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Best deal on printer/scanner/fax? (1 Viewer)

Bob McLaughlin

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I am looking for a new printer with the ability to scan and fax. I know very little about this sort of thing and I don't want to just pick one out at Best Buy based on a Sunday newspaper flyer. I thought I could put the brains of the Home Theater Forum to use. Any recommendations? I am looking at the best I can get in the under $300 range. Thanks!
 

Shoaib Lateef

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Sep 26, 2002
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based only on research alone, not having actually used them, your top two choices are the HP 6100 and the Canon MP730. i suggest going to your local Best Buy and checking them out, they've both been fairly highly rated.
 

Tim Markley

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The HP, as with any HP inkjet printer, will cost you much more for ink cartridge replacements. I would go with the Canon. You can get the Canon MP730 for less than $200.
 

Keith_R

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I work as an inkjet cartridge remanufacturer (AKA I build inkjets), I've built cartridges from all the major manufactuerers and I can safely say that the HP machine is probably your best bet. Canons are pretty good but HP has a wider array of cartridges and a higher market base than Canon.

A good majority of the cartridges I build in a day are HP cartridges. My experience has been that Cannon cartridges typically are harder to build and usually not as successful in the end process as their HP counterparts. I don't know much about the actual printers but I would go for the HP on the basis of the greater variety of cartridges and the general quality of HP printing products and cartridges.

A tip, you can save lots of money by buying remanufactured cartridges. Remanufactured, if built right, can be just as good as the OEMs that are sold at stores like Bestbuy for sometimes twice the price. Aside from the smaller price, remanufactured cartridges also help the environment by reducing waste from people throwing out old cartridges that they no longer use. Recycling the reusable cores by cleaning and refilling them helps to stop this problem while also being cost effective for the consumer. I'm not sure about where you live but there are many places that specialize strictly in remanufactured cartridges and they can probably be found in your local phonebook.

Good luck and I hope this helps your decision.
 

Lew Crippen

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I don’t know those two models, but in general Canon inkjets use four separate cartridges for color printing (one each for magenta, cyan, yellow and black), while HP inkjets use only two cartridges: a black one and one that has the three colors in one cartridge.

If you are going to print mostly black text, neither model has an advantage as you will mostly be replacing the black cartridge and rarely the color ones. And if your color printing is ‘normal’ neither has much of an advantage, as all the colors will run out fairly quickly.

But if your printing is likely to depend on a lot of one color, it may well be that the single HP cartridge will need to be replaced when one or two of the colors run out and there is still some link left in the final color. An example of this would be printing flyers that have one predominant color such as green text or an orange background. In this case the Cannon will be a bit less costly as you only replace each single color as it runs out.

If it means anything, my current printer/copier/fax/scanner is an HP—I don’t often change the color cartridge, as most of my printing is text—and my color printing is reproducing photos—something that normally uses all colors at about the same rate.
 

Shoaib Lateef

Second Unit
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Tim said: "You can get the Canon MP730 for less than $200."

That's a great price, Tim! WHERE??

I've seen it for about $299 at all the B&M's and for no less than $250 online.
 

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