How many pages per week? 10? 50? More text than photo, or more photo than text? My Officejet 4500s are a couple years old now but give me no cause to complain as long as I use HP cartridges. Don't print photo very often but any photo printing seems to use a lot of ink. YMMV.

Ginny, both my Epson Perfection photo scanner 3170 and HP Deskjet 5700 printer have drivers for Windows 7, so I intend to continue using those for at least another year. Once I have finished a photo project involving slides and negatives, I will move to a good wireless all in one and retire the present scanner and printer. By that time I may be ready to upgrade the new computer to either Windows 8.1 or even Windows 9 if that is then available and users seem to like it. My new computer is on order and should ship tomorrow.

I print at least 50-100 pages per week, sometimes more, almost all b/w text. With a better printer, I'd print color photos but my primary printing will always be text..

And Grandms, I ordered my HP computer on Jan. 28, promised Feb. 7 at the latest, still not here. Just fyi.

Ginny,

(to reg readers, forgive me, I've said this before)

Printing 50 - 100 pages a week with an inkjet printer can be expensive compared to using a black/white laser printer.

My recommendation is to get yourself a Canon All in One Black/White laser model (easily found for +/- $100) and do your color and photo printing at the likes of CVS/Costco/FedEx (formerly Kinkos), etc. The turnaround time for places like this with a job uploaded to their website is often just one hour. Walk in, less time but sometimes less convenient.

For both color and black and white, this approach would give you much improved quality at a lower cost. Can't lose.

I have to agree with snidely here. If your primary print jobs are B & W, and you print that much, it seems a laser printer is just what you need. Even if you have your photos printed by an online company such as Snapfish, the printing is good quality and is very reasonable in cost. Do any editing you want to do to the photos and then upload them to the site and have them printed. Fast, and very convenient since you don't have to even leave your house.

Thanks for the info. I did have a great laser printer but I do need some color, aside from photos. I'm sure you're right about using Snapfish etc but I do need some color occasionally in my text docs and a color laser is too expensive.

I love Canon Printers. I print photos with them and they look as good as what I'd order online. I have so many different models but they all are workhorses. I do most B&W but so print photos also.

I do not like HP and would never recommend them...junk!

Jane

I do a lot of photography (professionally) and would also recommend using a third party for printing photos. I use mpix and have had nothing but good results after hundreds of prints.

It would cost thousands to get a printer that could do the same quality not to mention ink, paper, etc.

I need a printer for text and some photos, as noted in my first post. I spent many hours reading reviews and there was no stand-out. Several days ago, my SIL sent a photo she printed at home of an online image of an oil painting. It was so outstanding, I could hardly believe my eyes.

Hers is a Canon Pixma mg5320. I ordered an updated version, Canon Pixma mg6320 which has a gray cartridge for better b/w photos. This printer is mainly for text but I was really wowed by her photo, esp as she is not a tech person.

I think you'll be happy, Ginny. I've used Canons for quite a while both at work and home. They are the best printers and work flawlessly for years. I still have an old Pixma 500 which is still like the day I bought it.

I made the mistake and bought my son a HP and it was junk. I gave him my old Pixma and it hasn't skipped a beat.

Jane

Jane - I don't know what kind of HP product your son had trouble with, but I agree with your description of them generally.

One exception - for a lot of years, and maybe to this day, HP laser printers measured up to be every bit as good as Canon printers. For good reason - HP bought the guts from Canon, so in a manner of speaking, they were Canon printers.

ginny,
Just want to add my two cents. I used to have a combination color/black and white printer and the ink costs were eating me up. I decided to get an HP monochrome printer (LaserJet P1006) for all my text needs and an Epson Artison 50 for photos. I don't print as many photos as you do, but I love the results that I get from my Epson. BTW, it sounds like a thrashing machine but prints beautifully. :)

I recently bought Lexmark Platinum Pro 905 and I'm very satisfied with it.

I am using an HP Photosmart 7520. Works great for both text and photos. It uses 5 ink cartridges. The 5 th cartidge is photo-black (dark gray) and comes into play when printing color images. Other 4 color HP printers will print color images too, but can not match the quality of the 5 color printer.

HP's vivera inks are fade resistent (when protected from sunlight and strong UV sources) and are archival quality.