[geofftelforduk]

Hi all! I am looking for a reasonable photo printer for under £200!

I have looked at the Epson Stylus Photo RX620 and the HP 6210, both in around £150!

Has anyone got either of these printers?

What other similar priced printers would you recommend!?

Many thanks

[HCking]

Hi

I would recommend the Epson R300

It may have been replaced by the R320 but they are vertually the same printer, the R320 having a monitor for off PC printing.I have one of these to go with my Epson pro 4000 and the quality of the R300 is superb from 6"x4" upto 10"x8"/A4, I cannot recommend it enough.
They are available for £ 79 + £ 6p+p from amazon at the moment

See HERE

regards

Mark

[MarkE19]

Or for even less money get an Epson R200 which is exactly the same printer as the R300 but without a card reader - if that is not required, ie you will print from a PC rather than direct from the memory cards.
I've been useing the R200 for a couple of years now and although I don't print many photos, those that I do have been excellent quality. They are great printers at a cheap price that can also print directly onto printable CD's & DVD discs. They also use individual ink tanks that helps to keep ink costs down.

Mark.

[geofftelforduk]

Guys, thanks so much for your advice! Its always good to hear from people who have actually used these things!

MarkE19, have you any idea where I could get an R200 and what price it would be!

regards

[RimBlock]

While I cannot recommend a specific model I would suggest not ruling out Canon printers.

A while back I convinced my GF to get one and was very impressed.

I have just upgraded from a HP 7260 printer to a Canon IP8500 (£250) and it is superb. Built in duplex, 8 inks, CD/DVD printing, top paper feeder and also a second paper cassette. If you can stretch to it then I would recommend and at this time of writing PC World (yes I know, I dislike them too) are selling web only for £215.......

You get a full set of inks with it and Adobe Elements (not sure which version). The print heads are not in the ink cartridges so they are a bit cheaper. Jessops sell the separate carts for £7.99.

Only downside is that it is quite a big printer but looks great and produces fantastic prints up to A4.

Regards
RB

[MarkE19]

Although I've previously seen the R200 for under £50 they do seem to be more expensive now. A few places with them can be found Here or try eBay etc.

Mark.

[MarkE19]

Yep, just found a few on eBay for around £50 brand new inc ink tanks.

Mark.

R300 for £79 or an IP8500 for £250?
Not much of a decision in that?

[senu]

Originally Posted by longleyc

R300 for £79 or an IP8500 for £250?
Not much of a decision in that?

........2 R300's then! Just kidding . A walk in the printer section of your local PC world is sure to confuse you. ( Canon, Hp, Epson, Kodak Lexmark.Xerox )... im
I have not previously used and as such cannot comment on Canon printers. I do use the Canon 350d and love it but ..maybe Canons printer division lives elswhere!
Until lately I have had ( and found reliable) the HP photoprinters. I think they are very fine all round printers but for absolute Photo print quality, My 6 month old EPSON R300 really is great. I cannot comment on the R200 ( Im told it is slower) The R320 merely adds an lcd review screen for non-PC printing: not much use if you edit ( Im sure you do : with a 20d ( ) your pics in Photoshop etc before printing
The R800 is apparently better but is much more expensive and uses more inks: 8 separate inks not 6 unlike the 300 .
With Epson inks, paper ,ensureing that the screen and printer colors match, and optimising your pics for print, you can get fantastic prints from the R300.
2 days ago I accidentaly changed the color managment in photoshop cs prior to print and was rewarded with horrid looking print!
Negatives:Although the inks are separate and will not finish at once, you cannot continue printing until you replace any finished one. the genuine inks cost a bit especially if you go mad on printing so expect to spend as much in inks as you did for the printer itself over a period of time. This however applies to all inkjet printers.

[geofftelforduk]

Guys, thanks again for all your advice! I presume the R245 in PCWorld is an in between version of the R200 and the R300 http://www.pcworld.co.uk/martprd/product/seo/167034????

[MarkE19]

I've previously owned 3 or 4 Canon printers and only went for the R200 as I needed disc printing and Canon at the time didn't offer this - until about a month later that is . IMO Canon make some of the best printers, although not the cheapest, and their ink is normally cheaper than other OEM ink tanks.
AFAIK the R200 & R300 are identical printers other than the extra features on the R300. Therefore the print speeds etc should be exactly the same.
To keep ink costs down I have been useing inkrite compatables at 99p each from 7dayshop (special offer price, normally £1.50 each) and have still managed to get excellent reasults with photos.

Mark.

