Welcome return

Oh joy! After dumping my second Epson all singing-all dancing-makes the coffee too into the skip because of failure of its clunky and fragile paper feed I have returned to Canon and have a machine that is solid, convincingly engineered and, so far, dependable. True, it is noticeably slower than the Epsons, but time isn't everything and the results are very good and worth waiting a little for. It also seems to be much more economical on ink than the Epsons, and like the Epsons it has the advantage of single colour ink tanks without the expense of having to buy a print head every time you replace a cartridge. Such a shame, though, that Canon have joined in with the ecological indefensible practice of chipping the cartridges so that they can't be recycled and must be consigned to landfill - commercially sound, no doubt, but environmentally disastrous! The user interface is friendly and offers a more useful range of options than do the Epsons. One thing though; the automatic duplexing is painfully slow with long pauses while it is 'waiting for the ink to dry': I have set the default to manual duplexing and switch to automatic only when I can print in the background while I get on with other things. But that is a minor carp: there is much more I really like about the Canon and I am delighted to have returned to the fold. I do not anticipate needing to dump the Canon into the skip for a long time to come.

VISTA USERS BEWARE

After 3 days I've finally given up. The drivers can only be installed via the HP website and not the disk provided. Whilst the printer is technically installed and good to go, installing the software is a different story altogether due to it all being supplied on the same cd. It just will not install on Vista. Sadly the software on the HP website is actually the same as the disc so you end up with the same ongoing problem. 3 days of my life have been wasted on this attractive piece of junk. I'm off to buy an Epson as I've never had a problem with their software or printers before. So if restarting your computer over and over again is your idea of fun go for it. If not then avoid!

Awesome Photo Printer

Ive only had this printer for a few hours, i bought it for my photography course so i could print my photos at home, and the quality is amazing for a £30 printer, its easy to set up, the ink cartridges are a pretty good price considering the quality, so if your looking for a printer for photos you cant go wrong with this one. one thing that your gonna need to buy is a lead to connect the printer to the computer.

A good general purpose printer and scanner

I bought this all-in-one printer and scanner almost one year ago. I have printed pictures and letters etc with it, and also done a small amount of scanning with it too. It isn't intended to produce top notch prints or scans - for that you'll have to fork out a lot more money that this machine costs - but it does do the job it's supposed to do and it does it well. That is, it gives good general results without costing a fortune. I bought it to replace an older Epson printer and I have found this one gives better quality prints, and also costs a lot less to run as the ink goes a lot further than the Epson model.

The software that came with the Canon was installed without any fuss, and the build quality is excellent for the price. It operates quietly too, and the only downside I have found with it is that it's quite a big machine. I suppose it would have been nice if it had come complete with a USB lead too, but for this sort of price I'm not going to complain too loudly about that.

Excels at photo printing, good for mac

I purchased this printer to replace my HP3310 which was of a similar spec, but just wasn't producing good enough photo prints after 3 years of (good) service. I have only ever owned HP printers, so changing to Epson was quite a big deal for me. At around £250, it isn't cheap either considering you can get a wireless enabled printer for less than £100 these days.

Firstly, this printer is aesthetically very pleasing to look at and compact in its nature, with no odd parts sticking out here or there. It has a big touch panel display, which is very intuitive to use. Note however that when viewing your photos and scans on the display, it will only use up the middle portion. Still big though. It has 2 paper trays, one for A4 size paper and the other for 5x7 or lower size photo paper, which saves you having to fiddle about changing paper depending on your activity. Operation is very quiet, prints come out quickly, even photos.

Now as I mentioned earlier, the quality of photo printing is awesome. The same picture printed in a professional lab doesn't look as good as the output on this. This is definitely a printer for photo enthusiasts. Ordinary printing looks no better or worse than any other printer to be honest. The scans come in at respectable times. Photocopying works as expected. I don't use fax so I can't comment. There are a few other bits and pieces which may appeal to certain people like being able to print ruled/graph/note paper straight from the printer (filofax anyone?) and something called colouring book mode (for kids). The direct to CD/DVD printing is welcome and the tray is built in and automated. A memory card reader is built in, as is a pictbridge USB port. On the back you have your ethernet, USB, power and fax inputs. On the top is an auto document feeder. Changing the ink is as simple as lifting the scanner lid.

