My first, and last printer was a Citizen Swift 9 dot-matrix which used to be rigged up to my old Commodore Amiga computer. A quick Google only found a slightly more modern version of it: Citizen Swift 90E.
Those were the days. When printers were printing, they MEANT it. Every line was accompanied with the clatter of pins striking the ribbon and paper. It was only really suitable for text printing, as graphics never came out very well, and I did dream of one day having a laser printer – prohibitively expensive at the time.
That printer lasted a long time, but was never the same after an unfortunate sticky label incident (the labels came off inside the printer mechanism). That was…messy.
So, since then I’ve never owned a printer. I’ve just printed anything I needed either at university or work.
But I succumbed today.
I picked up the Lexmark Z1480 which was on special offer from PC World. Nicely, it comes with everything in the box (bar paper), so no nickel and diming for cabling and the like. As is the way with printers, replacement cartridges will be where the expense comes in.
One of the main requirements was a printer with network connectivity as laptops rule the roost here. Alas, none of the laser printers tended to have this unless extra money was spent. However, the Inkjet printers had this as quite a common feature, even wireless. Then it was just a case of finding a printer which didn’t have the tacked on scanner, fax machine, toaster, microwave etc.
The Z1480 is a straightforward wireless colour printer (although it can be connected via USB). Set-up is pretty easy (The CD walks you through it, including wireless network connection — it detected the encrypted one here just fine, prompting for the passphrase). After that, it Just Works as any other printer (Tested under Windows XP and Vista). Note that a USB cable is supplied for use during this set-up phase.
The desk footprint is quite respectable, and is a simple rectangular shape. This is another problem with some of the All-In-One units which seem to be trying to out-do each other in how fanciful they look.
Quality is better than I expected considering the cheap price. One thing I’ve disliked about Inkjets generally is “wobbly text syndrome” when text is misligned and, well, just wobbly. But it is crisp here. A few test photographs came out okay as well, although this is not something I have done on proper glossy photo paper yet. To be honest, for keep-worthy photographs, I’d send them off to Photobox as per usual.
Now to see just how long the printer cartridges last, and whether anything falls off it.
One thing is for sure: I’ll be avoiding sticking any sticky labels inside it.