I haven't had too much to say about printers lately - probably because there really hasn't been much news. Ink jet and laser printers have reached a plateau in terms of performance, features, and price. There are some newer developments in what are called "dye-sublimation" printers - more on that later.
The big three are still Epson, Hewlett Packard (HP) and Canon. Lexmark has made quite a mark lately, and through deals with PC manufacturers actually ships a lot of Lexmark printers to new users.
Epson has a Home line of four printers, all less than $99. At this price, they are commodity items and if one breaks, you just replace it. Even at this price, you can get 2880 x 720 resolution.. These are all 4-color printers; they will reproduce nice color pictures but are not the best for photos. In Epson's Business line, the printers are all 2880 x 720 and print faster. Some have built in Ethernet adapters for direct network connectivity. The Business line printers are also 4-color printers.
Epson's Photo line features 6-color printers at 1440 x 720 or 2880 x 720 resolution. The latest in this line is the 890, which is so new you can't order it from Epson yet. This printer follows on the success of the 750 and 870 printers. I still have a 750 and love it; the 870 is said to have inks that do not fade over time. The 890 is (relatively) expensive at $299, but getting this level of quality for less than $300 was something unheard of just a few years ago.
HP has a broad line of home and small business products. They are similar to Epson is price, with the HP-935C 4-color printer that can do 2400 x 1200 resolution on photo paper. Some of the more advanced HP printers feature two sided printing and automatic paper type identification. HP photo quality printers start at $149 and include the "Photosmart" line - HP's best photo printers.
Canon has a Value line with 3 printers at up to 1440 x 720 resolution for under $100. They have a Performance line which features the BJC8200 photo printer at $199 and the new S800 Professional Photo Printer that includes a reader for Compact Flash memory cards and can thus directly print photos from your digital camera memory.
So, to sum that all up, you can get a great color inkjet printer for under $100 these days. $100-$200 gets you higher speed and higher resolution, and $200-$300 gets you a high-resolution printer with excellent photo capability. All printers feature both parallel port (the old way) and USB (the new way) connections. I highly recommend using USB for new printers and in fact for all your new peripheral stuff. Some printers feature built in network connectivity and some can directly read digital camera memory cards if these features are attractive to you.
If you want the best in photo quality printing, the latest printers on the market use dye-sublimation technology. Dye-sub printers use dye from a dry ribbon deposited on special paper. Dye-sub printers usually only print on 4" x 6" paper although there are some that support larger formats. The major advantage of dye-sub is that they print continuous color as opposed to printing the discrete dots that inkjet printers do. Besides Canon, the other major manufactures are not the big three, but include Sony, Polaroid and Acer. Sony and Polaroid - more traditional camera and image companies. Prices range from $99 to $299. The major drawback of this technology is the cost of the photos - usually about $.80 to $1.00 per photo.
Me? I am going to buy an Epson 890 just as soon as they come out.
(Bob Seidel is a local computer consultant in the Southport / Oak Island area. You can visit his website at www.bobseidel.com or e-mail him at bsc@bobseidel.com).