Studio printer recommendations?

Hey c77 crew. I’m looking for a new printer for my studio. I want to be able to do better quality prints at the desk top vs always sending things out. Any recommendations?

Not sure what your budget is, but the Epson Artison 1430 has great print quality for the <$500 price point: http://a.co/7heYASO

My wife is a graphic designer and is very particular about print quality. From our research, this printer seemed to be the best one in our price range for her home office. We printed a whole bunch of signage and programs for our wedding last year, so the printer probably paid for itself. It prints up to 13" wide at a high enough quality for client presentations, etc. She’s been happy with it.

Looks like it’s the entry-level option in the “For Work” category in Epson’s lineup. I’m sure you couldn’t go wrong with any of these:

Thanks for the recommendation! That is about what I was hoping to spend.

That is a good recommendation - does your wife still prefer the inkjet over a laser printer?
I have a Samsung Xpress system, while the software is not intuitive at all and I have had several jams, the quality is much superior to any inkjet I have seen. I am about to do a 100+ prints for a graphic design job on it.

so I haven’t pulled the trigger on this yet… mainly because I’m torn between laser and photo quality inkjet. The benefit of the laser is speed, text crispness, and cost per page, drawbacks being the total resolution is lower. The benefit of the photo quality inkjet are the overall quality, ability to print on thicker stock and wide format, benefits being they are slow and if not used frequently the cartridges can dry out and the print heads clog…

I’ve narrowed it down to these so far. Any thoughts welcome:

Ink jet: not really clear on what the differences are between these two:

laser:

OK, after lots of reading I think I’m going to go with laser. Down to these three:

https://www.amazon.com/Brother-HLL8350CDW-Wireless-Printer-Replenishment/dp/B00JBVWDB8/ref=sr_1_4?s=office-products&ie=UTF8&qid=1488577702&sr=1-4&keywords=Brother+HL-L8350CDW

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00UPUHBEI?tag=ttr_laser_printer-20

I bought a Brother laser printer very similar to the two you posted at my last employer, and it worked a treat. We also had a cheapish inkjet in case we needed to print a high quality photo or something, but the bulk of the printing was done on the laser.

I have to say that laser is the way to go for speed and ink efficiency, but definitely look at aftermarket cartridges as authentic laser ones are super expensive (the 3rd party ones I found here in Aus were like 1/5 the cost and the prints were still the same quality).

The only downside I can think of is that it was quite loud.

The less expensive one uses dye inks, the more expensive one uses pigment inks.

Pigments inks make for better color.

Thanks Andy and iab. Appreciate it. I was going a little crazy reading so much about printers on Sunday :slight_smile: I ended up going with this guy: Amazon.com and I think for anything high res I’ll continue to use kinkos. Their online printing tools are decent and I’ve been doing a lot of posters through them. I don’t want the hassle of a plotter in the studio yet.

Nice choice. We’ve got a couple HPs in my office. Never have any issues and they print really quick.

Thanks for the advice everyone. Got it set up today. It is a little larger than I wanted but it prints fast and is very crisp.


Love the office. I think the HP fits in better than a Brother would have.

What is the longest continuous time you’ve spend sitting? We use a similar chair in our conference room and it starts to be uncomfortable for me after 60 minutes.

Those maps of places you’ve lived/worked, as I see Boston on the left?

-Peter

Ray, I don’t mind the chair but I definitely have to sit back in it to be comfortable. My days are so different, some days I’m in that chair for 8 hours working on concepts or a presentation, some days I’m at a client all day… Today I have a presentation to finish, 3 client calls and an in person client meeting so I’ll be in that chair for a couple of hours.

Peter, you guessed it. Each poster is from a different place I’ve lived and worked: Providence, Portland, Boston, Connecticut, San Francisco, San Diego.

I see a Zentraedi attack pod…

Yup, good eye :slight_smile:

What industrial designer doesn’t love Robotech (Macross)?

Shoji Kawamori is a straight-up design guru for having created the transformable mecha, and in the 1970’s too, without any kind of CAD. I bet there are sweet wooden models of the originals stored away in a vault somewhere. Legendary stuff. I’ve turned my 6 y/o onto Robotech (thanks Netflix), he loves it too.

When they put those back on Netflix I binge watched gen 1 and 3 (Mospeada)… I never got into get 2, just a bunch of tanks driving around! :slight_smile:

I just want to say that every time I print off a bunch of images for a meeting I’m so happy with the decision to spend more and go with the laser printer.