So a couple of weeks ago I bought a new printer.  The ink for my old printer was getting harder and harder to find.  Target was the only place that had it, and last time I bought some it was covered in a layer of dust.  Yeah, it wasn’t a very popular ink cartridge.  I figured the days of easily finding ink for that printer are numbered.  I was low on both black and color ink, so —for almost the price of the ink— I just bought a new printer.

If I remember correctly this the fifth printer I a have bought, and every time I am always amazed at the new one, and kind of shocked how crappy my old one was.

The first printer I bought was back in the early 90s.  It only printed in black.  I was amazed at how crisp and clean the black was and, gasp, it could print different fonts.  It was much better than those dot matrix printers we had in school.

A few years later I bought my first color printer.  It could print color, but really couldn’t handle pictures.  Just some basic color in documents.  It was my first and only HP printer.  After that I started buying Epson printers, and that is all I have bought since.

My third printer was my first Epson and I was amazed how good of photos it could print.  Looking back at those photos now, they are pretty crappy.

My fourth printer is the Epson printer that I am getting rid of now.  It prints pretty good photos.  I can’t really tell the difference between my printed photos, and printed photos from stores.  Nowadays though, it’s easier and probably cheaper to just get photos printed at stores, so I seldom print photos at home.

My new printer is an Epson WorkForce 633.  I’m sure the print quality is better than my old printer, but honestly I can really see a difference.  Printers have gotten so good now that print quality really doesn’t matter much anymore.  It’s other features that I love about my new printer.

It’s an all in one printer, like most of them are nowadays.  It’s nice to have a scanner again, since mine went to hell a few years ago.  I don’t really scan much, but it’s nice to be able to.  It has a nice document feeder too, so I can copy or scan multiple of pages easily.  The thing I really like about it is it’s paper try.  I can put a half of ream of paper in it, and not have to worry about paper levels for a long time.  Plus it holds the paper flat, so it doesn’t get all curled up. 

It’s WiFi, but I don’t really see a benefit to that.  It still has to be plugged into my computer to scan, so it didn’t eliminate and wires.  The only advantage I can see of it is that other computers on the network can print when my main computer is shut off, but my computer is never shut off, so who cares.  It’s probably more of a feature for noobs that don’t know how to share a printer on the network.

My favorite features are probably the speed —It prints super fast— and that it can print double sided.  It’s pretty cool how it prints one side, sucks it back in, and then prints the other side.

Have I really typed this much about something as unsexy as a new printer?  Holy crap.  Well, I don’t by printers too often, so I guess I really notice the changes when I do.