Printer Suggestions

[excuzzzeme]

Wishing to purchase a color printer for doing photos.

Have considered Laser, solid-ink, dye-sub, and ink-jet.

To be used for 8x10 color prints, personal/occasional use as most printing is text (use B/W Laser).
Main consideration is TOC, longevity of prints, output quality network capability not important (use stand-alone print server)
Hoping for some suggestions based on experience. I have read too many reviews to count and often find them based on a sales point of view rather than real-world experience.

OS's
3 x 98SE
2 x XP Pro
1 x 2K Server
1 x Red Hat 9
Thank you for any help/suggestions provided.

[edwelly]

I am using an HP Photosmart 7350 and I LOVE it - best printer I ever owned. It prints out fantastic color copies as well as photographs...
BTW - Welcome to TechIMO!
---edwelly

[excuzzzeme]

Thank you for the welcoming..........

Unfortunately most HP Printers are not too good for quality photos as they use 5-picoliter nozzles and most quality printers use a 2pl nozzle which lends to better color blending and smoother lines. Do you know of the ink life-span? They range from 2ys to as high as 80yrs for archival ink.
(Guess this is pretty high demand from someone almost color-blind)
Again Thanks for the input!!!

[Peter M]

Want quality photos? And low running cost? Then there's no way around Canon's current breed of 2 picoliter per pixel printers with separate ink tanks for each (!) color (four or six). i850 or i950, four and six colors respectively, 4800x1200 dpi, zero-margin printing on comparatively inexpensive photo print media (including small format 10x15 cm high gloss cards).

950 is USB-only, 850 still has a parallel port too. The 4-color 850 has larger individual ink tanks.

[Steve R Jones]

Consumer Reports - May issue rated two of Canon's as #1&2 on their list..