anyone got any direction to go for when looking at a budget scanner/printer that works well with the mac?

basically for scanning old photos and printing text address slips

I personally would look at the Canon MP610 for $229. An extremely fast scanner/printer etc and a bargain for what you getting

the 210 model is heaps cheaper again but I cant comment on the quality

I'd toddle down to Officeworks - I bought this:

Brother MFC5460-CN network all-in-one

on Friday - $99, marked down from $179, which was marked down from $349. There are a lot of sale items in the stores.

Just don't get a Lexmark... Told my mum to buy one and it was nothing but trouble...

I have a HP Photosmart C4180-latest model in that series is C4385.
It has bigger inks means less ink wasted and works very well on a Mac-even when shared with a Windows PC. .

Oh poop, I just bought a Lexmark today... But it's a Wi-Fi one. Gonna be fun tomorrow playing around with it. Would do it tonight, but I don't have a power cable extension.

I have the Epson rx510. Pretty good for speed and quality and works with the mac drivers that ship with os x. The one I have is a few years on now so may be better versions out there.

W2ttsy

+1 for the Canon MP610.

Have it connected to the Airport Extreme to share with Macs and a PC. Print quality is VERY good. Not the most budget printer you could get but considering printer manufacturers make their money from cartridges I feel it is worth it to pay a little more for a good unit.

we had a HP multifunction, was about $89 then, from the local Post Office 2 years ago and it worked really well,

but while the scanner always did a good job, eventually it had trouble with the paper feed to the printer,
and she who must be obeyed decided it was broke and put it in the wheely bin! (without telling me!) at least she saved the USB cable!

I see that the local post office has HP multi's available again for very cheap prices, and with the promise of refund after purchase too.

There is a chance that my un-computer-knowledgable parents somehow did something bad to the printer... but basically within a very short period of time (weeks) it would only print images the size of postage stamps, and/or half of what you wanted printed.

As I'm not local to their environment they had a mac techy nerd visit a few times to try fix it, but he had no luck.

I've told them to buy a Canon...

Yeah I can also vouch for the brother, I have the MFC- 5860CN, plays nice with mac and networks nicely.

The ink cartridges aren't too badly priced either.

See the $149 Printer/Copier/Fax/Scanner deal on Catch Of The Day - More Than You Bargained For

ONLY $149 AFTER $150 CASHBACK!

NOOOOOOOOO!

Great price but no flat bed for copying and scanning. Had one for a year at work and it copies and scans only A4 decently.

Then, 13mths old and the barrel shreds itself.

Avoid! Avoid! Avoid!

The cheap Canon's are pretty decent I beleive (200 - 300 series???) Bing Lee NSW has one on sale for $63 and a $30 USB cable for $15 at the moment.

I have a Epson CX4700 (I'll confirm that when I get home). I bought it about 2 years ago and it's been a great printer/scanner.

Like you, I wanted to scan old photos. I found the software to be Mac friendly (with Tiger) and very good - I like that you can choose between noob or pro modes when scanning.

The thing I like best about this printer is that the price of the ink cartridges are not outrageous like HP and Canon's often are. Officeworks have individual colours (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and blacK) at around $15 but I usually buy the full replacement pack for around $52, which comes with a bonus pack of 10 4x6" photo paper.

Epson guarantee the inks won't fade for 100 years - I'll get back to you on that when I'm 140 years old

The CX4700 has been superceded but check out the latest range, including 6-colour models at the Epson site.

Hmm, thanks for the tip.

Only get what you pay for I suppose.