I used to repair printers.
Epson - my preferred pick for inkjets - best-in-class compatability, good quality (reliable)
Canon - not in MY house, compatability rates a zero
Lexmark - not in MY house, compatability rates a zero
HP - expensive for what you get, sometimes OK, sometimes not, drivers suck.
Xerox - expensive, not very good, compatability is terrible
Brother - reasonable quality, slow, usually built like a tank, iffy compatability
Others: If you can find one, a dye-sublimation printer (like Alps), they have color so good you won't believe it -- think about it, with inkjets, the best color output is with extremely white and fine count paper, and inkjets by their very nature take white and make it darker. Dyesub, on the other hand, imprints a SOLID (not a liquid) color onto the paper so you could print WHITE onto black paper, for example. Color is outstanding. Price is usually higher (think $300-400 for a good printer). Sometimes E-Bay has them for less.
Lasers are THE BEST when it comes to black and white (and shades of graaaaayyyyy).
Color lasers are quite pricey but can only be beat by really nice dye-sub printers.
Hmm. Who else is there.
Kodak? Crap.
Regarding Epson's print heads - if you use the printer now and again it's not a problem. Epson has seperate carts for each color, a major bonus if you don't print stuff that has even color distribution.
In this market, it's really down to Canon and Epson, and Epson takes care of its users far better than Canon does. The quality of the product is about the same.
I own a laser for most printing and an Epson M300 for photos (I use Office Depot photo paper).
Epson also has some outstanding branded inks that more or less last forever.
Also look at:
http://www.ink4art.com/
for a good supplier of carts at reasonable prices.
