Esoterika

I really wish I had known about this before I bought my Epson NX400 printer. It prints beautifully (if slowly) when it prints, but running out of any one color of ink locks up the printer until you replace all colors of ink. (And the cartridges are miniscule!) Apparently I'm not the only one annoyed by this:

"Consumers fed up with the high cost of ink jet cartridges are taking Epson America to court, accusing it of manipulating equipment in order to sell more ink. A lawsuit filed Friday in District Court in Texas claims some models of Epson ink jet cartridges prematurely block Epson printers from functioning even though "substantial ink" remains in the cartridge...

"The problem is with Epson ink jet cartridges outfitted with an Intellidge microchip, say Harnes Keller attorneys. Because the Intellidge chip stops Epson printers from operating until the ink jet cartridge is replaced, the plaintiffs charge that Epson is in breach of contract with its customers, who are entitled to use all the ink in the cartridge. The cartridges actually contain up to 38 percent more usable ink after the Intellidge chip cuts them off, according to research cited in the suits."

Also, now I know why I couldn't get the printer to acknowledge my set of slightly used cartridges: the chip is on the cartridge itself, not the printer; it knows how much ink the cartridge has given out, and if that amount doesn't suit it, it shuts down. BOGUS.

So another tech purchase needed in my future is a decent inkjet printer. I hate shopping for and comparing this sort of thing, so I'm open to anyone's recommendations/ opinions.

My parameters:
Brands: I have a very strong aversion to Epson and Lexmark--in my experience and observation, their products are crap. I have had good experiences with HP, and at least in the past their print heads are part of the cartridge and so get replaced regularly, which seems a real bonus as clogged print heads have been the demise of every inkjet I have owned. I assume that is still true. I don't know if any other brands are like that. I love Brother's laser printers but have no info on their inkjets. Have no info on Canon. (ETA: quoth wikipedia: Canon's print heads are designed to last the life of the printer, but can be replaced if damaged, unlike Epson. Wikipedia's "inkjet printer" entry has a fair bit on this subject--more than the manufacturers!)

I just want an inkjet, not an all-in-one (already have a nice scanner).

I will use it almost entirely for image printing--photos and artwork--and not particularly high volume of that. Will almost never use it for text; that's what the laser's for, so image quality is more important than speed.

Wireless capability is optional. Must work with Mac, of course.

Any thoughts?

This ingenious guy invents games through which humans help make computers smarter... He also invented the captcha (those stretched letters and numbers that foil spambots--I hadn't known they had a name). Harnessing fun: what a wonderfully devious way to get work done...

http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/magazine/15-07/ff_humancomp

"People will contribute their brainpower, but only if they're given an enjoyable, time-killing experience in exchange. Play is the unexpected glue that lashes human brains together into a global overmind. So to build a good human-computation project, you can't merely be a scientist; you also need to be a videogame designer."