Looking for advice on buying a color printer in the $75-100 range.

If you want real quality, you need to spend more. A lot more.

Darnit, I was afraid that was the case. I want to print pictures from the internet, so they don’t have to be family portrait quality. Are the color printers in the price range I mentioned above really that bad?

@LoadingMyWaterGuns No, they’re not that bad, it’s just for that money you might as well have some other things you want. Really, there’s a limit on how good pics off the internet will be, so just pick out anything at WalMart.

I think it also depends on what you will generally be using your printer for. Just documents? Documents that will generally be in black and white? Or will they be in color and will they have images? Do you want to print a lot of photographs or do you just want the capacity to occasionally print a relatively high quality photographic image? What do you need your printer to do?

I have a Canon Pixma MP190 that I got at Wal-Mart for $40. I was broke and $40 was what I was prepared to spend, planning on getting a very basic printer for that price. I was very surprised and intrigued when I saw Canon had a multi-function printer at exactly that price. I love Canon as a company; they make quality products at reasonable prices and I was very pleased with their customer service when I needed to return/exchange a defective camera.

Anyway, I thought it was impossible that a $40 printer could do all the things Canon said, so I expected to be disappointed. I have not been disappointed at all. I like the design, it’s very easy to set up/use, prints great, does photos, scans, copies. Print quality so far has been excellent and I’m happy with the printer’s speed.

I have not done much photo printing (as in on photo paper), but I did print out one photo when I first got the printer because it came with some free photo paper and I was very curious to see how it’d stack up. The photo quality was not equal to that of a print shop, but it was pretty damn good. The only quibble I had was that the printed photo was lighter than the original, but other than that, I was again impressed at this printer. I think if you want to do serious photo printing, you might be happier getting a dedicated photo printer or something like that. But for casual photos, it’s more than adequate for me.

The link above will show you reviews, so you can see what other people have to say, too.

Most printers have a combo of buttons you can hold down where it will print out sample images. Go to a store that has a salesperson that will let you do that on a bunch of printers.

I find the image quality on most cheap printers to be pretty good. The price of ink replacements is what makes up my mind on a new printer now.

I second @MissAnthrope‘s choice of a Canon Prixma. I have one at work with a scanner that I love. Prints pretty fast, scans well, comes with excellent software, and cost something like $70. In fact, it prints almost as good as a much more expensive wireless HP I have in my home office.

Are you an investigator? if so, put on your walking shoes and head out for the thrift stores. there are many good color printers there, you just have to seek them out. i bought a Hewlett-Packard Office Jet K-80-ji for 6.99! it’s loaded with features and works perfetly. look at the money i saved. sure, its a gamble. but, sometimes its worth it. and to boot, the printer had both cartridges inside that still worked! i realize that my find may have been the buy of the century, but the point here is that if you do not look, you will not find. my printer was apparently used very little in a small office. it has all the bells and whistles. good luck on your search. john