Printers and Drivers

November 7, 2004 7:43 PM

Which printers come with sane drivers? [mi]

I have an older powerbook (OSX) and would like to get a nice color printer. The last two time I tried to install printer drivers (once for a Lexmark, the other time for an HP) the drivers nearly took over the system. They put things in my startup folder and proceeded to consume lots of CPU time when I wasn't even printing. Does anyone make a good-quality color printer (inkjet or laser) that comes with sane drivers?

posted by b1tr0t to computers & internet (4 comments total)

I have an Epson 900 (inkjet) and a Brother 1440 (laser) and both installed on my older OS X iBook without a hitch. I am happy with them both.
posted by astruc at 7:56 PM on November 7, 2004

I like the Epson software. It gives you a really true-to-end-product print preview from any app, and seems lightweight, problem-free, reliable. I haven't done anything terribly advanced like color wizardry or network sharing.
posted by scarabic at 8:11 PM on November 7, 2004

Postscript printers typically don't need drivers whatsoever. Whenever possible, I try to stick to Postscript devices. However, most inkjets are not Postscript printers, since it's cheaper to offload rasterization to the host CPU using some funky driver.

Since you're using an OSX host, and Apple ships a metric shitload of printer drivers, why not poke around in /Library/Printers/ and see what's supported without crappy third party drivers?
posted by majick at 8:20 PM on November 7, 2004

I love my Epson 1280, it has worked very well with OS X. I'm a BFA Graphic Design student so it is used often and has the flexibility and quality I need.

The print-progress window (OS X's app, no Epson crap opens when printing) pops-under everything, consumes little CPU time, and goes away immediately once done.

Epson's printer management app works just as well. Aligning and cleaning heads, along with checking ink levels is quick and simple.
posted by evilbeck at 9:43 PM on November 7, 2004