printer, but if you know of an inkjet that fits the bill that'd be fine too.

Similarly, the machine shouldn't have paper jams often, shouldn't have weird error codes, shouldn't stop printing for no reason until you do something stupid like open and close the paper drawer, etc.

2. Good quality color printing for photos and line-art illustrations. I don't need it to be *perfect* image printing, meaning I don't care about perfect color reproduction, and I don't care about any sort of professional-level stuff like publishing offsets or whatever. I'm just saying that I want it to be able to print reasonable fine lines and able to produce color without visible dithering dots of banding or anything like that.



Things that are NOT needed:
X- super fast speed isn't required. It shouldn't go slow, but I also don't need anything like 30 ppm. Approximately typical speed is fine.
X- double sided printing or scanning
X- envelope printing
X- large size paper printing (I only ever print normal letter size paper
X- auto-feeder for scans or copies
X- ethernet
X- camera card slot or camera connectivity
X- fax
X- photo-editing software, OCR software, or any non-print&scan software like that


THE BOTTOM LINE:

I want an all-in-one that outputs great quality text and images, and "IT JUST WORKS"!

Hi motulist,
Just joined and just bought a Canon Pixma MG 6250. It does exactly what you want and I also spent time looking around. This one only came out recently. Great price at around 170 quid. Also comes with FULL toner cartridges (including one grey one which enhances B&W photographs). Don´t reckon there is better value. My only quibble is as per my post regarding a bluetooth connection.