Canon printers are better than HP!

I have a Canon TS5350a and an HP D1560 printer. Sent the same document to both printers the Canon in Normal mode and the HP in high resolution mode and the difference in print quality is amazing. The Canon (which I picked up for £11 delivered) print quality is astounding. Anyone else found this?

I've had a similar experience, but not with a Canon printer. I recently had to get a new printer, as the old HP multi-function printer had developed an error that could have been an expensive fix. I went for an Epson with an ecotank and the print quality is miles better, and same as yourself, only using "normal". I wish I had changed/upgraded sooner.

I have never been impressed with HP printers, not their inkjet ones anyway, the older HP laser printers are built like tanks and last for years and are easy to and cheap to fix.

I have used canon printers for years, from the BJ10, BJ200 days, up to the one I had about 4 years ago. I had a Lexmark Z42 in that time as well, a great printer, monochrome only, but for an inkjet, amazing quality, just expensive to keep going, also had a Philips all in one thing, that was rubbish and very expensive to get ink for. I had an Epson stylus something or other, it was awful, vowed never to buy another Epson.

i know people who have had HP printers and most of the time they had problems or the quality was not great, my sister-in-law had one for years and she loved it.

I went for a Brother LED printer around 4 years ago when my last Canon inkjet started to have a problem, I said then I would never get another inkjet.

Times change, I broke two vows type of thing last week, got myself another Epson and a ink jet printer. I am now a proud owner of an Epsom ET-8550. The quality is amazing and so it should be, it is a £700 printer, but still classed as a home printer. But even at that price, there are still some issues I have with the build. My old Canon was built solid.

It don't like the cheap 75gsm paper I have for normal printing, it will print on it, but not great. Photo printing it is amazing, even on cheap photo paper that i have here.

I am not going to use it for normal printing, that is what I have the brother LED printer for. Just got to get some decent paper and profiles

Canon printers, from the cheapest to the more expensive, are very good printers and if there was one that offered when I wanted and not cost more than the Epson, I would have gone for one.

I still have the canon selphy dye sublimation printer here, which i must set up on the Mac.

I maintain with no sense of rose tinting, the very best HP laser was the 4 series made in Boise Idaho!!

Had a LaserJet 4MP (PostScript and PCL5) on my desk back in the day (mid nineties). Brilliant little thing.

Adrian what is/was wrong with the Canon that broke?

I have never owned a HP printer myself, we had a couple of HP lasers at work, I have no idea what model, looking around 9 years ago or more. The amount of work they did and kept on working was amazing. They have Brother at work now, still great printers, but these days the amount of printing have decreased, but they still do a fair bit. They both have a problem, I hope they are fixed by tomorrow. One creases the paper vertically and other is giving a false paper out error from the main paper tray. I have tried stuff, but no go.

My Brother LED printer is a great printer, it is fast and give good quality prints, 600 x 600 dpi or 2400dpi, if someone wants a nice colour printer, but don't want to do photos, then I highly recommend the brother LED printers. The updated version of mine is about £240, which for a colour laser style printer is pretty good. My only complaint is the little one line LCD display on it, makes it difficult to see error codes or any other info. i have a small light that I use to see it.
Apart from that it is a great printer, it is for home or small office use.

I do have an HP ScanJet 7650, getting on now, but a great scanner and while the new Epson have a scanner, I will use the HP one most of the time unless i am scanning photos, the Hp has a duplex paper feeder. The HP scanner is getting on now, have to be over 10 years old.


My problem with printers since I changed to Mac is making sure I have the right driver and not the Airprint driver.

In reply to a post by Banger:

Adrian what is/was wrong with the Canon that broke?

It was not printing properly, blocked nozzles I think, i tried a few different things to get it working. That is why I gave up with inkjets, still not a fan of them, watching the epson print compared to the Brother is like watching paint dry and the strange sounds it makes before printing. But for photo printing even on the cheap photo paper I have here with no profiles, it knocks spots of the Brother, but then it should, it is a photo printer.

I went down to home bargains today, I was surprised to see A3 paper in there, I did not buy it as I was suing the bike. But surprised all the same.,
I had to go to hobby craft to pick up some things for my Cricut and home bargains is around the same place.