The printer is supposed to be energy efficient which is a bonus in this day and age. I do have some concerns about this printer though. I've read on the net that epson print heads tend to break down just out of warranty, only time will tell. The ink cartridges appear to be quite small, so it may not be the cheapest price/print ratio. The paper output tray is a little flimsy, as is the flap that covers the paper trays. Bluetooth is not standard, you will need a bluetooth dongle to enable this feature. Disappointing on a printer this expensive. As is the lack of duplexing, on top of the fact that the duplexing unit (at around £30) is seemingly impossible to get hold of at the time of writing this review.

A note about setup on a OSX Leopard. The included setup is straightforward. It has a step by step configuration for using wirelessly. Again pretty easy to setup because it pulls your routers settings off the router via an ethernet cable (you must connect the ethernet cable to the router before setting up the wireless), all you need is your WEP password or similar. I believe the printer has 'N' specification wireless which is plus for most recent mac hardware purchasers. The drivers and colour profiles are installed via the setup CD and of course you get a small suite of applications to use but most people will be using iPhoto or Aperture to print their pictures. Using the printer in Aperture is alot easier than the HP because when you select for example borderless 4x6 the printer knows to use paper in the photo tray automatically (unlike the HP). The epson software is alot less bloated than the HP software for macs (anyone who has had to download software updates from HP knows what I mean). Overall, I feel the mac support from epson is alot better than HP, which is one thing that did worry me with the switch.

Overall I would recommend this printer for the quality of photo prints and the way in which features are implemented. It is a quick, quiet, attractive and easy to use. If its within your budget, go for it.

Be careful of high running costs

Epson PX700W can be fitted with compatible T080 series cartidges but when the lid is closed, printer claims not to recognise some of them.
Without doing anything other than raise and lower the lid again, the printer selects a random number of other cartridges it is 'unable' to recognise'!!!
Baffled? I was. Perhaps Epson have installed a 'stump up for our expensive ink cartridges or I won't work' feature but have not found this in the manual.
My advice is wait until some 3rd party ink manufacturers catch up and make a truely compatible set of ink cartridges otherwise running costs will be high.
In the meantime, I will use my old printer and likely ebay this black brick.

Best Buy !!!!

Bought this printer in Amazon Sale - less than half price. What a bargain!
Best printer I've ever had. Printing quality excellent. Photo printing as good as digital printing in stores.
Set up wirelessly, took less than half an hour on 2 laptops - one using Windows Vista and the other a Mac. Installed first time on both. Brilliant!

Good quality photo's and simple to use

I owned my first Photosmart printer a few years ago but whilst I thought it was excellent, once it got damaged I decided to replace it with a printer that produced photo's when connected to my PC. Big mistake. Not only were the photo's produced of a much poorer quality, I also found it to be a palaver to print the photo's. Connecting up the printer to the PC each time turned into a bit of a bind, particularly in a restricted space.

Realising my error I have now bought a Photosmart A526, and I'm happy again. As with my previous Photosmart the quality of the photo's produced is excellent. Okay, it is rather slow - it takes over a minute to produce each picture - but that is a minor drawback. The thing I like best about it is its easiness to use. I can take a picture, and after connecting my camera to the printer, can produce a high quality photo within a couple of minutes. I also like the idea that I can take the printer to a family get together and be able to produce photo's there and then, if required.

My only complaint - a very minor one at that - is that it's pale blue colour is a bit bland and insipid. It resembles an old bakelite radio from the 50's; a bolder colour would make it a much sexier looking machine.

Accurate prints at last !

I purchased Epson's R2880 to replace my trusty Epson 1270 photo printer which, after 9 years producing excellent prints finally gave up the ghost. I was keen to see what improvements had been made in 9 years of development.

The printer is quite large but easy to assemble, and the software installation proceeded with no problems. Reviews say that the new printer interface is an improvement on the old one. I dissagree with this. It's still good, but not an improvement.

