Wednesday, January 1, 2014

New Year - The Effort, The Hunt, No Remedy

Never made it to the restaurant. Not feeling well, beginning to crash  I made a valiant effort to visit, but there was no parking anywhere close by, so I returned home to rest and continue the printer search - to take my mind off the fatigue setting in.

The hunt boiled down to 2 'inkjet' options in my price range.  I am not a fan of inkjet printers.  In my experience they are high maintenance. Constant re-calibration is annoying. Consumables can be very expensive.  Colour is OK, but not a necessity.  Ink cartridges, when not used frequently can dry out quickly, too.  

There are a few other things that burn my biscuits, like: 
  • Gravity-fed paper feeder - the paper tends to jam, especially in humid weather. I prefer the printer do the work from a flat enclosed, dust-free paper tray. 
  • A single cartridge containing all three colors. If one colour runs out the whole cartridge must be tossed.  Very wasteful.
  • All cartridges must be present before the printer will function.  I print in black, but ink printers require all cartridge bays be occupied in order to print. Again, very expensive and wasteful.

On the up side, these printers (1 Epson and 1 Canon) are wireless which means the ability to print from virtually any source;  Mac, laptop, or even the iPhone, if necessary. They are Apple Air-Print and Google's Cloud Print ready……Of course, I'd have to learn what the hell these things are, and how to use them. 

Back in the previous life when I did a lot of archival colour and wide format printing, (For those unaware, archival inks are permanent and do not fade or run, unlike regular inks.) Epson was the only game in town. And well worth it, I might add. Of course, no bells and whistles were available back then, but Epson offered the best quality for the price - even when using archival inks. In those days paper was the big expense. 

Another big plus was that Epson offered individual cartridges for each color. If you ran out of magenta, you replaced only that cartridge.  That was a real game changer and money saver. Fine print quality and less expensive ink. A win-win, to be sure.

Unless someone is into printing colour photos I see no need for inkjet printing. But, being a Mac owner now, I have little choice in the matter.  

The small footprint of the Canon (which does most everything the Epson does) was enticing, except the cost of inks turned me off.  Canon inks are almost twice the cost of Epson, and I'd be stuck with the 3-colors-in-one cartridge. 

After sorting options, footprint, price, and cost of consumables the Epson WF-2540 was the best choice and a good deal - thanks to end of year sales.  It's about 33% smaller all round and half the weight of the laser printer.  Of course it's lighter, there is no print engine and toner cartridge to weigh it down. 

Printer ordered, to be delivered on Friday.  Why is nothing simple anymore?  Don't answer, just a rhetorical.

Getting short of breath and no appetite, but have to eat something before going to bed.  Scrambled egg sandwich will do just fine, thank you very much.

Isn't it amazing how quickly we become accustomed to the changes in our bodies and take steps to address and  remedy a situation?  Well, I think it is, anyway.

Not to worry. Blood pressure is fine. No fever detected at present. The hospital bracelet with my blood info is on my wrist JIC a trip to the ER is necessary.  I don't imagine it will be.  

I can't believe I'm sharing all this here.  Gotta go now.

And so it goes.

5 comments:

  1. you share your life with us because we are your friends.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I hope your new year is so much better
    "Burn my biscuits' < love it!
    Here's some support < http://theoatmeal.com/comics/printers

    ReplyDelete
  3. Well there you go. It all sounds relatively successful, for the important qualities of success.

    Your list of printer peeves mirrors mine.

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  4. Health wise it doesn't sound good, but luckely you know that too.

    Printer wise... for B/W I use a laserprinter, an old-school type [must be 14 y.o.] for color a HP which doesn't print photos [thank G*d] and has 4 color cartridges and a scanner. I only buy the XL cartridge version of them, at a slightly higher cost then the normal ones. A quick print that doesn't need to be official comes out the laserprinter.

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  5. I hope you got the "dirt cheap" printer. The Epson sounds like a good choice. I especially like the wireless function. I have two printers now, the wireless works the best. Good luck!

    ReplyDelete

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