Got to stop spending now apart from some decent photo paper that have profiles made for my printer

I had an Epson stylus like that was going to cost more than the printer to replace the print head.

In reply to a post by Banger:

I had an Epson stylus like that was going to cost more than the printer to replace the print head.

That is the problem with cheap printers and also the ink, a set of inks for the Epson I have got is around the hundred quid mark, that is for grey, cyan, magenta, yellow and the two blacks, you are looking at around 0.2p a page, so they say, I presume that not in high quality mode, but even so that is pretty good.
It uses Ink bottles.
If you look at something like say your Canon, a high capacity twin pack is around £45, around 6.34p per page according to Stinky ink. which is okay if you are not using it a lot.
you can get compatibles and i have used stinky ink compatibles in the past, I use the toners for the Brother. Not going to buy them for the Epson. i will use Epson ink in that.
The quality of what my Epson will put out compared to your canon shows even more how economical in use the Epson is.


Let's have a look at your HP.

£32 for colour 19.4p per page and back ink £25 give or take and 12.89p per page.

HP branded ink

It depends on what you are doing with the printer, if you are not using it a lot then it don't really matter about the cost, but print a nozzle check once a month or so if you're not using it, that will hopefully stop it getting blocked.
The other problem with a lot of cartridge based printers, certainly the cheaper ones are that they only have one colour, so if you use more yellow and that runs out, you have to replace the whole thing, even if the others are still half full.


It took me a while to decide what to get, but the first thing on my list was something with separate ink for all colours, then I looked at the ink tank machines, wanted something that did at least A3 and can print on thicker card. I never thought I would pay so much for a printer, I paid nearly £300 for the Brother, but I thought at the time it would be the last printer I would buy, and it is a great printer, for what it is and for someone who don't want to print photos, but still print documents in colour, I would highly recommend it or the newer model of it.,
super cheap to run, fast at printing once it starts, none of the strange sounds that inkjets make. It is a bit bulky, but not as bulky as a colour laser would be. It can print photos, but toner don't stick too well on photo paper.

I just need to get some decent paper for the Epson now, but it is not cheap, Epson own paper is pretty good and the profiles are in the drivers, Canon photo paper is also good if you have a Canon

I am looking at Fotospeed paper, they have prifles for my printer, I looked at their light Lustre paper and for 50 sheets it is £28, i suppose that is not bad, it will last me for a while.

Now look at this for a printer.

Oh I jujst realised how long i have made this post.
Oh well.

Anyway, there is nothing wrong with your Canon, even the lower end Canons produce good quclity prints.

Used to work in a Design Office and we had an HP Design-jet A1 printer which printed everything. It was an Ink Jet mainly because we printed circuit board designs as well as mechanical drawings on film, which took ages to dry.

Only saving grace with HP is you get new nozzles when you change a cartridge as the nozzles are in the cart. Not sure but Canon used to be like that with the nozzles in the cart bus so far cant fault the quality and print at least 1 page every week to keep the nozzles active.

Stinky ink seems a bit pricey, I got 2 carts from Ebay colour and black XL, Tesco branded for £20 delivered. When you open them up they have Canon printed on the shell and when inserted into the TS5350a are recognised as genuine carts.

Edited by Banger (Tue 31-Dec-24 13:57:41)

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

Now look at this for a printer.

An imagePROGRAF PRO-1100 at A2 size would be my choice for home. Any larger and there’s plenty of outfits with ultra large format printers 15-ish mins away in central London.

However Canon have done nicely out of me in 2024. My birthday gift was an R5 MkII body and EL5 speedlite. For Black Friday + Christmas a couple of v.nice RF lenses.

I never had a Canon that had the print head in the cartridge, I don't know if the TS5350a you have do, you can tell by looking at the bottom of them,

The prices I gave were for Canon cartridges and large capacity, they sell Remanufactured High Capacity Twinpack for £34 and what you got from ebay is remanufactured, which is why it has the canon name on. No other company makes them as they have the print head built in. The problem with that is you don't know how old that print head is. This is why sometime buying a canon cartridge may be the better idea.,
i had a Lexmark Z42 used the same system print head in cartridge, expensive to run, but great quality, no colour.

at the end of the day it depends on what you use your printer for.