So what were the first prints like ? A bit dissapointing - too washed out with weak colours. So I reduced the brightness and increased the contrast in the printer preferences and the results were then very good indeed. In fact the colours matched exactly those on the monitor screen, something I have never been able to achieve before.

Although the R2880 has higher resolution than the 1270, this did not show in the prints. What did show was the printing speed - just over 2 minutes to do an A4.

The pigment inks do not soak into the paper like dye inks do, but sit on the surface, so the resulting prints are not as glossy but still very good. An they should last a lifetime.

Would I reccommend this printer. You bet. The results really are very good indeed and the printer feels well made. I have printed many thousands of images over the years on several different printers, and the R2880 gives better results by far. Enough said.

Good clean fun

Iv had it just over a week and it is realy good fun, it works with my phone my camera and my laptop, so there is endless fun to be had. Printing is easy and is clear and sharp, as long as the picture is in the first place, as with any printer. The pictures are big enough to have fun with finding new and random places to stick them for people to find.

Overall happy with it, if you want fantastic prints go to a photo shop but for instant little pics it's great. On close up pictures the quality shows up being less than average but on slightly more distant pics it's great.

Well worth the money and is a good addition to anybodies electrical arsenal.

Well done polaroid for another great instant photo invention.

Top Notch

I've had this All-in-One for the past year and am very pleased with the ease of use and quality of prints it produces.OK so genuine Epson ink is expensive,but it produces the best results and does not clog the nozzels like cheap compatibles either!If you take the trouble to read the instructions and set it up properly,the RX585 is a dream to use!The scanner is childs play too and allows you to scan and print without bothering to turn in your computer!

great printer

just got this printer and the set up went like a dream no problems at all.didnt use the cd though just down loaded the basic one from hp.com (the one it comes with has too much crappy software on it and slows down your pc)
the picture print qualty is excellant even on A 4 size photo paper.
not used the fax yet but the scanner and copy'er are fine for home use.
all n all a good buy

hp photosmart c4280

when i first got the new printer i could not install the drivers on my xp machine.spend many nights looking at web sites trying to find out why it would not install.finally i asked a friend at work,He gave me a disc which had the basic drivers for xp.told me to turn off all firewalls and antivirus software,and it worked
No problems now

Canon Pixma MX310,

I use this printer working from home for general printing, scanning and copying. I have a separate printer for photo printing. For small business use its pretty good. It replaced a Hp office jet J5780 which went in the bin after the scanner gave up and the software fixes rubbished my laptop. The Cannon is better alround. Quick printing,good software interface. Only 4 starsbecause strangely the copy button is on the left of the panel and the colour/black and white select button is on the far right. Can not comment about the ink use/cost. I suspect it will be about the same as its competitors, grossly expensive, but thats why the printer is realitively cheap.

I'm Very HP!

This printer is the bizzo! Has the feel of a quality item the moment you open the box, everything about it spells QUALITY.

Easy to set up following the delightful touch screen instructions offering connection by ethernet cable, USB or wireless the choice is yours. Initial printing results are superb.

The item was delivered within a couple of days (FREE!) to me in the Scottish Highlands. As Frank Bruno used to say on the sauce adverts....I am very HP! (happy).

Double check the specs!

This is a good quality simple to use, no nonsense photo printer and at a good price. However there are a few things to bear in mind! If you have a camera with an XD memory card you may will need to buy an adapter for it to work and make full use of the options!.......this can be expensive for a XD to Compact Flash adapter, the XD to Smart Media adapter on Amazon is a lot cheaper and hopefully will fit and work in the SD card slot.
Other wise you fill have to use your cameras USB cable to connect it up and print using the lcd screen on the camera, but losing the printer options. Although a bit more expensive the CP750 allows you to crop and adjust the colour settings which this model doesn't.
Overall a good easy to use printer with great results, but think twice of you have an XD or Micro memory card that will need an adapter, and if this model had the trim and crop option it would have made it a 5 star rating and just might be worth the extra for the CP750 for some.

