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| What's a good printer for minimal usage ? |
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| tooki:
--- Quote from: magic on February 08, 2023, 08:08:42 am --- --- Quote from: james_s on February 08, 2023, 01:54:33 am ---Even that ancient 300dpi SCSI flatbed still provided adequate performance for what I use a scanner for, and unlike a lot of modern flatbeds it could scan 3D objects with a surprising amount of depth. --- End quote --- In optics, depth is inversely correlated with resolution. You are not guaranteed depth in a low resolution scanner, but you are guaranteed little depth in something that can resolve single digit microns. --- End quote --- It has nothing to do with depth-vs-resolution as such. It is simply because of the scanner type used: nearly all consumer scanners (and all document scanners) use “CIS” sensors (“contact image sensor”), which have practically no depth of field. They use an array (molded plastic, I assume) of tiny lenses in nearly direct contact with the platen or paper. They’re cheaper, they’re more compact, and they need less power, so they’re widespread now. The other option, which is what all scanners were before CIS took over, is CCD, where mirrors and a large lens focuses the line onto the CCD image sensor. These have much larger depth of field, and in some cases can also switch in a different lens to allow film scanning. Either one of these technologies is capable of plenty of resolution (e.g. 1200dpi). |
| wraper:
--- Quote from: tooki on February 08, 2023, 10:56:52 am --- --- Quote from: wraper on February 08, 2023, 07:34:44 am ---However they effing turn consumable into service with tiers of how many pages you are allowed print per month, not even charge you for actual pages printed. :rant: --- End quote --- So… the same as your cellphone minutes or megabytes. Just like some cellphone plans, the instant ink subscription lets you roll over a few months worth of unused pages, so to an extent, it lets you subscribe to your average page count, but go under or over in a given month without paying more. I haven’t done the math to see if such a subscription would be right for me (since I don’t have a printer where that’s available), but I don’t think they’re a bad deal for everyone. (Especially with inkjets, the subscriptions have advantage that high-coverage pages like large photos don’t cost extra, nor does head cleaning.) --- End quote --- The difference with cellphone is that it's a service by its nature, something virtual. The problem with instant ink and overall trend is that they try to get rid of your ownership rights of physical items and basically put a tax on you, which does not seem to be that high on a first glance unless you actually calculate cost of ownership. Everything must be an effing subscription which is paid automatically, so you don't actually notice every time you lose money. |
| tooki:
--- Quote from: wraper on February 08, 2023, 11:38:56 am --- --- Quote from: tooki on February 08, 2023, 10:56:52 am --- --- Quote from: wraper on February 08, 2023, 07:34:44 am ---However they effing turn consumable into service with tiers of how many pages you are allowed print per month, not even charge you for actual pages printed. :rant: --- End quote --- So… the same as your cellphone minutes or megabytes. Just like some cellphone plans, the instant ink subscription lets you roll over a few months worth of unused pages, so to an extent, it lets you subscribe to your average page count, but go under or over in a given month without paying more. I haven’t done the math to see if such a subscription would be right for me (since I don’t have a printer where that’s available), but I don’t think they’re a bad deal for everyone. (Especially with inkjets, the subscriptions have advantage that high-coverage pages like large photos don’t cost extra, nor does head cleaning.) --- End quote --- The difference with cellphone is that it's a service by its nature, something virtual. The problem with instant ink and overall trend is that they try to get rid of your ownership rights of physical items and basically put a tax on you, which does not seem to be that high on a first glance unless you actually calculate cost of ownership. Everything must be an effing subscription which is paid automatically, so you don't actually notice every time you lose money. --- End quote --- None of those HP printers require you to use an ink subscription. You are perfectly free to choose to buy cartridges instead. I don't think the ink subscriptions are inherently bad, given that the page costs are not crazy high in actuality. As I already said twice, for some people's usage patterns, it'll make no sense at all, but for some people it's actually a better deal. It's disingenuous to a) call it a mandatory tax when it's actually nothing of the sort, and b) ignore the fact that it's actually not a bad deal for some users. |
| ejeffrey:
--- Quote from: james_s on February 08, 2023, 01:54:33 am ---I strongly dislike the multifunction devices that have been all the rage for the last 10 years or so. Bolt the cheapest scanner to the cheapest printer and then when one of them breaks you have to replace BOTH devices, winning! Some of them won't even scan if there are not working cartridges in the printer. I have a standalone flatbed scanner that I get out when I need it. It's pretty ancient but works fine and was a replacement for an even more ancient scanner I retired due to lack of driver support in my OS, which itself was a replacement for an even more ancient scanner replaced for the same reason. I bought that one new way back when I got my first fast food job around the time scanners plummeted in price to around 10% of what they had always been. Even that ancient 300dpi SCSI flatbed still provided adequate performance for what I use a scanner for, and unlike a lot of modern flatbeds it could scan 3D objects with a surprising amount of depth. --- End quote --- I'm a huge fan of multi-function printers, mostly for 2 reasons. First is that they automatically are a low volume photocopier, which is pretty convenient. Second is that the scanner is network attached and can usually be used independent of a computer. You can scan to a flash drive, email, scan to cloud service, or to a local file server. That basically means completely avoiding the need for any driver or software configuration at least for basic use, and is easy access for multiple household members. I think there are more network attached scanners now, but they used to be uncommon at least at the affordable end. Also, I'd rather not have two permanently installed network devices taking up space, or need to get the scanner out of storage and set it up for the occasional use. I have a Brother MFC-9340 with both a flatbed and duplex sheet feed scanner. For my needs, I wouldn't really consider going back to a dedicated printer. I do have a flatbed photo/negative scanner, but for most of my use it's totally unnecessary, and I haven't gotten it out in years. |
| beanflying:
--- Quote from: beanflying on February 08, 2023, 06:58:23 am ---...... I found 60mm extra height was available and this one claims to be an actual Laser over an LED with apparently better Colour rendition (not essential) for about $70 AUD extra so I spent a decent bottle of Scotch more and got a Brother HL-L8260CDW over it's cheaper sibling. --- End quote --- $0.02 review and install. Arrived undamaged in a very large, damaged and open box because one strip of tape was used to keep it closed for the 1000+km trip :palm: Bonus points for really heavy Carboard carriers and minimal plastic/foam packaging. Painless install, plugged the printer into the power and hub, downloaded the W10 32bit stuff from Brother (came with a CD but I don't speak CD anymore), auto detect updated on the junk Atom WiFi pc in the bedroom and it spat out printed stuff over the network and I dropped a few things off random tablets and phones with no extra apps needed :-+ On my main PC I didn't bother to install the software and drivers and just left Windoze do it's thing, auto detected it and installed what it needed to make it work. Apart from being HUGE compared to my last Inkjet an easy install and use. Colours seem not to bad but I will have a better look later. Back to playing inside the Plasma Cutter >:D |
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