"all in one" printer with a decent scanner?

[flyinion]

Hi all, my girlfriend is looking to replace an old HP C5180 printer/scanner and is looking for something that would be good at scanning photos. She does not plan on much/any photo printing, she just wants to make sure the scanner is pretty good at scanning photos. Anyone have any suggestions? I have to admit I hardly do any printing or scanning myself other than documents so I've never really researched a printer and am not sure where to start. Most of the hardware sites I visit cover things like cpu, ram, motherboards, video cards, but printers not so much.

[flyinion]

Anyone have any suggestions at all?

[SmartWombat]

I can recommend NOT EVER using Oki.
We have one and it's appalling quality scanning.

[Franglais]

A collegue asked me to recommend a photo printer yesterday. I haven't paid any attention to the market since I bought my A3+ printer 5 years ago so I went and had a look today.

Wow. The market has completely changed. There are now only all-in-one types for "normal" size printing (up to A4 = letter size). I looked at Epson and they still do a Stylus Photo multifunction scanner/printer - if it's good at printing it should also be good at scanning photos.

Are you talking about scanning photos or negatives? Photos are easy but negatives are quite difficult. You need a scanner cover with a light in it to pass through the negative, a special infrared device to see dust in the image. I can't see this mentioned in today's specifications. I guess that nobody wants to scan negatives any more (which I can understand)

[flyinion]

No need for negative scanning. She just wants something that prints decently and can scan old photos. Actually the new requirement is wireless connectivity so she can print from her iPhone.

[Franglais]

No need for negative scanning. She just wants something that prints decently and can scan old photos. Actually the new requirement is wireless connectivity so she can print from her iPhone.

This is new to me. I had to research it (it's sort of related to my job anyway).

If she's thinking of using Apple Airprint then you don't have much choice. Here's the link:

http://store.apple.com/us/browse/hom...ories/printers

[flyinion]

She's looking at this one which seems to also support mobile devices. Apparently it's a new model which might be why it doesn't show on the Apple site as I think it's the next step up from the HP 6500 that's on there.

HP Officejet Pro 8600 e-All-in-One Printer | HP® Official Store

[Franglais]

I don't know anything about this printer.

However the first thing I look at is - how many inks does it have? Modern photo printers have the four basic inks - Cyan, Yellow, Magenta and Black - plus extra colours to give prints with more nuances so that they actually look like photos (light magenta, light cyan, grey, light grey - my Epson has 8 cartridges in all).

The HP printer you mention only has the 4 basic inks. OK maybe HP know something that Epson don't but it doesn't look very promising as a photo printer

[flyinion]

I don't know anything about this printer.

However the first thing I look at is - how many inks does it have? Modern photo printers have the four basic inks - Cyan, Yellow, Magenta and Black - plus extra colours to give prints with more nuances so that they actually look like photos (light magenta, light cyan, grey, light grey - my Epson has 8 cartridges in all).

The HP printer you mention only has the 4 basic inks. OK maybe HP know something that Epson don't but it doesn't look very promising as a photo printer

HP actually does have a printer with those extra inks (the gray for example), but yes this one only has the 4 "basic" colors. I don't know that she's going to do a lot of printing photos, I think her intended use is more for scanning photos/documents and then printing documents. I know if I replace my printer (old 2006/2007 era HP with two cartidges) I'll definitely be after one of the newer printers with the extra inks.