[Mendler]

I'm journeying into college next year, majoring in Computer Art with a focus on Computer Animation. I have no doubt that at some point I'll want a really high quality printer, and I think it'd be in my best interest to spend the money on the printer NOW, when I have money to spend. The effective part about this forum is that you all are digital artists, and no doubt some or most of you have printed out your work, and have experience with which printer to buy. I'm looking to spend up to even $500, but would like to remain around 350-400. What company or kind of printer do you all suggest?

[Sukhoi]

I'd say the Epson Stylus 1280 series.
Or somewhere along those lines.
We have one at school, and it is superb, and quite affordable to "run".

Sukhoi

[Gort]

Booyah - the 1280 rocks, because it will print on larger paper and to the edges. You can get one around $450, but if you really don't want to spend that much and don't mind printing on smaller papers, then get something like an 860; they retail for about $200, and the output is unbelievable - for that kind of money. The 890 does borderless printing and retails around $300.

Hope that helps!

-tc

[Mendler]

that it does .. i wasn't sure whether to go with hp, or epson. epson seems to put emphasis on overall digital prints, whereas HP goes the digital camera route.

[Danny]

Mendler, forget about HP. We have the HP1220C here at work and it's giving us nothing but grief. When it does print correctly it outputs nice prints, nothing amazing though. The only good thing about it is that it's very quiet compared to other printers.
The Epsons on the other hand are the way to go if you ask me. I've got a 1270 myself and am very pleased with it. There's a lot of 3rd party support for it in terms of nice art papers and longevity inks.

[edraket]

Well there is also other things that can be important to think about.
I really don't like the top loading of paper that a lot of epsons have.
Whereas the HP's usually have a nice paper tray that keeps your paper fairly safe from desk clutter and the likes.

You also need to consider if you will be using it to print texts and stuff.
I print a lot of junk from the internet for instance so I can read it later in the train or wherever. My HP970cxi has double sided printing and an option in the driver where you can make it print 2 or 4 pages tiled on one paper. Thats just really nice. I can print up to 8 pages of text onto a paper without any hassle. And it prints graphics in good quality. Although for that getting the HP paper really seems to be the best.
Anyways...I guess my point is that you should look at secondary properties (picture quality being #1 of course) because those can make a real big difference once it's there on your desk.

[glody]

someone mentioned to me that the printer heads on the epson get f*cked up after a while.... but with HP's each new ink cartridge you get a new printer head..cuz its built right into the printer cartridges....can anyone back me up on this or...perhaps swat me down? hehe