Image Conscious
The next time your old inkjet printer refuses to print, chews up the paper or sputters and sends out gibberish, go ahead and take a hammer to it.
After you have smashed old not-so-faithful into tiny pieces, don’t waste time grieving. Go shopping. Printer prices have gone down while quality has gone up.
Don’t be overwhelmed by the variety of printers and prices out there.
We spoke with experts who offered advice to make choosing the right printer less confusing and contacted salesclerks who spoke candidly about what you should buy.
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“The best way to find a printer is to go out to the big vendors and push all those darn printer buttons,” said Wes Wysong, manager of Computer Advice in Camarillo.
The buttons he is talking about are all over Ventura County in stores such as Staples, Office Depot, Office Max, Best Buy, Sam’s Club, Costco, CompUSA and Circuit City. These stores put all their printers in rows marked with prices and information, such as how many dots are printed per inch or how many pages are printed per minute.
The dots per inch--or dpi--can be confusing, since some printers repeat the same dots on a page and count them separately. But usually, the more dots per inch, the better the quality.
Wysong recommends at least four or five pages per minute for color printers and eight pages per minute for black and white printers.
On store tags, this information is referred to as ppm and varies from printer to printer.
But more important, go to a big store and push the buttons beside each printer and decide for yourself if the images that appear are the quality you are seeking. In addition, you will find out firsthand just how fast the pages come out.
At any rate, Wysong said, “If your old printer’s repairs cost over $125, it is usually better to get a new one. You can get a good new one and not spend over $200.”
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At Computer Power Unlimited in Westlake Village, technician Marc Schnitman also recommends going to stores and pushing the printer buttons.
“Do a printout on the display model and judge the demo picture with your own eyes,” Schnitman said. “If you like what you see, buy it.”
The actual demo gives meaning to the words beside the display. A fast-printing machine might sacrifice some quality.
Some buyers might decide they don’t care if the clarity suffers as long as the pages come out fast. Others might be dazzled by a photograph-quality picture and not mind how long it takes the printer to create it.
Schnitman noted that it does not matter how good a printer you buy if your software does not meet the printer’s capabilities.
“You will only get the quality of printing your software can give,” he said.
“It doesn’t matter what resolution your hardware can do if your software isn’t that high.”
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We checked out Best Buy, Office Max and Circuit City, which all sell computer inkjet printers for less than $100.
However, one salesclerk pointed out that people usually get what they pay for, and a small printer for less than $100 is not going to suit someone who wants to print a high volume.
But someone who prints only a letter or two now and again could probably get by with an inexpensive machine, which he called a “disposable printer.”
The printer’s quality and longevity increase along with the price, he said.
He recommended a Hewlett Packard, with Epson a close second. Schnitman and Wysong agreed.
All three stores offered a Lexmark Z31 printer for just under $200.
When its button was pushed, it sent out a high-resolution photo of a shiny antique car that looked impressive. The flier with that printer said it had 1200 by 1200 dpi, and 8 ppm in black and white, 3.5 ppm in color.
Epson Stylus series computers shot out photograph-quality color fliers at all three stores. At Office Max, the 900 professional series model showed the light reflecting in a leopard’s golden eyes. The picture was so clear, you could count the creature’s whiskers. That flier boasted 12 ppm for black and white and 10 ppm for color, with a resolution of 1440 by 720.
The price of this printer was $399.99.
A photograph capturing the texture on a gray tabby cat--the light reflecting in its eyes and all its whiskers perfectly countable--was printed by the Hewlett Packard DeskJet 810C/812C color printer at Best Buy, priced at $199.99.
Its 600 by 600 dpi and 6.5 ppm in black and white and 4.5 ppm in color could be just the thing to replace that pile of parts you now have beside your computer.
Also, before buying a printer, check to see how much the replacement ink cartridges cost. Prices range from $12 to more than $40 apiece.
None specify how many pages the cartridge will print, since the amount of ink on a page can vary depending on what is being printed.
According to a printer salesclerk, one thing all inkjets have in common is that everyone complains about the ink running out too quickly.
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Nancy Needham can be reached by e-mail at nancy.needham@reporters.net.
