looking for advice on a good all-in-one in the $200-300 range
With that, biggest factor is noticeable print quality, next price per
page. Print speed is only an issue if we're talking about an order of
magnitude difference. Twice or three times as long doesn't matter.
Been looking at the Canon MP800 or Epson RX620/700 but not firmly
entrenched in either camp.
I have the older mp760. I bought it as my HP psc 950 was being flacky
on the scan front, the price was right, it did slides/negatives, and it
printed on CDs. It did have one issue that required replacement, but
the replacement came postage pre-paid for the old one, not a problem
since. My only compaint about the mp760 is the fact that the software
lacks a certain maturaity that you see with HP. HP offers a full if a
tad bloated solution. Canon offers a printer which scans. The
springboard software is rather limited, and to print multi-copies it
processes everything via EZ-photo print. Not an issue if you use a
different application to scan your images from. General purpose, this
is your choice.
I haven't printed enough from the ip5200 to really judge the print
quality, and the mp800 is based on the ip4200... so I can't offer true
blue personal experence at this point. I can say text quality is top
notch on this series, as it was in the older series. I can't notice a
change in text from canon in years, which is fine because it's really
good. Black text is dirt cheap, even on the mp800. Color, well,
that's harder to judge but should be dang reasonable as you are only
shelling out for 4 tanks.
The Epson Stylus Photo RX700 I dont' have personal experence with. It
prints on CDs out of the box, where the canon mp800 would require a
tray from e-bay and some button presses. One feature epson AIOs tend
to have is the ability to scan to a solid state memory, as in memory
stick and such without a PC. I believe the rx600/620/700 all support
this feature. I can't speak about the these models directly, but
generally speaking photos on epsons are top notch. I can speak for the
r200 which should be similar, they are simply to die for, and that's
their lame sub $100 printer. Color rendering is a strong suit of
epsons. Text isn't likely to be as good as canon, nor as cheap. Ink
will certainly be more costly esp since this doesn't offer a dedicated
big black cartridge like canon or the CX series. These suckers do
waste the ink. While I do consider epsons to be fickle creatures, I
still would have to say photos are very likely to be better on any of
these.
----------------
Now.. if you are hip to getting last years model. The rx600 can be had
at the epson store for $130 in it's referb state free shipping. I
don't know if there is even a difference between the rx600 and rx620.
The rx700 is another story but i'm not seen it in action.
The canon mp780 can be had on amazon.com for $219.99. It lacks slide
scanning but has a doc feeder and fax modem, and the print resolution
is lower. A ton of aftermarket supplies for it though.
----------
Also to look at, the canon
mp800R - the wireless model
mp950. - $349.99 on amazon.com. It offers the big text black, and the
6 tank printing for a total of seven tanks. It offers a higher
resolution scanner than the rx600/6200 or canon mp800, but not the
rx700.
).
.