Epson vs. Canon vs. Brother

[Joshua]

Which brand do you think is better? My printing is mostly business but I occasionally do some photos. Which one has a better print quality and which one is easier to refill? The printer I am looking at is between $100-$180.
Thank you in advance.

 

[mharris127]

I don't mean to sound like a broken record, but I have had excellent luck with my Brother printers. They are both ink-jet printers and meet your price requirements (or are even cheaper depending on model). I am very happy with them and wholeheartedly recommend them to others. If you want to refill, I recommend buying refillable carts on eBay or even a CISS system rather than attempting refill of the OEM carts. I don't bother refilling because I can get new carts cheap from eforcity.com. I did attempt refilling on a Lexmark and a couple of HPs with mixed results.

 

[meimnothere]

Canon

 

[Joshua]

Can you please tell me why you prefer them?
Thank You!

 

[meimnothere]

Epson = Hassle.. because of the way the print head works you need to be a high user to keep the machine from blocking.. Hard to refill I recommend a CISS. No real gain in print quality. They do have a good name because of past quality advances over the other brands.

Brother = Crap. Cheap nasty crap. Poorly designed print heads. Brother know about this, if you have troubles with your printing take the machine to a brother repairer and they will just swap the PH out for a new one. Refills are easy.

Canon = Reasonable price machine, easy refill, good quality result.

 

[Joshua]

What about the Epson refillable cartridges? I've also heard that Epson has fixed this problem with their newer printers.

 

[meimnothere]

Yeah.. Not from what I have seen.

But anyway how they operate they need to use a lot of ink. A CISS will stop you from having to frequently refill.

 

[wilko]

Which brand do you think is better? My printing is mostly business but I occasionally do some photos. Which one has a better print quality and which one is easier to refill? The printer I am looking at is between $100-$180.
Thank you in advance.

Generally Epson printers print slightly better photos than Canon but Canon printers are better all rounders. Excellent text printing and only slightly inferior photos to Epson.

Most Canon owners swear by them but the latest models are disappointing because of problems with refilling.

Try to get an IP4600 or IP 4700 or better still a s/h IP4500 in good condition.

Why not try a Google for reviews of the Epson P50, Canon IP4700 or IP 4850 (IP 4820 in the States) and Brother printers. I think you'll find that the Canon comes out on top.

At the price you quote you could also look at all in one printers.

If you are looking to refill cartridges with good quality ink then you're looking at 20-50p per refilled OEM cartridge for the Canon as opposed to around 10 per Canon replacement cartridge.

I would agree with meimnothere's comments except that I have no experience of Brother printers other than reviews which don't rate them as highly as Canon.

The latest Canon printers (IP4850 or IP4820) have cartridges which are more difficult to refill and no chip resetter is available at the moment. However you can still probably pick up a couple of IP4700s for the price you are quoting.

If you can't locate an IP4700 try the Canon store or EBAY as Canon are selling off these models at reduced prices so they can push their new, not so desirable new printers. Get them while you can because Canon are trying all they can to prevent us from refilling cartridges

Personally I bought an IP4700 for storage from the EBAY Canon outlet store in the UK to try and future proof my needs.

 

[Joshua]

Well, I am mostly looking for all in ones but can you explain the difference between the canon all in one office printers and photo printers? Do they have any differences in the output quality of text documents, photos, documents with text and graphics, etc.?

 

[wilko]

The AIOs give you a scanner facility but printer output is of the same quality as the IP4xxx series. Most Canon printers have an inbuilt duplex facility which is very useful and is unprecedented in low end printers, I believe.

As I said before, do a Google review search to find out what is best for you.