RE: filmscanners: RE: Photo quality printers: Hewlett-Packard vs. Epson

["Rick Berk" <rberk@carletonvizcomm.com>]

Well-
Let me offer my tidbit of experience.  A few years ago, I had an Epson
Stylus Color IIs- not a great printer by any stretch, but at the time it was
all I could afford.  I upgraded my computer to Windows 98, and the printer
would not work right any longer- printed the pages funny, weird characters,
etc, and no amount of reinstalling software would help. Finally I called
Epson (a long distance toll call).  My tech couldn't figure out what was
wrong and put me on hold to do research.  I waited on hold for 45 minutes
(long distance), and when he finally came back, I was told "We can't figure
out why it's not working.  We'd recommend buying a new printer." I was
furious. Their drivers didn't work (I had downloaded the Windows 98 updates
from their site), so I should go buy a new printer? Ok fine.  I bought an
HP.  I currently own an HP 952 C, and it has given me great photo quality
prints.  I know the prints won't last 200 years, but, well, neither will
I... so I don't care. The prints I do get look great.
Rick

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-filmscanners@halftone.co.uk
[mailto:owner-filmscanners@halftone.co.uk]On Behalf Of Software City
Sent: Monday, March 12, 2001 12:29 PM
To: filmscanners@halftone.co.uk
Subject: Re: filmscanners: RE: Photo quality printers: Hewlett-Packard
vs. Epson


Being in the repair biz, I can only say we see lots more HP inkjets, then
all the other brands combined (granted there are more HP's in circulation,
but the numbers still seem disproportionate). HP does great lasers, but I'd
never recommend an HP inkjet to a Customer. There's a lot of cheap plastic
in them, at least on the lower end. Plus, there aren't any Continuous Inking
Systems available for HP. One distinction between HP & Epson & others is the
fact that the print head is built into the cartridge.I'd guess the theory is
that you get a fresh head with each new cartridge, but I have to wonder
about the head quality & ongoing cost. (I believe there's a class action
suit going on over this issue.) If you do some surfing of folks who are
seriously into the digital darkroom, you never see a mention of HP: mostly
Epson.
    Regards,
    Ken Jaskot
----- Original Message -----
From: "patton paul" <ppatton@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>

> I was wondering if anybody could comment on the relative quality of
> Hewlett-Packard vs. Epson photo quality printers.