Canon Printers

Canon are another quality make of printer witha mix of ink cartridge types. The multi cartridge printers take the brand new replacement cartridges, which seem to be very reliable. Some people sell replacement cartridges that do not have a microchip on - these are very cheap and you have to take the microchip off the genuine cartridge and put it on the replacement, this is not a satisfactory solution. If the microchip has the slightest little mark or scratch it won't work and you have wasted your money. These printers have fixed print heads that clog up over time causing banding (lines from left to right on your printout) and eventually complete blocking. The only remedy is to do regular print head cleaning from new, don't wait until you have a problem. The majority of these printers have replaceable print heads, when the print head will not clear by doing multiple print head cleans you can easily remove the whole print head. This allows you to soak the print head in tepid water (boiled and then cooled to make sure it is pure) to try to dissolve the dried inks and clear the jets. Try to do this in a way that does not damage the contacts and try not to get covered in ink! When you get to this stage it is kill or cure so its worth a go and is surprisingly effective and can be done several times successfully if you are careful. If this does not work replacement print heads are available for most printers from Canon but you will have to weigh up the benefits as they can be as expensive as buying a new printer.
Canon also do a range of printers that take two cartridges one black one colour (cyan, magenta, yellow). As explained before the big disadvantage of these cartridges is when one compartment is empty you have to change the cartridge, it will not print if you have run out of one colour. This means throwing away ink. There are remanufactured cartridges available but again they are dependant on supply of recycled genuine cartridges and are more expensive than brand new replacement cartridges.
Canon printers offer very good photographic quality, the nearest you can get to professional imaging. So if you are a keen amatuer photographer Canon would be a good choice, but of course you have to pay good money to get the quality, so it is not a cheap option.