Inexpensive printer

CANON PIXMA iX6550 A3 Colour Inkjet Printer. The price of this printer sounds quite reasonable and the cost of ink not too bad either but, is it a "good" photo printer. Anyone already got this or used one? At the moment its on my list of possible birthday gifts. Any recommendations for other similarly priced.


Regards

The A3 budget printer I always had in mind was the Epson Stylus 1400 - but here in German amazon the epson cost 80 Euro more than the Canon. As Canon works with only 3 color inks, I wonder if the colors can be as good as the Epson - however - the amazon ratings are not too bad. Epson is also very expensive reagrding the ink, and in amazon one guy reccomended to use ink and paper from Pripa - he gets printing costs of about 80ct per A3 frameless print, which is really good (and he says, the ink/paper combination results in brilliant photos).
I could not find any matte black ink for this printer, which reduces the B&W quality significantly.... So perhaps coming back to the Epson?? The Epson also has some more "Schnickschnack" like a CD print cartridge - not that you really need it, but when having it, its fine

Quality costs money.

It all depends on where the individual's quest for quality ends before the wallet runs out.

However, original manufacturer's inks usually give the best results and good quality papers also usually give the best results.

For much of our printing we use Jessops Heavyweight Photo Matt 230gsm. This gives gorgeous, velvety blacks and looks superb at actually quite a low price. We did buy a few boxes, so hopefully when we need to re-order they won't have changed the supplier.

I've taken the plunge and gone for the canon ix6550. I didn't think the reviews were too bad and will only use canon ink and paper to start with. The other half uses an Epson A4 and "other" inks which so far have been ok for her handicrafts, card printing etc. and 3 of my "Best" snaps which weren't totally panned in the local club

Think my photography budget stands alongside the Greek deficit at the moment

Regards

Thanks for all the suggestions for paper etc. I've also clicked on the links in your posts and the photographs are all fantastic. We must visit Wales again sometime as we has a photographic disaster last time. Long story.

Regards

I have always been an epson man and following the demise of our printer after 3 times it's expected working life I suspect that Canon will need to work hard to win my £££££££'s

My vote is with Epson

One thing to consider, apart from the price of the printer and quality of the prints is the price of refill inks. In a recent edition of the Dutch version of Which? magazine they found it was often cheaper to buy a complete new printer than a new set of inks for some of them.
Some printers will not accept third party inks.

My wife has an Epson all-in-one A4 printer which gives her good results using "look-alike" inks. The last Epson I had (R300) died because of lack of use but I wasn't taking/printing photos then just printing the odd receipt and cds (use lightscibe discs now). If the canon doesn't work out for me then I'll look again at the epson but a lot of reviews mentioned "very thirsty" due to head cleaning and paper jams. Thanks for your feedback and installing a little doubt

Regards

That is definitely true with the cheap laser printer I have, which came with enough toner for 750 sheets and I'm still using. It is cheaper to buy a new printer with a similar amount of toner included than a toner cartridge
I don't think I will be looking at refilled cartridges for a while although my wife uses them in her epson all the time.
Have you finished all the Birthday Cake

Regards

I've always used Epson.. but was tempted by (and bought!) the Canon IX6550 as well... simply because of the competitive price for an A3+ printer, coupled with reasonably good reviews.

I haven't done much with it yet though.. a couple of test prints that look reasonable. But I'm aware so much depends on monitor calibration and profiles etc that I'm going on a steep learning curve before I pass judgement. Looks good so far anyway!