by
MichelB » Wed Sep 03, 2008 9:13 am
Rusty's points against all-in-one devices are sound advice... But I did the contrary and am very glad of my choice and the results. May I play the devil's advocate?
My situation was particular: I had a very good (and cumbersome) HP scanner with slides and negatives add-ons, a tray for a pack of 10x15cm pictures to scan. Very good results for normal scanning, so-so for slides and I did not trust the automatic loading of 10x15cm. It suddenly died, after the warranty period. On the other hand, my old HP printer could stand replacement and be used with my wife's laptop.
I was really surprised that for the price I bought my old scanner, I could buy an all-in-one HP C7280 with the following advantages:
- Printing: full A4 paper without margins, 6 inks, which proved to be much quicker and better quality
- scanning: better as a flatbed scanner
- Photocopy with automatic input tray, independent from the computer
- Fax
- Wi-fi provision
... and most of all a lot of space saved on my desk.
I understand why it is more and more difficult to find anything other than all-in-one devices.
- For normal use, the quality of each component is equal to separate components.
- The risk of failure after warranty period is superior, but the replacement price for an up-to-date device is acceptable.
This does not apply of course if you want something special, like slide or negative scanning, A3 printing...