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Skipperjay · Nov 11, 2007, 03:40 PM

I am an advanced amateur photographer and want to upgrade my color printer. I have just purchased a new iMac 2.4 with 2 GB.
I have been printing my pix using a Canon i860 with a separate CanoScan LiDE 50 scanner. I also have a separate Sharp fax machine.
I want to replace my older printer and scanner with an all-in-one unit, (I want to keep my FAX machine separate).
I am considering the Canon PIXMA MP 630. I have been assured by Canon support that the 630 driver is compatible with
the new OS 5.0 Leopard although there is some photo editing features that are not yet compatible but are "scheduled" to be
up-dated for OS 5.0 and made available as a download. This is not terribly important to me since I use iPhoto and Photoshop Elements 4 for photo editing.

I like Canon products but would be willing to consider other suggestions. Does anyone have any experiences or recommendations
with regard to my printer/scanner replacement?

Thank you in advance,

Skipperjay

shinji · Nov 15, 2007, 01:14 AM

I'm in the market for one too, skipper...prob going with HP or Brother.

Big Mac · Nov 15, 2007, 03:45 AM

I'm pretty happy with my new Canon MX310. It's the first Canon I've owned and seems to be really great so far. The only downside is that the unit's one touch buttons don't really work even though I have the software installed properly. The software side works fine in Tiger (haven't installed Leopard yet), just not the hardware buttons. This printer replaced a low-end Brother MFC that had served me well but eventually ended up with a frozen ink head. I recommend against Epson and HP.

shinji · Nov 15, 2007, 05:00 AM

HP printers have been good to me on Windows, but I've read some posts where people are unhappy with the quality of their OS X drivers. Is that what you were referring to?

Samsung's another one I'm considering.

skybolt · Nov 15, 2007, 10:57 AM

I don't think you can go wrong with Canon. Great picture quality, good printing.

ewiser · Nov 15, 2007, 12:40 PM

Epson has always been a good printer. I have a 3 in one Epson printer current model is CX8400
Epson All-in-Ones - Epson America, Inc.

Though I don't feel a 3 in one model is best for printing photo's I use a separate printer for high quality photo printing a r2400
Epson Ink Jet Printers - Epson America, Inc.

ghporter · Nov 15, 2007, 01:21 PM

There are two things that are different between Epson and Canon printers that make Canon the better choice. Epson still has its print jets as part of the carriage, while Canon's are user-replaceable items. This means that your printer won't be permanently borked if some ink happens to clog the print jet. Epson's inks are sticky and prone to becoming gummy, while Canon's are smoother and are generally reported as being more stable while stored. That means that Canon inks will work better than Epson's in the long term.

My next color printer WILL be a Canon.

angelmb · Nov 15, 2007, 02:06 PM

I also need to replace a HP deskjet & a Samsung fax plus I need a scanner… and a copier… and some sort of hardware able to print on CDs & DVDs, I thought there was no way I could find a single device able to achieve all those purposes… I am kind of scary about having found one since it looks too good to be true

No doubt my next all-in-one shall be a Canon Pixma MP 830, top reason? five single inks.

Skipperjay · Nov 15, 2007, 10:02 PM

In my original post I listed the wrong Canon model #. It should have read Canon Pixma MP610 not MP630.
I wrote to Canon to insure that their present software drivers were compatible with OS X 5.0 Leopard.
Here was their first response,
'Thank you for writing to us regarding 10.5 support for the MP610. We
value you as a Canon customer and appreciate the opportunity to assist
you.
There are no known issues with the current drivers when used with 10.5
I recommend downloading and installing the existing drivers from our
website and let us know if you have any further issues.
This answer was a little confusing to me since I could not find the download on their
website.
In response to a second inquiry Canon responded with the following: "Since 10.5 just came out, the specification including 10.5 is not being
shown. On the page you listed, did you click the Select OS drop down
menu in the top right? If so, there should be an option for OS X which
should allow you to download and install the latest drivers specific for
OS X.
My sense from all this is that the MP 610 is compatible with Leopard but there may be features on the
printer that wil be downloadable on their website in the near future.

BTW, the MP610 also uses 5 ink cartridges but has a smaller LCD than the more
expensive MP830. For those interested, check out the price on Amazon. They were offering
the best price and free shipping when I last looked on 10/14.

Kenstee · Nov 18, 2007, 11:09 AM

Canon Pixma MX700.

Works great with 10.5. All functions are a go. Need to use Image Capture for scanning rather than the proprietary Canon imaging software which needs a Leopard update. Easy to network on a home or business LAN.

Big thumbs up!

drg · Dec 17, 2007, 11:37 AM

Epson print heads plug up all too easily and they cannot be fixed. And, the suck the most expensive ink around. I have just thrown one away after spending $85.00 on new ink cartridges that did not make it work any better.

drg

as2 · 03:11 PM

I've got a HP Officejet 5610, and although it's probably been surpassed by a new model now, I can't be happier with it.

