[andy popp]

I've always been a cheapskate buying printers with the result that they're never very good.

So I need a decent printer that must be able to print high quality glossy photos (my son is doing A level photography) as well as normal range of b/w and colour documents. Wireless might be good. Quality and reliability much more important than speed. Am willing to spend a bit.

Any recommendations?

[Tom de Gay]

I got a HPB9180 a few years ago; it has been very good and I haven't broken it yet. Prints A3+ at a fairly snappy rate and excellent quality with 8 fade resistant inks. One thing to be aware of is that HP recommend you never switch it off, so it can do a head cleaning cycle once every 24hrs. This prevents blocked print heads but doesn't sound too good for saving the planet (or my electricity bill), so I switch it off if I'm not using it on a daily basis. It goes through a calibration and cleaning cycle every time you switch it on, which can take 10mins or so. Because of this and the expensive inks (20 quid a cartridge) I don't use it for printing regular documents - maybe hang on to your old printer for this. It's also quite large.

[slackline]

Given the cost of printer ink I'd perhaps recommend using something like Photobox for printing pictures (and perhaps buying print credits so you can just print when wanted & save a few pennies per print).  They're turn around is pretty good and I've no complaints about quality (had a few 10x8" prints done for presents at xmas).

For home printer I've had a Hewlett Pacard HP 6310 printer/fax/scanner and have been quite happy with it, its "just worked" (even under Linux as HP actually support the OS too with dedicated tools).  Only thing I'd go for in the next is wireless simply to free up an ethernet port on my router.

[andy popp]

Thanks folks.

[Jim]

Need some help choosing a printer. Need it for occasional use and only needs to be B&W so was going for laser printer but I want it to connect over the network, either wired or wirelessly so it can live in a cupboard or somewhere out of the way. Quality is not a real issue as it will be mainly for printing out forms or vouchers etc... but it does need to be smallish and cheapish. Any recommendations please
Ta

[slackline]

I've had no problems with an HP 6310 All-in-One.  The only thing I'd change is get the wireless version to free up a port on the router.

It may be a little bulky for your requirements and it does include colour printing (which never gets used anyway), so there may be alternatives.

HP make great printers though and I'll be sticking with them (mainly 'cause of their excellent Linux support in the way of hplip which I know isn't a consideration for yourself, but mention for anyone else reading this thread).