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)