I’m trying to buy a replacement all-in-one printer for my mom and dad (they have G4 & G5 Macs, an iPad, and two iPhone 4s), and all the ones I’ve investigated (including those sold by Apple in their retail stores, which I take as an endorsement) have had one or more of the following problems:
- Wifi advertised as a connectivity option, but doesn’t work, works flakily, or works for printing but not scanning (and you can’t activate both wifi and USB at once without redoing factory setup)
- Gobbles ink, perhaps deliberately, and/or refuses to print or do ANYTHING when ANY of the ink cartridges is low; and increasingly, they can’t be refilled because they are chipped
- Printing quality sucks
I’m looking for an all-in-one that has the following properties. If I end up buying the one you recommend, I’ll send you a $5 Amazon gift card.
MUST HAVE features:
- Works seamlessly with a Mac, without having to install obtrusive vendor software, which is usually among the worst quality software out there (we have 3rd-party scanning software such as VueScan already)
- Can function with OS 10.5.x (doesn’t require ?10.6)
- Ink consumption isn’t deliberately rapacious and eco-hostile (can’t refill cartridges, can’t print at all when printer decides cartridges are low)
- Decent print quality for photos—consumer grade is fine
HIGHLY DESIRABLE but not dealbreaker if absent:
- Wifi connectivity that actually works and can be setup by mere mortals
- AirPrint (print photos directly from iOS devices)