The one problem I did have with Canon printers, is getting the Wi-fi working, always hit-and-miss, so never really used it, connected to USB, even the little Dye sub Selphy printer i have seems to have problems with Wi-fi. The Brother and the Epson both have Ethernet. Not tried wi-fi on them


i have been using stinky ink for a few years now and while they may not be as cheap as some others, I know I get quality from them and no hassle if there is a problem. I have only ever had one problem, and that was not for my printer.

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

I never had a Canon that had the print head in the cartridge, I don't know if the TS5350a you have do, you can tell by looking at the bottom of them,

The prices I gave were for Canon cartridges and large capacity, they sell Remanufactured High Capacity Twinpack for £34 and what you got from ebay is remanufactured, which is why it has the canon name on. No other company makes them as they have the print head built in. The problem with that is you don't know how old that print head is. This is why sometime buying a canon cartridge may be the better idea.,
i had a Lexmark Z42 used the same system print head in cartridge, expensive to run, but great quality, no colour.

at the end of the day it depends on what you use your printer for.

The one problem I did have with Canon printers, is getting the Wi-fi working, always hit-and-miss, so never really used it, connected to USB, even the little Dye sub Selphy printer i have seems to have problems with Wi-fi. The Brother and the Epson both have Ethernet. Not tried wi-fi on them


i have been using stinky ink for a few years now and while they may not be as cheap as some others, I know I get quality from them and no hassle if there is a problem. I have only ever had one problem, and that was not for my printer.

Yes the Canon carts look similar to the HP ones I have with print heads visible so that is good.

I did have a problem with wifi on the TS5350a it gave me the option to connect to all access points, I have a mesh wifi, but by trial and error binding to one access point was the better option. Oh and also turning off power save as you suddenly find the printer has disappeared from the network.

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

An imagePROGRAF PRO-1100 at A2 size would be my choice for home. Any larger and there’s plenty of outfits with ultra large format printers 15-ish mins away in central London.

However Canon have done nicely out of me in 2024. My birthday gift was an R5 MkII body and EL5 speedlite. For Black Friday + Christmas a couple of v.nice RF lenses.

i did look at the higher end Canons, but price to keep them running put me against buying one and to be honest something like the imagePROGRAF PRO-300

Oh nice, one with the R5, a full frame camera at a full frame price . You do a lot of photography, then? I presume paying that price, you do it for a living.

i should get more into it, but getting the time and energy to be honest, with work I am shattered., My camera is pretty old now, it is a Panasonic G85 four thirds mirrorless. it is a pretty good camera to be honest, a mate borrowed it a few months ago and got some great shots from it, but then he knew what he was doing with it His camera had a problem and was in for repair.

I understand the way things work in photography to a certain degree, shutter speed, ISO, aperture, but gets confused one someone says about stops
To be honest, I should watch so more videos about it.

One of the reasons I got a better printer is to print out photos I take. My brother-in-law is pretty good with photography and my older brother did have a studio some years ago, but for some reason stop doing it.

Maybe I should make this year the year when i learn more.

The lenses i got with mine is the 12-60 millimeter that came with it, 24-120mm, 35mm equivalent and a 25mm, which is 50mm equivalent. all to do with cropping.
It was not a bright idea to buy a micro four thirds, but the price was good. Lenses are really expensive for it.

But it is what it is and not worth even thinking of getting anything different until I really get to grips with it.

i would say i have to stop spending, but I need to buy some decent paper and some more things for the Cricut.

Enthusiastic amateur here. It’s a long time hobby that I indulge. Have had Canon EOS digital cameras for probably 20 years: still got my 10D from 2004 in the cupboard, it’s first major outing was on safari in Tanzania and had many, many hundreds of amazing and memorable photos just from that one trip that I treasure to this day. My plane carry on bag has evolved to my camera backpack.

This is my second R5. I had the original (bought in the states) and traded it for this one. They’re solid cameras and lenses. Love em.

Must be enthusiastic, that camera is a lot of money, still if that is what you like, then why not.
My brother spent 5 grand on a hi-fi system.

Canon have always been good, even the lower end models,

It’s the lenses that can (and do) quickly get out of hand. Like any interest or hobby the link to sensible can get sometime get a bit tenuous 🤣. Saying that as long as it’s not detrimental my moto is YOLO.

