It was on sale, plus we were already looking for a new printer and had to replace our old parallel-port scanner (no more parallel ports on new PCs). So why not kill a few birds with one stone? Metaphorically speaking of course.
The 6280 was also on sale. That's just what we need: Print, Copy & Scan. But due to some weird price planning, the 7280 was cheaper. So we got Faxing too.
I had done some research on inkjet vs color laser. It seemed like the lower end color laser printers could do text or charts in color, but not good enough for photos. And their print speed is slow. You had to pay alot more for speed. Too bad. I was hoping to escape the constant cycle of buying new inkjet cartridges (up to SIX of them) all too often. Laser typically has a longer life span per cartridge. But inkjet makes better photos, and we're not printing that many charts at home.
The 7280 was on sale (and maybe still is) at several stores. I was looking at it in Fry's Electronics. I asked if it had a slide scanner and a sales person said "Yes, when you scan something, the scanner slides back and forth." Uggh. Does anyone know anything at these places?
I ended up getting one at Office Depot. There wasn't a sales person to ask any questions, so I just picked up the box and took it to the register.I love having a networked printer. No more sharing from a USB connection. All the computers can see the printer.
Installing the "required" software went okay on a PC with Windows 2000. The installer crashed on our iMac. It ended up with just a fax driver but not printer. I deleted it and re-added it as a printer and was good to go.
I thought you needed the software, which consists of several utilities for printing, scanning, faxing, etc. But I was able to print on another Mac without it. I suppose I'd need the software for more than just printing. If you can get by without installing, do it.
We still haven't really put the printer to the test of printing photos yet. I had a chance to make a copy of something. That was really easy.
I'll post more results as they happen.
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