Quote - Well, my trusty printer bit the big one, and I'm looking for a new one. I'd like something capable of a little better color printing than my old officejet, so does anyone have any recommendations as to a good printer for color in the less than $400 range? Speed isn't that important, since I rarely print long documents.

I like my HP hardware wise, but the software.. well, I hate the software that comes with it.  It's constantly popping up dialog boxes about updating and checking and blah blah blah.

I get nagged more by my HP software than I ever did by my wife, so can't say as I'm a huge fan there.  My last printer was an Epson, it gave me years of reliable service, but finally replaced it when I could by a new all in one HP for what a refill of the old ink cartridges for the Epson would cost me.  Sad thing is the new printers are getting so cheap and the ink is so expensive that unless you buy a pretty high end printer you can darn near replace the printer for what it costs you to replace the ink.

But I digress - print quality wise I tihnk Epson or HP are the way to go, of the two I prefer epson's "minimal" approach to software, the drivers and a few extra utilities are available under the default install, but it doesn't seem to need to call home every 5 minutes like my HP system wants too.  HP went with more of the "your a moron who needs to have our software hold your hand through everything" approach on there software package, and it kind of irritates me.

I don't want to use there crappy scan software, I have photoshop for goodness sake.  Just give me a twain driver and shut the hell up - lol

But quality wise HP puts out great quality  prints and has all the bells and whistles you might need.  Guess it just sort of depends on what your looking for, personally I think I'll be going back to Epson after this one outlives it's useful life span.

-Never fear, RenderDog is near!  Oh wait, is that a chew toy?  Yup. ok, nevermind.. go back to fearing...