Hello,
We just bought the Canon i560 for about $100.00. I am not sure if spending $300.00 will get you an appreciable difference or not? I would suggest you compare the Canon in the $300.00 price range with the HP in the same price range.... If you are using an HP deskjet, you will want to know if it actually is better print technology, or just the added bells and whistles like media card slots, etc.... If you are not happy with the quality of your deskjet, and the photosmarts are the same basic printing method/techology, then the end result may not be a lot better???
So far we love the Canon! It is FAST and QUIET... (very nice text and graphics!) I mean, it just ZIPS out the pages compared to our aged HP that just died. But, we just set it up last night, and I have not had time to print a photo yet... I am going to actually print out a photo here, and take our Xd card down to the local store and have them print the same photo on the HP7260. (also about $100.00 on special). We also just had this photo processed at our local
Walmart photo lab... I will compare all three and get back to you to let you know the results!
PS: Before we just now picked up this Canon, I posted a very similar thread here... So, I too am interested if anyone has any further input!
I did a bit of research online, and found some good feedback on this Canon. But could not find a lot about the HP's..... None of the sites seemed to make a direct comparison. Maybe you could do some searches. I simply typed in ' printer reviews ' and looked at some of what I found there.
PS: One thing about the HP's... Their ink cartridges will cost a bundle and the HP's can use a lot of ink. The Canon's are known to sip the ink while others can guzzle. Also, the Canon's have a separate little cartridge for each color, so you buy and replace only the ones that run out.
We wanted to consider a printer brand other than HP because ours died, and a couple of the ones at DH's work have died... They all seemed to have similar things go wrong with them???? Hhhhmmm??? Could just be age and the luck of the draw????
One other big thing that I have noticed.... the paper you use CAN make a big difference! Certain papers can seem to work better, or be more compatible, with certain printers. For example, I hear that the Canon prints will not look as good on a certain Kodak paper while they look great on the Canon Photo Pro paper. So I will either stick with Canon paper, or experiment a bit with some other brands available here locally.
Good luck picking out a printer!
