HP Deskjet F4288 or F4488 - Advice Needed....

Hello there

Planning to buy a low cost, low maintenance AIO printer for Home use

(previously had Canon Pixma Mp 180; cartridge got screwed; new one was costing 1100 and nothing was working without cartridge, not even scanning(this really pis*ed me off); so gave the printer to a friend)

looked around in the forum...these two seem to be good options...

Could somebody please advice on which model to go for ? Want low maintenance (meaning easy cartridge refill from local shop or by myself) ; decent printing and other features....

unable to figure out which one of these is best ? (any other suggestion will also be of help)

thanks in advance....

AFAIK F4288 has been discontinued and F4488 is its current avatar.

I'm an extremely dissatisfied user of F4288. The cartridge HP 818 has a chip in it which is difficult (or maybe impossible) to reset to show ink levels when refilled, and so what happens is sometimes the printer accepts refilled cartridges, but mostly it rejects it -- the ink level light keeps blinking showing empty cartridge thus rendering the printing function useless.

If you're not looking to refill, and instead use original HP cartridges, then by all means go with F4288. The print quality is average, but totally works for simple home/office use. the color cart. costs around 950 bucks and the b/w 750 (there is a cheaper b/w variant called 818b which costs 350). But if you're looking to refill, avoid this one. Go to a cartridge world outlet and ask them which cart. is easy to refill, and take their advice in buying a printer if refilling is what you want to do.

I on the other hand am thinking of switching to you very brand you dumped. The Canon Pixma. (if not 180, some other model). Its easy to set up a continuous flow system (CISS) on these canons, as also to refill them personally with a syringe, (a technique known as the "german method" -- an in-house term coined in an inkjet printer forum ive been visiting lately --> Inkjet Printer Forum / Ink Jet Refill Forum

refer that forum for more printer ideas. good luck!

get an all in one printer from walmart or best buy:

Walmart.com: HP Photosmart C4240 All-in-One Printer: Unassigned Electronics

o and i forgot to mention that i have this myself and it is really easy to use and refill the ink

ok, this is my previous comment regarding easy CISS installation on canon printers.

I did a complete survey for CISS compatible printers and have come out with the conclusion (my own) that epsons, and not canons, are by far the most ciss friendly stuff.

here is an online portal selling CISS products: Continous Ink Supply Systems - Divakar Computronix & Systems

and here is the list of epson printers available in india: Epson

I'm personally going with the Epson R230 with CISS. its a relatively cheap photo quality printer (not AIO) that goes well with CISS (double checked on it from refill-wallahs). A mid-range AIO that goes with CISS is the epson tx200, but not sure if it prints photo quality.

heh, i'm gonna go berserk printing photos now. yoohoo!