Scanner, Copier, Printer, and Fax - Work provided it for me.

Use it on both a PC and an iMac, and the software works great, haven't had any problems at all.

Can scan direct from the bed, or has a scan through function from the top which will scan or fax a file of papers. Can also fax directly from my computer.

When you set up the software, it updates the printer menu to give you various options, eg scan to preview, which you just select, and everything else just works.

HP Officejet All-in-One products at a glance - HP Home & Home Office products for HP's current range.

Gordie · Jan 1, 2008, 01:22 PM

I also own an Apple Mac and I'd like to get an all-in-one too but was wondering whether they still need RIP software in order to be able to print Postscript documents such as Adobe InDesign, Illustrator and Photoshop files?

In the past, my old Epson printer wouldn't print any of my design work without RIP software. Does anyone know if this is still the case? Seems too good to be true if they can deal with Postscript too...?

Cadaver · Jan 1, 2008, 10:48 PM

For Christmas my wife bought me a HP Photosmart C6250. $169 at Costco. Very nice 4x6 prints (haven't yet tried anything larger on photo paper), decent scanner, integrated flash card reader (mounts on OS X's desktop, too, not just for direct card-to-printer stuff), and fast text printing. 5 different color ink tanks, not including black. The scan/photo-stitch software is Leopard compatible (though currently labeled a beta version), and Leopard includes a built-in print driver.

angelmb · Jan 21, 2008, 11:46 AM

Anyone with a Canon MP530 and Leopard?, I need an all-in-one printer and have found a good deal.

angelmb · Jan 21, 2008, 02:06 PM

Well, I have found reports about it (Canon MP530) working great with Leopard with the newer Canon software.

Buckaroo · Jan 30, 2008, 07:43 PM

Originally Posted by ghporter

There are two things that are different between Epson and Canon printers that make Canon the better choice. Epson still has its print jets as part of the carriage, while Canon's are user-replaceable items. This means that your printer won't be permanently borked if some ink happens to clog the print jet. Epson's inks are sticky and prone to becoming gummy, while Canon's are smoother and are generally reported as being more stable while stored. That means that Canon inks will work better than Epson's in the long term.

My next color printer WILL be a Canon.

I agree, this is one feature I hate about epson. But I went ahead and bought an epson anyhow.

I got the RX680.

I really like the ability to scan to a USB memory stick without having a computer hooked up.

I bought it with minimal research because of the cheap price at Fry's. I got it for $129.

It's bigger than I expected, and I have no real need for the duplexer feature. I do wish I would have looked for one that had a sheet feed scanner and the ability to record to USB in pdf.

dennisvc · Jan 31, 2008, 04:44 AM

I recently bought a Samsung all-in-one, does the job very well. Samsung is on the top!

Kenneth · Feb 8, 2008, 06:54 PM

I have a HP PSC 1350 All-in-One for several years. It's working great, but tard noisy and HP no longer provides scanning driver for it.

Right now, I'm eyeing on a Canon as well. However, they all look 'huge' to me.

angelmb · Feb 9, 2008, 04:01 AM

I got the aforementioned Canon MP530 and it indeed works with 10.5

Kenneth · Feb 11, 2008, 06:14 PM

Just got myself a Canon Pixma MP610. So far so good.

robbiejedi · Feb 14, 2008, 08:54 AM

Originally Posted by Gordie

I also own an Apple Mac and I'd like to get an all-in-one too but was wondering whether they still need RIP software in order to be able to print Postscript documents such as Adobe InDesign, Illustrator and Photoshop files?

In the past, my old Epson printer wouldn't print any of my design work without RIP software. Does anyone know if this is still the case? Seems too good to be true if they can deal with Postscript too...?

Hi Gordie,

I work in the newspaper, printing and publishing industry and we don't use RIP software on our OSX Macs at all. We have a Xerox DC-C400 colour laser multifunction centre as well as an Agfa Avantra25 Image Setter (the big machine that prints film for making printing plates, in case readers don't know what that is). Our older OS9 Macs need to run rips for the Image Setter but not the Xerox. We use InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator, QuarkXpress and Acrobat Professional.

I don't think you'd need to worry about having RIP software required. I'm pretty sure these are a thing of the past now.

Cheers,
Rob.

ooninay · Feb 15, 2008, 05:30 PM

Mine's a Canon Pixma MP830 AIO and it works very well in both Tiger and Leopard (although the buttons on the printer don't always work in Leopard... but there's a software way to do the same thing and that does work in Leopard). I also have a new HP OfficeJet Pro K5400dn and its drivers *don't* work with Leopard--I can't print at all on that one. Very disappointing...