When you are shopping like this, do you shop locally or mail order?
If mail order, who do you like?
Can you post a link to a website?

Any websites you can recommend for reading specs and user reviews?

Thanks

[Link]

I have a Photosmart 7350 and been very happy with the results.

Amazon has a good selection to read reviews and specs.

[Link]

don't buy refills or generic inks, they'll evaporate or gum up the print nozzles.

pcworld top 10

[Link]

As a matter of fact, I've only purchased two printers in the past ten years, and one was online (Buy.com).

If I had to buy one today, I'd probably check out the cheap-o bricks and mortars places like Best Buy, or maybe try one of the local shops.

But generally speaking, B&W laser printers either work, or they don't, so there's very little customer service/product return to be worried about.

I'd be much more worried about returning product if it were some stupid PCI audio card or an internal DVD drive.

[Link]

My new printer is called "HP LaserJet 1010" - it's fairly small (for a laser printer), the prints are fine and the price was quite low so I'm satisfied. The print cartridges are quite expensive, but they last much longer (the HP people say, and I hope..) than inkjet cartridges.

[Link]

Thanks! :) I appreciate your time.

To anyone else: I'm still reading, considering, etc., so any and all comments gratefully accepted.

[Link]

At HP's website, under 'mid-range' inkjets, I found your model number 5650. Couldn't find it atStaples page on inkjet printers though.
Found model number 5740 at both.

At the HP site it mentioned more pages per month for your's so I'm thinking maybe your's is more heavy duty than the 5740. Comments? You think the 5740 might be similar in quality to yours?

The 5740 costs about $90. May I ask how much yours was? Just trying to see if they are at all comparable.

Thanks for the tip on the 3820. Let me know if you see any model numbers at either the HP or the Staples links that look to be the same thing, but a newer model. I'll avoid it.

[Link]

At the time, I thought the idea of having 3 separate cartridges for color was a good idea. That way, when one ran empty, only it would need replacing. Not having to buy just one color cartridge for all seemed to be more effecient. It may still be - I'm not sure.

How do you feel about the 3 cartridges vs. 1 , for color?

Regarding print nozzles: Vaguely somehow I thought they were part of the cartridge, so they are new whenever you replace the cartridge.

The hard part about comparing costs of cartridges - is that one manufacturers cartridge might print X pages, and another's might only print .5X pages. I still feel, no scientific test, that this Epson costs more to use than the old Lexmark did. It's just a feeling.

Thanks for the reminder with the PC World link! That had slipped my mind. That's where I found the HP 5740 that I mentioned above. PC World said, " This printer provides no-frills, high quality printing and produced the sharpest line art we've seen from an inkjet. " , which sounds nice.
That, and it is available at Staples. Some of the other printers rated slightly higher there were not.

[Link]

I left that hanging a bit. :) All I said was no need for photographs.

To clarify - color is necessary. Just not doing photos.

Thanks

[Link]

The computer that this printer will be used on is getting old.
Estimate 1999 or maybe 2000. I'm thinking the two USB ports are 1.1 , not 2.0 . If I can't find the paperwork on the motherboard, maybe I can open it up and get the model number from the mb and look it up on the 'net.

Just in case neither of these tells me - is there any other way for me to find out what the USB ports are?

Suppose the USB ports are old 1.1 . Then what happens if I hook up a new USB printer to the unused port? Will it work at all?

Or, will I also have to go buy a card? I'm assuming somebody makes a card so that USB 2.0 ports can be added. True?

It has been a while since I've worked on the insides of computers. Just haven't had the need. So you can tell I'm out of touch. :)

Other thing to consider - os is Windows 98 SE . If I HAVE to add a card to get USB 2.0 ports, can Win98SE handle that?

Presently, the only USB device hooked to the computer is a scanner. I have no idea if that scanner is a 1.1 or 2.0 device. It has been a while. It works. :)

I just remembered that this Epson was one of the few that still had parallel port connection. That was probably part of the reason I chose it - didn't have to buy another cable. Looks like I probably will, if I am advised that a newer USB printer can work with what I've got.

Thanks

[Link]

If possible use USB cables and not a parallel cables. The USB interface is quite a bit more reliable. In an earlier career I made quite a living debugging PC designs that misspelled words on printers. The parallel interface can do that if all is not right; USB can't.

As long as the printer has a Win98se driver it ought to work with USB on your computer since USB already works with your scanner.

[Link]