What is best quality color printer (Photo Quality) under $300

michael · Oct 3, 2015

Hi Guys,

What is best quality color printer (Photo Quality) under $300?

Thanks,

dorsetknob · Oct 3, 2015

Save yourself money and take the images as files to a print shop on a USB Drive
unless you absolutely need to print immediately and out of shop hours

micropage7 · Oct 4, 2015

umm, i dunno
but have you take a look at here
http://www.pcworld.com/article/248888/the_best_printers_for_150_300_500_750.html

Disparia · Oct 4, 2015

Admittedly I don't have a printer today, but used Epson extensively in the past. Have some photos on the wall printed 10+ years ago that are still clear and vivid. For $300 you can get a Photo model, good for prints up to 13" wide on a variety of paper types. If you need that $300 to cover the printer and supplies (photo paper) there are cheaper models which won't print as wide but still are of great quality. My last one was $150 and did great 4x6, 5x7, and 8x10 prints.

Above all to keep an inkjet well-maintained you must regularly use it. If you don't see yourself printing out photos every week then I'd advise seeking out a print shop. Otherwise for high-volume and/or a hobbyist that wants a lot of control over the printing process then I'd recommend Epson.

theonedub · Oct 4, 2015

~8 years ago or so when I did occasional photo printing, there was none better than EPSON. No idea what the landscape is like now, but @Jizzler is right on the money with EPSON's history/quality.

RCoon · Oct 4, 2015

I used to work on the side printing custom hand built canvas prints for people. Back then I used a HP Z series printer. Our local high quality print press for photos uses HP too. I avoid Epson due to their dodgy ink level nonsense.

michael · Oct 5, 2015

Jizzler said:
Admittedly I don't have a printer today, but used Epson extensively in the past. Have some photos on the wall printed 10+ years ago that are still clear and vivid. For $300 you can get a Photo model, good for prints up to 13" wide on a variety of paper types. If you need that $300 to cover the printer and supplies (photo paper) there are cheaper models which won't print as wide but still are of great quality. My last one was $150 and did great 4x6, 5x7, and 8x10 prints.

Above all to keep an inkjet well-maintained you must regularly use it. If you don't see yourself printing out photos every week then I'd advise seeking out a print shop. Otherwise for high-volume and/or a hobbyist that wants a lot of control over the printing process then I'd recommend Epson.

Name few please, What was that $150 was all about ?

Atomic77 · Oct 11, 2015

I use a cannon pixma mp470. Its a printer and a scanner. color inkjet.

System Name	To be ALL IN ONE MACHINE. but not yet
Processor	i7 3770k
Motherboard	Asus P8Z&&-V Deluxe
Cooling	Thermalright Silver Arrow
Memory	Gskill Ripjaws 1600Mhz 8GB *4 = 32GB
Storage	Samsung pro 840 256GB, Segate 3TB and 1TB
Display(s)	LG 23" Full HD LED
Case	Antec LanBoy Air
Power Supply	Cooler Master M2 Silent Pro 850 Watts
Software	Windows 7 ulimate 64bit

System Name	micropage7
Processor	Intel Xeon X3470
Motherboard	Gigabyte Technology Co. Ltd. P55A-UD3R (Socket 1156)
Cooling	Enermax ETS-T40F
Memory	Samsung 8.00GB Dual-Channel DDR3
Video Card(s)	NVIDIA Quadro FX 1800
Storage	V-GEN03AS18EU120GB, Seagate 2 x 1TB and Seagate 4TB
Display(s)	Samsung 21 inch LCD Wide Screen
Case	Icute Super 18
Audio Device(s)	Auzentech X-Fi Forte
Power Supply	Silverstone 600 Watt
Mouse	Logitech G502
Keyboard	Sades Excalibur + Taihao keycaps
Software	Win 7 64-bit
Benchmark Scores	Classified

Processor	Intel i5-6600
Motherboard	ASRock H170M-ITX
Cooling	Cooler Master Geminii S524
Memory	G.Skill DDR4-2133 16GB (8GB x 2)
Video Card(s)	Gigabyte R9-380X 4GB
Storage	Samsung 950 EVO 250GB (mSATA)
Display(s)	LG 29UM69G-B 2560x1080 IPS
Case	Lian Li PC-Q25
Audio Device(s)	Realtek ALC892
Power Supply	Seasonic SS-460FL2
Mouse	Logitech G700s
Keyboard	Logitech G110
Software	Windows 10 Pro

System Name	Erakith \|\| AsRock NUCS
Processor	AMD ThreadRipper 2990WX ES (32c/64t 3.5ghz@1.02v) \|\| Intel i7 1360P Raptor Lake-P
Motherboard	MSI X399 MEG Creation \|\| AsRock OE
Cooling	EK Supremacy TR4 Full Nickel, D5 w/ EK Top, 2X EK-CoolStream XTX 360 & Photon 270 Res \|\| OE
Memory	32GB (4x8GB) Corsair Vengeance PRO RGB DDR4 3000\|\| 2x16GB Corsair DDR4
Video Card(s)	Vega 64 EK FC\|\| Intel Iris Xe
Storage	250gb WD Black NVMe & (2) 2TB Intel 660p NVMe \|\| 2TB Corsair MP600 Pro
Display(s)	34" Dell Ultrasharp U3415W
Case	CaseLabs Merlin SM8 \|\| Aluminum Unibody
Power Supply	Corsair HX1000
Mouse	Corsair Harpoon Wireless RGB
Keyboard	Corsair Strafe RGB w/ Cherry MX Silent
Software	Windows 10 Pro x64 \|\| WIndows 11 Pro x64
Benchmark Scores	WCG & F@H Only

System Name	HP Omen 17
Processor	i7 7700HQ
Memory	16GB 2400Mhz DDR4
Video Card(s)	GTX 1060
Storage	Samsung SM961 256GB + HGST 1TB
Display(s)	1080p IPS G-SYNC 75Hz
Audio Device(s)	Bang & Olufsen
Power Supply	230W
Mouse	Roccat Kone XTD+
Software	Win 10 Pro

What is best quality color printer (Photo Quality) under $300

michael

dorsetknob

"YOUR RMA REQUEST IS CON-REFUSED"

micropage7

Disparia

theonedub

habe fidem

RCoon

michael

Atomic77

System Name	DELL Inspiron 5400 AIO / HP 17 ca1065cl
Processor	11th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-1165G7 @ 2.80GHz / Ryzen 5 3500u
Memory	16GB /12GB
Video Card(s)	NVIDIA MX 330 / Radeon Vega 8
Storage	1TB +SSD
Display(s)	23.8 inch touch screen 17.3 touch screen
Case	DELL AIO / HP LAPTOP
Mouse	Dell Wireless /LOGITECH
Keyboard	Dell Wireless / HP LAPTOP
Software	WINDOWS 11