Epson Perfection V350

So far, I have been very pleasantly surprised at how good this scanner is for the price. Having read the reviews I was a little nervous about the software, but I installed it on an old computer where I had removed all printer files so I dont know if that helped or not.

I have been using the auto program which is good enough for me. I did try the professional one and set the dpi at 4,800 and I ended up with a 20mb picture which quite frankly didnt look much different on the pc from the same 174k picture I achieved with the auto program.

The one slight disadvantage is the vertical pictures on the slides and I found by putting them in the holder in the correct position, I ended up with wide black bands on either side which could be cropped of course, but it also took the top of the picture off, so the only way round this is to just lay all the slides in the same position and then flip them around after the image has been produced. When played on a dvd player through the tv the vertical ones of course come up quite a bit smaller as opposed to the horizontal ones which fill the whole screen. But this is preferable to having one's head twisted around to look at them as horizontal!!!

It probably isnt fair, that I have knocked off one star because this scanner is only able to do two slides at a time and so can be quite time consuming and naturally the higher the resolution, the longer it takes. I also noticed that I could only scan one slide at a time with the professional software but with the auto, two. As the slides I have are from the sixties, I did notice some dust and a few fibres so a soft brush would probably be a good accessory to use before scanning. It took me best part of the morning to scan about 50 slides but I think as I get used to it, this will improve.

I havent tried scanning anything other than slides at the moment as that was the purpose of buying it. I did however, accidentally scan as a photo in the professional program because I hadnt altered the option to positive and I got a very clear picture of the slide holder and the two transparencies! It apparently does not scan single negatives but will scan 35mm strips of film but I havent tried that as yet.

All in all, fingers crossed that it doesnt pack up on me, I am very pleased with this product. Provided it lasts during the 12 months guarantee, I will have saved alot of money scanning hundreds of slides rather than paying a company to do it.

...11 days later and I am still plugging on in between other jobs. Have completed, years 1965, 66, 67 and 68, only another 40 years worth to go, LOL. It is certainly a very slow process but if it saves hundreds of pounds in a super model or paying a company to do it, then it is worth it I think.

A couple of points, firstly, I have noticed I get an error come up and asks if I want to go into troubleshooting. I think this was because it didnt like me opening photoshop pro after a scan where a couple of slides needed cropping, so as this has happened a couple of times, I will leave any editing until I have finished.

Also someone mentioned earlier about it being flimsy. The actual scanner is quite sturdy but I think he was referring to the little plastic template where you place the two slides. The small notch or hole, is not really deep enough to hold the peg on the underside of the frame securely and so if you are not careful it can move about, would be a little harder perhaps with a man's hand. However, I have got around this, by sticking some masking tape along the edge of it onto the main scanner edge and it is fixed nicely now and doesnt move about.

I have also noticed that it doesnt like anything in it as soon as it switched on, so twice I have got scans of the frame, glass and slides, and have to wait until it has finished, discard them and then hit the scan program icon again and it's fine.

oh dear....

First one, internal wireless adaptor was faulty, promptly returned. Second one to show up, same fault. Avoid like the plague.

A lot of printer for the money

I've been buying Epson Stylus printers for the past 6-7 years, and both my previous purchases started to pack up once they reached the 3 year mark, generally becoming more and more quirky (refusing to feed paper, funny splodges on the page, etc), so this time I thought I would try an HP.

The main reason I bought this specific printer was because it had good reviews as a general purpose printer, but it also seems to do a pretty good job with photos. I also didn't realise until I bought it that it had a built in Ethernet port (plug it into your router and you've got wireless printing!), Picture Bridge (I can plug my Canon Ixus into the USB port on the front and print directly from my camera). It has a separate feed slot for envelopes and photo paper, as well as a fixed paper tray. You can also plug in a Bluetooth adapter, to print from your camera phone (if you want to go in for all that nonsense - why bother : ))But the thing that has really impressed me is how quiet it is, relative to both my old Epson printers, and how quick. It's not far off Laser Printer speeds when printing emails, etc.

And what's more, this is the first time I've ever bought a printer for under £100. I've yet to see how it will fare after 2-3 years, but I'm pretty impressed so far. Bargain!