I went down the printing rabbit hole, help...

[unwantedfocus]

Hello people,

I went down the "best printers in 2021" and "best printers for photography" rabbit hole again. A year ago I was already playing with the thought of getting a printer but was discouraged by a gentleman called Jose Rodriguez he mentioned a lot of things that make sense to me. My output wasn't that high either.

For example not letting your printer sit for too long because of printhead clogging, ink cartridge prices and 3rd party refilling, ink waste pad tanks, clean cycles, flush cycles when you insert new cartridges and so on. I could gather some good information overall from his videos and what to expect and commitment owing a printer. I would be willing to spend some money for the initial purchase and possible 3rd party refill ink, in the long run I would hope to not drop insane money on ink. I know this is impossible but please read below maybe my post makes more sense. I think I'm on the right track, feel free to chime in.

Black Friday coming up and I want to buy a printer. My output became more in terms of images and I feel like it's time now to buy one. After consideration and research I narrowed down some models, Canon pro 10, Canon pro 100, Epson Ecotank 2720, Epson Expression Photo HD XP-15000.

Primarly I would print 4x6 maybe sometimes a bit bigger but nothing spectacular. I also want to Print postcards I can send to people. I signed up on Postcrossing maybe someone knows the website (you exchange postcards all over the world like the members function we have here).

What I would like to print? mostly 4x6 sometimes a little bigger, color, black and white.

Canon pro 10
pros
When looking at the Canon pro 10 this seems to be a fantastic printer specially for black and white since it has that extra chroma optimizer I think it is truly an amazing machine overall. It is pigment based, and prints hold up a long time from what I've read. Easy refill due cartridge design.
cons
When it comes to maintaince, this seems difficult. The ink waste pad tank is not accessible from the outside and it would be hard to remove when its full so basically the printer is dead. Sending it in to canon to replace/repair/override the error code seems too expensive. Scrap it for parts and buy a new one. The ink is incredibly expensive and even the refill inks are expensive.

Canon pro 100
pros
This printer seem to be very popular and comes right after the pro 10 very good image quality.
cons
This printer suffers the same problems as the pro 10, no replaceable ink waste pad. Cartridges are worse than on the pro 10 in terms of refill due to the cartridge design, it requires drilling. 3rd party Inks are very expensive too.

Epson Ecotank 2720
pros
It seems to be a workhorse with a ink waste pad tank that can be accessed on the back and replaced and it is also possible override the error code with a key you can buy online. The inks are very cheap. My printer will not be dead if the ink waste pad tank is full. Overall amazing value of the money?
cons
This printer is only able to output CMYK. While I don't have a big problem with it since I'm able to use the ICC profile and edit it to my preference. The images won't be that great.

Epson Expression Photo HD XP-15000
pros
Accessible Ink waste pad tank in the back, it can be replaced costs about 10 bucks directly sold from epson. The ink cartridges are available in "normal" and "XL" the normal cartridges are small but only cost 10 bucks. Produces great quality prints in color and black and white. Cheap 3rd party inks available easy to refill.
cons
can't think of any.

Conclusion
So overall the Pro 10 and the Pro 100 seems to be too expensive for what im doing and the overall maintenance seems to be too high, those are very expensive printers to run. If the waste pad ink tank is full they are junk.

I would choose between the xp-15000 and the Ecotank 2720. They have both exelllent options for ink and don't cost that much to run. Both have removable ink waste pad tanks. Any experience with the xp-15000 or Ecotank 2720?

Any suggestions or corrections are welcome this is just the information that I gathered online so far. Maybe you have a different model that you can suggest that fits the criteria, removable ink waste pad tank, Cheap inks.

Thanks.

 

[4season]

My experience to date with printers:

HP, Epson (including EcoTank) work great for ~1 year but regardless of whether you use them lightly or on a daily basis, head clogs seem to kill them.

Canon Selphy (4-color dye sublimation) the ultimate no-fuss printer, but you are limited to Canon media. No heads to clog, prints have good fade resistance, but have limitations typical of all 4-color printers, see below.

4-color printers in general: Good for office graphics, and bright, vivid color photos. Not so good for b&w photos (pretty much impossible to achieve totally neutral b&w), or low-key photos containing important shadow detail - such photos tend to come out dark and muddy-looking. If Canon ever decided to produce quadtone b&w carts for Selphy, that would be awesome, but I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for that to happen.

Black and white printing: If this is important to you, and you don't like purplish/greenish tinged-prints, then you want a printer which supports one or more gray inks.

Canon Pixma Pro-10: I don't know about Germany, but good luck finding one in the USA as it's been discontinued for some time. Large and heavy, doesn't handle some larger paper sizes or continuous rolls of paper. Otherwise, I remain in awe after ~2 years or so: 0 troubles to date! Maybe once a month I power it on and let it cycle inks as needed, and I take care to ensure that ink cartridges do not dry out. Pro-10 pigmented inks are designed to resist fading, whereas Pro-100 uses dye-based inks.

 

[unwantedfocus]

Thanks for the input, I would need to buy the pro10 or pro 100 used. Which yeah is not great but I really can't decide because they have all they up and downsides. I really thought the EcoTank ones would hold up longer.

 

[cramej]

If you're only printing 4x6 and a bit larger, look at dye sub printers like DNP, Mitsubishi and HiTi. Always ready, no print heads to clog over time, high quality durable prints.

 

[DMJ]

Did you take a look at the Canon Pixma IP8720? I bought it to replace an Epson that I could never used...too many problems. It's a 6 tank system (2 blacks, 1 grey) and if you use their ChromaLife100+ inks (they claim) prints can last 300 years. It makes good B&W prints,I never had a problem with clogging and sometimes I don't print for weeks. I use it now with non Canon inks. There are ICC profiles from Moab, Red River, Ilford Galerie. No profiles from Canson or Hahnemühle.

 

[unwantedfocus]

I bought the canon pro 100s, no test print yet, I have to buy new cartridges. The reason I went with the Canon Pro 100s over the pro-10 is that dye ink even 3rd party ones are much cheaper than pigmented ink.

 

[Dusty Negative]

Canon pro 10
pros
When looking at the Canon pro 10 this seems to be a fantastic printer specially for black and white since it has that extra chroma optimizer I think it is truly an amazing machine overall. It is pigment based, and prints hold up a long time from what I've read. Easy refill due cartridge design.
cons
When it comes to maintaince, this seems difficult. The ink waste pad tank is not accessible from the outside and it would be hard to remove when its full so basically the printer is dead.


Thanks.

I bought a Canon Pro 10 in 2015. It was used when I bought it.

It has sat idle for months at a time.

It has never failed me.