Recommended Printers for OS X 10.3.8 and above?

http://gimp-print.sourceforge.net/pSupportedPrinters.php3
This might help....GOOD LUCK....Don

Hi, Nathan!

Welcome to the Discussions!

Forget about getting advice at a mass market Superstore... I'd start by looking at the MacWorld reviews:

http://www.macworld.com/topics/hardware/printers/

Inkjet Photo printers will cost you an arm and a leg in ink, if you routinely print 50 page black and white pdfs. However, they're great for color copies, particularly photos. I use my old Apple LaserWriter Select 360 for black & white text printing, an Epson Stylus Photo 2200 for professional photo work, and an Epson Sylus Photo R300 for printing CD/DVDs and miscellaneous color stuff. (There are newer, more advanced printers on the market today.) I doubt if there's a single printer that will do everything for the price range that you're shooting for... you'll have to find the middle ground somewhere, making compromises, and perhaps eventually ending up with two printers down the line (photo inkjet and laser printer), to meet your requirements without costing a fortune in ink.

I'd personally look at Epson and Canon for quality inkjets first, then consider a laser printer as a next step as the budget allows.

Hope this helps some.

Gary

Nathan,

I ot a Konica Minolta laser printer a while ago. It is excellent for color prints.

Huh. So both the black and the color inks use Laserwriter technology? Not inkjet for the color? Those old color Apple Laserwriters were ridiculous for color. Maybe the Konica Minolta somehow combines both a Laserwriter black printer and an Inkjet color printer? I just checked it out on apple.com but couldn't figure it out. Do you know?

Nathan:

There are a bunch of old Apple Laserwriter Select 360's like mine still in use. They need an ethernet to localtalk bridging adapter if they don't have built-in ethernet, but they run just fine under Tiger, Panther, etc.

I have heard good reviews concerning the Konica Minolta Magicolor laser printers... There's a new one out that has supports level3 Postscript. They're supposedly not the quietest printers, but the color quality is reputedly very good. The HP Laserjet 2550Ln is reputedly another excellent one.

Color laser printers use separate color toner cartridges for color printing.

Gary

I use the new HP2600n Color LaserJet on my Apple Airport Network with all my computers (3 Macs and 1 PC) all the Macs are running Tiger and all print great!

As soon as the printer was plugged into my network, it showed up automatically in the Print Utility. No issues. And, great prints!

Hope this helps.

btw: The printer did run about $389.00 at OfficeMax--but is 100% OSX Compatible.

Gary,

It does clunk and bang when it grabs the paper but the reliability and quality of printing overcomes the noise.

I wanted to get a printer that had Ethernet capability. The inkjets that did have Ethernet were outrageous in price compaired to the lasers. The Magicolor had gotten good reviews and were on sale for $50 off. I'm very happy with it.

Hi Nathan,
I'm using the HP LaserJet 2550L for all my printing needs. Very good print quality indeed!

The 2600 does not support Postcrip on the fly. (need a translator)

The 2550 can be upgrade to ethernet.

Look at www.hp.com

Ciao

Nathan,

Any old Apple laswerwriter can be made to work under X. The 16/600PS is an excellent choice once the exit rollers are replaced ($16 for the kit). They are postscript and fairly quick. They are ethernet capable and the print engines are good for 1/4 million prints or more. You can find them for about $50 on ebay but watch the shipping. They are heavy. This printer can also be networked to pc's (mine also prints for my wife's xp box on our network).

As for color, be careful of the laser printers. They are cheap enough but the toner can add up quickly and I don't think you get the image quality of a decent inkjet until you spend over $500. (just my opinion). My Phaser 8400 has outstanding print quality is fast and postscript. Downside is that it costs about $15 in ink to push the start button and leaving it on does about half that per day in cleaning the heads. This is the Xerox version of the Tectronix printer (they bought them) and uses the solid wax toner. My wife's office has a Samsung color printer and the color is not as crisp as the Phaser. The shop where I bought the Phaser also sold HP's. I was looking at the $1000 range and the HP's did not produce as good a copy but they also don't burn toner to stay on. For office(pie charts and flyers with color letters) this is fine, for graphics you need good color management, good print density, etc.

Before you worry about Fiery, try X in 10.2 or later (preferably 10.3). Using the GIMP/CUPs print drivers goes through Ghostscript which is a native RIP. Using an old (6 year old) Epson with no RIP I get crisp postscript output. No jaggies! The printer management(Gamma, ink management, etc) must be done through the CUPs adminstrator (web based) instead of the printer interface for resetting the printer but all the paper/print density/etc. is still available at the print dialog box under "features".

Does the old Epson compare to the Phaser? It is vastly slower(minutes instead of seconds) but if I use good glossy inkjet paper the print quality is surprisingly close. And this is from Illustrator vector files with Adobe fonts. S

The problem with newer printers is that the cups drivers may not be available. Most of the printers listed are pretty old. Newer drivers may be available for linuxprint so check the printer that you want to use (in the advanced list of printers using Panther or Tiger) to see if the drivers are there. So, older may be better. Cheaper ink as well.

Scanners are another issue. I just boxed up my old Umax 1200S. I don't miss it. I use an Epson 3170 that I got from Epson's refurb store for $125 with 1 year warranty. It is usb 2, fast, better color than the Umax, and does not crash the computer. It also comes packaged with OCR, Photoshop Elements, a business card program, and can do lots of stuff the Umax couldn't.

I would avoid the all-in-one units. They are for home office not grahpics. The drivers also don't play nice with X.