Which printer should I buy ? Canon i320 or Epson C41UX ?

That Canon is more expensive but the ink is cheaper.

I have not used either Canon or Epson before so I have no idea how good and realiable is their printer.

Currently, I am using a Lexmark 1000 and it's damn slow and the ink is very expensive. Fell like dumping the printer.

I just want some of your comments if you have used a Canon or Epson before or any of these printers.

Do not buy canon. I bought a 300$ canon bjc5000 about two years ago and it was quite defective. It always said the ink was empty right when it was replaced. It takes about two minutes to turn on. It is VERY loud, and the cartrage heads keep wearing out and smearing. Yesterday I just bought an low end hp 960c and it works wonders for what i need it for. It's fast and quiet. I couldnt tell you how much ink it uses though. I also would like to know if epson printers are any good.

Be careful which Epson you choose. There are Epson's out now that use 'chipped' cartridges, i.e. when the ink runs out, the chip on the cartridge will disable, i.e. you cannot refill it or buy 'compatible' replacements. At least not that I'm aware of. Other than that, the print quality of Epson is reported to be very good.

My class mates told me that if I were to get a new printer, stay clear of Canon's as their cartridges easily clog and smear. I have tried a Lexmark 2400x800, but while the print quality looks good, it's a very slow printer. Go far a Epson if you don't mind paying heavy prices for cartridges or better still, go for a HP if I want to print photographs or what a fast printer. The HP's are rather expensive, but from what I've heard and experienced (640c for 3 years), they are probably the best around and the Ink cartridges rarely 'clog' or smear, even if left for months idle.

I havn't used nor do I know about the models ( Canon i320 or Epson C41UX ?) your asking about, but I did have a Epson 780 photo and it was junk..gobbled ink & was noisy as hell ! It did turn out good prints but wasn't worth the trouble so I returned it and got a Cannon S600

I now have a Cannon S800 (gave son my 600) and it is excellent as was the S600. The Cannons I havedon't clog,
don't smear, are not noisy and I never needed to replace the cartridge heads !

The Cannon's are great in my book !

Read as many reviews as possible then try too see the printers in action before you decide.

If Canon clogs, it's probably due to user error. In the past decade, I've bought two Canon BubbleJet printers, ex-210 and S530. They have been affordable, fast, and trouble free. I can't say that for the HP and Epson inkjets though. I do own a HP LaserJet 4000N. Very expensive, but damn, can this baby move paper.

My vote goes to Canon i320.

Hi, i own an epson stylus color 600 for nearly 3 and a half years till now. It never gave me a single problem. Not one small problem.
So my advice would be epson of course, but not that model. I would go for the c82 which has the lowest prices for printed page at least for home/small office use among other epson printers.

Epson are behind quality wise unless you go with the very expensive papers and the ink cartridges are, as you say dearer and/or more trouble. Things like the printer refusing to continue printing when it decides one colour has run out.

I've never had a low end printer since I've always paid at least £300 for my printers but in general I prefer Canon. The only trouble is their ink often tends to bleed into the paper a bit when using plain paper (unless you tunr down the intensity.)

Don't worry too much about all the marketing crap like resolutions or the quoted ppm rates as most of this can be taken with a pinch of salt to say the least.

I guess it depends on how much you want to pay, what you print and how often.

The reviews I've seen lately have put Canon at the forefront overall. I have a couple of HP printers but I don't know if I'd buy another - stupid laserjet can't even feed pages perfectly straight and HP knew about this with the laserjet 1100 but didn't fix it with the 1200.

Since everybody prefers Canon, I'll think I'll go for the i320.

Maybe you can go to a shop where they sell both printers. Bring a picture that is suitable, or even created, for printer testing.

I prefer the C'T lady. You can get the picture from here. (the page is in Dutch, but I guess you can figure out how to download a picture)....

Fixed the link, a L too much

Only printer worth having is one of these, BubbleJet my @$$!
http://www.usa.canon.com/cpr/image/CLC/c2058.jpg

I love printing A3's full of red!

Output tray on the side... talk about old school. Got a Canon ImageRunner 2200 in the lab, it's really really fast for doing massive jobs such as annual grant reports, but quite slow when you only do one page... But seriously, if I bring one home, are you gonna pay for my electric bill and maintenance contract?

Laser printers love to munch away at electricity I connected up a standard bubble-jet printer to a KWh electricity meter, just like the one every house has and the wheel on it barely moved while printing, but when I had a lend of a laser printer, I connected it to the meter and it was interesting to watch the wheel fly 1-2-3-4-5... while warming up every now & again and especially while printing This was just a small A4 laser printer, so I'd love to see what an A3 laser printer would guzzle

Does higher DPI means better printing quality ?
Why does Epson's vertical printhead is limited to 720 dpi ?

In theory, yes, it does.

But... here comes the marketing trick once again: higher sounds better. DPI doesn't say everything; there are prints printed on 300DPI that look way better than others, printed at 4800DPI.

Specs are nice, but never forget, that the best way to test a printer, is to watch the printed result with your own eyes.

Has anyone heard of HP Deskjet 3420 ? Is it good ?