Unless I'm mistaken you are comparing a Canon printer that appears to be less than four years old with an HP printer that could be 18 years old (looks like it was released in 2007).

And from that you are concluding that "Canon printers are better than HP", really ?

That HP is so old, working out when it was first released was quite a challenge...

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

That is the problem with cheap printers and also the ink, a set of inks for the Epson I have got is around the hundred quid mark

It isn't just the cheap ones. I was watching a review of one of Canon's amazing professional inkjet printers.

It cost the guy reviewing it around £2,000 and a set of ink cartridges for it are over £1,000 !

(it takes 12 cartridges)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvvRgHIcYH0

Still have my 10D, still works perfectly, if very slowly...

I really should use my 80D more than I do 😢

In reply to a post by andynormancx:

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

That is the problem with cheap printers and also the ink, a set of inks for the Epson I have got is around the hundred quid mark

It isn't just the cheap ones. I was watching a review of one of Canon's amazing professional inkjet printers.

It cost the guy reviewing it around £2,000 and a set of ink cartridges for it are over £1,000 !

(it takes 12 cartridges)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvvRgHIcYH0

haha, i was gonna post that earlier in this thread simply because of the size of it !!!!!!!!

It felt like a bit of a bargain for the price to be honest.

Sadly I have neither the need nor the money for printer like that.

Apart from the ink of course...

Edited by andynormancx (Mon 06-Jan-25 19:45:10)

My Stylus 800 (Epson) had better quality than the HP and it was released well before. Sadly it went to the great loft in the sky with clogged print heads.

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

It’s the lenses that can (and do) quickly get out of hand. Like any interest or hobby the link to sensible can get sometime get a bit tenuous 🤣. Saying that as long as it’s not detrimental my moto is YOLO.

Yes, the lenses are stupid prices, certainly for my Panasonic, because it is a four-thirds sensor, I only have two lenses, the one that came with the camera, which is a 12-60mm, which is equivalent to a 24-120mm in the 35mm world and a 25mm, 50mm in the 35mm world, I got that because I was told it would be the most useful.
Maybe I should have got a full frame camera, but they are not cheap.

I was going to go out this week since I am off from work for the week and take some photos to practice, but I came home early from work on Saturday as I was unwell, and have got cellulitis in my leg, again, so not going anywhere. Annoying as it is, a week wasted.

Hopefully, it will get better by the end of the week, then I will go and do some taking photos. I need to practice, but still trying to get my head around stops.

In reply to a post by andynormancx:

It isn't just the cheap ones. I was watching a review of one of Canon's amazing professional inkjet printers.

It cost the guy reviewing it around £2,000 and a set of ink cartridges for it are over £1,000 !

(it takes 12 cartridges)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvvRgHIcYH0

That is a large format printer, that is in a different class, even to my Epson printer. Epson does a machine called SC-P900, take ten cartridges, and they cost £250 for the set and that is still classed as a home printer.

Printers like that Canon, then you are getting into making money out of your prints, it uses pigment inks, so they are classed as achievable, should last for over 100 years. It is crazy that even at that price range the machine still uses canon bubble jet technology, the same thing that they used in the first inkjet I had, the BJ10, but no doubt refined.

A couple of years ago, i never even realised that there were inkjet printers that big and some are larger, which you would never get in your house

In reply to a post by andynormancx:

Unless I'm mistaken you are comparing a Canon printer that appears to be less than four years old with an HP printer that could be 18 years old (looks like it was released in 2007).

And from that you are concluding that "Canon printers are better than HP", really ?

That HP is so old, working out when it was first released was quite a challenge...

Yes, technology have improved over the years, saying that my printer was launched 4 years ago and still classed as a great printer in it's class and any replacement would not offer much improvement in print quality.

The one thing I have to get used to again is the strange noises inkjets make, while writing this my printer just made a strange chugging sound for some reason, my LED printer it does the print, then after a minute or so the fan shuts up and it goes back to sleep. I have not used the Epson for about 4 hours, and that was only to print a calibration sheet for my Cricut.
By all accounts, it is best to leave it in sleep mode and not turn it off.