[senu]

The R200 uses 6 inks and has the same print engine as the R300 so quality and speed are infact, identical .What it lacks is the slots for media cards for direct priting , pict bridge connection for direct printing from a suitably specified camera and backing up images to cd from the card using an external usb cd/dvd writer ( different strokes...) a front usb slot is provided for this. The R245 infact uses only 4 inks , this makes you wonder if Epson are giving this printer a model no not nessesarily related to absolute quality or speed over the 200 . It does however have the memory card facility and direct print from camera. The R200, 300 320 and 345 all have the same print speed and resolution and are all 6 ink printers with the same quoted resolution and print speed. While the 320 ansd 345 have the color preview lcd I think any differences are very cosmetic.
Confusing .. .not really just go for the 200 or 300 :most bang for your buck ,200 if you dont need the pictbridge or memory card facility, 300 if you might and dont really see the need for a color lcd for a few extra pounds. Both will be quite affordale now the have been supersseded in model or ( "discontinued" : industry speak)

[sorbiegunner]

I use the canon IP3000 at work and the photo printing is superb as is it's cd printing. It cost about £60-£70 this time last year but it's hard to find now.
Does everything really well though duplexing, second paper cassette and all that jazz.
Mind you even at work I don't use duplexing so I doubt I would use it at home. The cd facility is handy though and spot on quality wise.
The second paper cassette is a misnomer as there is only one paper cassette and a top feeder (still useful though). Canon say keep your photo paper in the cassette and plain paper in the feeder but they're wrong. Keep the plain paper in the cassette and keep the top feeder shut, keep your photopaper in it's protective packaging until you are going to use it and then put it in the top feeder, much straighter path for the photopaper, and also keeps the plain paper out of the way and generally takes up less room most of the time.
Sorry about that, straying off topic a bit there.
Canon IP3000: worthy of a place on the shortlist if you can find it.

[geofftelforduk]

Guys thanks again for all your comments!!

I ended up going for the Epson Stylus Photo RX425 All-in-one cos I needed the scanner aswell! So far, for all I have done, I am very impressed!!!

Thanks again!!

[Nick_UK]

I saw a review on TV recently, and the Epson came out on top, both for print quality and cartridge life.

I'm just thinking about buying my first digital camera, looking at Canon IXUS 750. And i was thinking the other day how much i could spend on printers and how much ink i'd use by printing off lots of photos. I'm becoming tempted just to use an online photo printing service. Ok i know it kinda kills the whole object of being able to process your own digital pictures. But thinking about it looks at the quality you'd get.

I though it would be expensive to have pictures printed from printing companys. But if you work it out, on how much ink you'd be buying, how often you'd use the printer, the cost of photo paper, then the chance of your picture going wrong, and becoming out of date, i don't think printing photos at home is worth it! Plus if you find the right place online photos will generally produce better prints.

[senu]

Horse for courses...
For Lots of prints,Prints larger than A4, no point printing at home.
Say you had a little house party ( a handful of guests) and took a few pics with your digital camera. What would be nicer than to do a quick edit, make a quick montage of the event and hand to each of the guests as little momento: a good quality printout of this montage fresh from your inkjet.?. The immediacy of the inkjet now justifies its ownership.
I have done this a few times ( also with kiddies outings) and the responce was always great.
You will probably want to edit your pics( from the digital camera) on the PC. After all this ( Hard work ) surely an immediate printed out preview off your inkjet will give you a taste of thing to come.
Before making multiple copies onine or high street 1 or 2 copies printed off a decent photoprinter are a better representation( proof) than your screen preview as to what the final print will look like.

There is a place for home printing on a good quality photo printer as long as one keeps the limitations of cost in perspective.There in nodoubt that good quality IS possible For all other work there is online or high street printing. beyond that there are specialist photo printing services which will take your digital image and turn it into a Respectable Professionally outputted image on say canvas, parchment paper, etc for a little more money

I certainly agree with you Senu. I've quickly editied photos taken on a friends camera of the family and printed them on my inkjet. Home printings great- Thats what digital photography is INSTANT ;-)

I'm not going to say don't have a home inkjet, but just consider printing services. I'd stick to my fairly reasonable inkjet for quick prints and get more valued pics printed. Especially when i've bought a good camera

I think this is just something to consider, high street printers are much better quailty than home inkjets.

[RimBlock]

The on-line photo printers that I recently used alowed me to upload the images.

This means that I could edit them on the PC, crop and save (jpg only for upload).

Having the printer here allows me to print off a copy of the unedited file for proofing so i can not only see what amendments need to be made to improve the picture but I can also see from the screen what problems I do not need to bother correcting as at that size they are not visible.

Looking only on the computer may show lots of flaws in the picture but most of these will be lost as it is scaled down and printed. I have gone over pictures at 100% and removed just about any blemish I could fine on the models skin only to find at a later time that 90% of them were not visible at A4 anyway

I now proof for any adjustments as it saves me masses of time repairing things I really do not need to repair.

Regards
RB

Geoff, I see you took everybodys advice. Then went off and bought something completely different!
Heheh

[geofftelforduk]

longleyc: Man (I presume), you are very observant mate! Yeah, I realised in the end that I needed a scanner aswell! So I though, the printer in the RX425 is the same spec as most of the ones recommended, but there was a scanner there aswell!!

Cheers mate!

[geofftelforduk]

For the record! I am very impressed with my RX425 so far! Printed my first A4 on Saturday and the quality was amazin!!!! I would have no hestitations recommending it to anyone!!!

Volume printing I always go with www.photobox.co.uk! Good service and excellent prints!!