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Date:      Wed, 17 Sep 1997 02:00:13 -0700 (PDT)
From:      "Bryan K. Ogawa" <bkogawa@primenet.com>
To:        kelly@fsl.noaa.gov
Cc:        freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: Printer recommendation
Message-ID:  <199709170900.CAA04105@foo.primenet.com>
References:   <341EF83C.CC026F34@fsl.noaa.gov>

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In localhost.freebsd.chat you write:

>Hi everyone.

>My trusty old Panasonic PostScript KX-P4455 laser printer is on its last
>leg, and I frankly don't want to maintain the beast anymore.  A lot of
>my Windows- and Mac-using friends seem pretty happy with these color
>inkjets that seem to have saturated the market, and I have to admit they
>look pretty darn good!

>Would anyone care to recommend a unit?

I have an HP Deskjet 600 which I am ambivalent about.  It does what I
need, and prints well, but seems to have a penchant for eating
ink cartridges.

If I were to purchase a printer today, I would seriously consider two
printer classes:

1.  A really cheap laser/LED (e.g. Okidata or Panasonic).  The ones
that are in the inkjet range.  This may be a case where the price has
dropped too low for quality to be maintained (a $200 LED printer???).

2.  The Epson printers.  They seem to have reasonable support (from
what I've read, not personal experience), and very good to _excellent_
color (although I don't know how much of this is driver magic).  The
killer color one is about $500 (Stylus Color Pro ?); the good one is
about $300.  

Alll prices are US dollars, and Fry's prices, which means you should
be able to shave $10-$50 off of them if you look.

>I'd like color, but the majority of my printing is black/white.  The
>color had better be decent, though.  It doesn't need to be overly
>speedy.  600dpi resolution or better.  It doesn't need PostScript,
>because thanks to the latest fonts, Ghostscript's output finally rivals
>that of honest-to-goodness PostScript Level 2.  But that does mean it
>needs to grok one of Ghostscript's output formats.  I'd prefer a serial
>interface (got plenty of ports on several machines), but those are
>pretty rare on printers these days.  Ethernet would be fine, if it's not
>too expensive.  And, naturally, this'll go on a FreeBSD system.

Your request for serial/ethernet really knocks the choices above out
of the running, although I think that one of the cheap lasers has
serial.

>Thanks.
>--Sean
-- 
bryan k ogawa  <bkogawa@primenet.com>   http://www.primenet.com/~bkogawa/



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