Canon Pixma MP190 all-in-one (HELP!)

[Treval]

My dad just bought me a really cheap printer ($40.00) without even thinking.
Well.. typical. Anyway, I've gone immediately online to check reviews.
Most of them were "I am (very) satisfied with this product", they got overal 8/10 ratings..
but guess what, they were reviewed by complete noobs who favor the "oh wow, there's a picture on the button in my setup!"-approach... I've said enough.

However, I've found a review of more serious users.. and look.. bad review.. :
the review

The reviews are at the bottom of the page so please scroll down.
Now I'm asking you guys for help because I have a fresh signed warranty paper (it was bought today) and I am wondering if I should tell my dad to send back this apparent 'scam of a printer' immediately and buy myself a decent printer (the last printer I bought cost me $300 but at least it was decent.. however it was from Brother and yep, it failed because that's what it was designed to do after a year. Its memory got corrupted and what can ya do, nothing but pay $500 to replace it).

Parents have good intentions but.. no tech skills. lol
Can you guys tell me an excellent, low-ink consuming, excellent-quality printing, excellent printer.. blah. Ok you know what I mean. I want an excellent printer for a decent price. What brand should I get? Oh and.. one that won't break (printer heads) after years!

Also.. should I get rid of this printer?
I'll give it a shot testing it out..

Cheers,
Treval

[Treval]

Right.

So here is my first opinion:

1) the setup took 53 minutes to complete. Has anyone ever had a setup that long?! I couldn't do ANYTHING meanwhile! I couldn't multitask because the thing was constantly occupying my I/O!

2) It re-aligns the printer heads every time you want to print ANYTHING (be it a simple black and white page)! It takes 14 seconds + 8 seconds to print ONE, SILLY, PAGE!!!
Should I be happy about this?!

Anyway.. further review pending.. on to the scanning..

24 seconds to print one page.
That is below par isn't it?
One, black and white, page! ONE PAGE!!! ONE!!!
Is this acceptable? =D

Anyway the real bottleneck if the transfer speed (yes I have USB 2.0 on my PC and USB 2.0 is the cable..) .. it just takes 15 seconds to re-align the printer heads every time I want to print anything.. but after the 14 seconds are over, it will print 8 seconds per page..

Guess what! This printer has no connectivity (ethernet/bluetooth/etc) whatsoever except USB! I guess I could remote desktop to it.. ROFL.. anyway.. further investigation pending..

Scanning: for a bad scan: 2 seconds
                for anything of a decent scan (max settings): 1 minute 5 seconds

Nice to waste my time. Anyway.. I'll just use it and see how it goes.

[Salmon Trout]

Believe me, I feel your pain. Realistically, a forty dollar inkjet printer is going to be pretty horrible, (I had a bottom-of-the-range Lexmark once), even without a scanner built in, and this sounds typical. You might say, "Ah, but I've got a scanner thrown in" but to my astonishment I see from those user reviews that the MP190 refuses to scan if the ink has run out! Seriously. It sounds very slow as well. At that price you are getting basic functionality - that's all. I had a Canon Pixma 4200 and a whole set of cartridges cost very nearly as much as the printer did. Eventually I gave up inkjet printing and bought a Canon laser printer for 45 English pounds - if I want colour prints I take a memory card to Boots (a well known chain of pharmacists). My laser toner cartridge is good for 1500 pages of average text.

[Treval]

1500 woah.. that is nice! Not so expensive neither.. Yeah laser is the way to go. One of the symptoms of an inkjet printer is that it prints stripes on the paper (horrible!) if the ink has not been used for a large amount of time.

I'm getting scared about the ink gone -> no more scan problem.. lol..
The funny thing is the other all-in-one's printing no longer works but the scan does.. so should I clog my desk with two printers if the ink is gone? ROFL.. hm nah.. dunno.
An even funnier thing is that this printer prints faster (reacts) over the wifi than when connected locally (double you tee eff?). Yeah. No 14 second lag. Something to do with print spooler and priorities.
I've printed my detailed digicam pic and the result is quite good on basic settings even.

Anyway, until this one gives up, I'll save up for a new one.
If this one breaks, well, time for a new one. =P
I also haven't heard many positive things about the lifespan of this..
Also there is no double-sided printing (meh). That is a real bottleneck.
With my other printer I would just print my book in one fly. LOL
Now I'm wondering how long it will take until my grayscale/color printing will last.
They say 15 pages.. hah.. well I'm about to find out this week/month.. lol..

[BC_Programmer]

My printer prints everything in magenta now. The output was alright when it was working but I sure can't submit pink resumes...


...

or CAN I?...

I also know what you mean by Noob reviews. the reviews for my printer were pretty much ooh's and ahh's "OMG SRSLY THE PRINTER TALKS WHEN IT IS GONNA PRINT!"... they forgot to mention the most common "talk" was the printer software saying "Problem Communicating with the Printer"

[patio]

Looking a gift horse in the mouth a bit ? ?
If it suxx that bad go buy one.

[Treval]

they forgot to mention the most common "talk" was the printer software saying "Problem Communicating with the Printer"

Rolling over the floor laughing.
I'm wondering if you guys are drunk (I'm not).

Happy Easter!

[Salmon Trout]

Inkjet printers follow the business model established by King C Gillette, who gave his razors away and made his money on the blades. They generally use up the ink even if you don't print anything, since every time you turn them on they "purge" the print heads by squirting ink through them and also they go through cleaning routines periodically which use up... guess what? Ink! Furthermore, many brands have ink cartridges with chips in them that detect attempts to refill or substitute third party cartridges. Usually the point at which low ink level prevents further printing is set very conservatively, like when there is 20%-30% left... I did see a couple of years ago that Kodak attacked that business model by producing inkjets which were maybe more expensive initially but were more robust and also cheaper to run; I don't know how far they succeeded.

[Treval]

Yes indeed there are chips on mine.
According to some googling, you can apparently disable the pre-programmed limit that you are not allowed to scan when the ink is nearly gone due to 'printer maintenance'. That would be nice.

[BC_Programmer]

Looking a gift horse in the mouth a bit ? ?
If it suxx that bad go buy one.

In an interesting twist that also applies to me since mine was also a gift

OTOH it <did> work fine for over 3 years (well, minor problems aside).