I'm researching printers for photo quality output. In the HP domain I see the Deskjet 895c with it's PhotoretII (probably mispelled) technology (state of the art I guess) and the PhotoSmart printer. How do they compare? Which is the better photo quality printer? Help! I trying to make a decision I can live with for the next 2 or 3 years.

-- Charles Coulbourn (chazz@pobox.com), February 22, 1999

Answers

Wish I would have gotten the following tip before I bought the HP DeskJet 890C looking for a better photo printer:

I finally bought an HP PhotoSmart printer and now get absolutely perfect prints that I defy you to distinguish from silver halide film prints. I use HP Glossy Photo Paper which is probably a requirement for the exceptional end results.

Hope this helps.

Bob

-- Bob Benson (benson@gbasin.net), February 23, 1999.

I bought a Cannon "Photo Realistic" printer because it was cheap ($100.00) and I could get regular 3 color cartridges for normal printing. I then bought a HP Photo Smart printer. The HP puts out the superior print by far. It does require the HP glossy photo paper for the best results. The HP ink is designed for the HP paper, other paper doesn't look any way near as good. An 8 1/2 X 11 full page photo does cost about $1.85 (1/2 paper cost and 1/2 ink).

The Cannon is a lot cheaper to operate and gives great preview prints.

Bob

-- Robert Johnson (rjjohnson@silverlink.net), February 24, 1999.

You need to be clear about your intended usage. If you're looking purely for a photo printer, it's hard to beat the PhotoSmart. When printing text though, it has notably less resolution than other "business" units. If you're really only looking for photo-quality, the PhotoSmart would be the way to go. With its six ink colors, it will produce much finer color gradations than the Deskjet model.

-- Dave Etchells (hotnews@imaging-resource.com), February 25, 1999.

A lot of people are raving about the new epson photo 750 printer, and the new oly 330 photo printer. The latter can print straight from smartmedia. I think the 750 is about $250 and the 330 is about $300. Not sure.

-- Benoit (foo@bar.com), February 25, 1999.

I'm very happy with the Epson Stylus Photo 700. (Paid $200 for it). I don't know if the newly announced Photo 750 will be even better, or the same quality but with even more speed and features.

The HP PhotoSmart is just as good for Photos, perhaps even slightly better, but unlike the Epson, it is not any good as a general purpose inkjet, because it doesn't do text well.

-- Doug Green (dougjgreen@yahoo.com), February 26, 1999.