What's everyones opinion on these two types of printers? Which do you consider better for quality prints? I'll just be printing out on 11 X 17 and not in large quantities. Probably no more than three a picture.

Inkjet. Very very inkjet.

What he said. If you can, go for one that has individual color cartriges instead of one color cartridge. First, it takes longer to use up the ink one cartridge that it does to use the ink in a multicolored one. Second, it's cheaper in the long run.

I really like my Canon i960 - that has individual ink cartridges. I've also got an HP psc-1350, it doesn't have the individual bit, but it has a scanner and a photocopy machine integrated (and it along with the iPod came free with computer number 4 in our house - the iBook). The photo prints from my Canon look better than what I'd get back when I was handing film over to the folks at Costco, and both of them will print amazing quality to paper. The only reason to get a laser printer these days is high speed mass printing for the end user rather than print professional. Which is really not something most of us ever need.

Canon PIXMA look like very sweet printers :) Definitely go for one with multiple ink tanks, it saves a lot of money in the long term.

Message edited on: 01/22/2005 02:07

Although colour lasers are much cheaper than they use to be, I'd go with an Epson Stylus Photo 900 every time. Perfect prints and cheap ink carts. Edge to edge printing with a special tray to print on CDs.

Thanks for everybodies input. Looks like it will be an inkjet, probably one from Epson(they have an excellent reputation). Again thanks.

I had an Epson Stylus C40 which was great, but slow. Now I've married a woman with a printer fixation. She has the Canon i960 like arcady and also the i950. Both great printers. She's now hinting at getting an Epson Stylus Photo 2200 that has 7 external ink bottles and prints at 2880 x 1440 dpi up to 13" x 44".

Drawbridgep, that Epson 2200 is the one I'm more than likely going to get. It's pretty sweet:) I can finally say goodbye to Kinko.

I run with a 4 colour epson for artwork - I also do a lot of B&W photography so a six colour would chew though the smaller black extremely fast (my last shoot resulted in 2 sets of 25 8x10s). If you are doing colour pretty much exclusively, the a photo-type (6 colour) is the way to go. I also have a laser for all the heavy printing (i.e. manuals from pdf, text jobs, etc.)

I love my Epson 2200! Best printer I ever had. I have acess to a color laser at work. My 2200 looks way better. Peggy

the prices of both have been dropping. I come in at the higher end of the spectrum on both (I'm the 'printer guy' on our campus..I have access to all the printers at work..mwuahahaha..;), but the main thing I've seen on Color Inkjets is the coast of the cartridges; the missus and me actually dumped a printer and bought another, because the price of replacement cartridges was more. It really depends on the kind of work you want to do with them. If you're going to crank out lots of color work, you'll need something heftier (and more expensive) to handle the workload. Laserjets are better for high-volume work, and can do better (well, the models I work with, HP Lasjeret 4500-5500's) on output as well. The cartridges for inkjets are much cheaper than the laserjet (4 carts for a LJ 4650 goes into 4 digits..I kid you not).
Now the deal is you want an 11x17 format. In that case, going Inkjet would probably be a lot cheaper, because some of the older and smaller laserjets can't handle anything that big.
What I'd do is write down what we all say here, and when you go to shop around, have a list of your requirements. Try the web pages for all the companies out there; Canon (makes the insides for the HP's as well), HP, Epson, Tektronix/Xerox, etc. Good luck.

Check out www.cnet.com - There was a recent review of a large format Cannon printer with 8 ink cartridges. The reviewer was an Epson enthusiast but thought this printer was much better (about $400-500 I think). Unfortunately I don't remember the model number :-( Jim

Attached Link: http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/printers/s9000.shtml

I have a canon s9000, does a3 no bleed, no border printing - it's fantastic. Previous to this I'd always been an HP fan, with one epson along the way too. This s9000 blows them away (that said I won this in a compo so being free it's gonna seem good) had it for just over a year now - so there may be a newer equivalent!

Message edited on: 01/24/2005 04:36