I have owned three Lexmark All-In-One (AIO) machines and currently have a X8350, yes it is an inkjet. This has had good reviews and I am very happy with it as an "office" machine. Discounts are available and I paid something around $100 at BJs just before Christmas. It has a flat-bed scanner with a multi-sheet feed, used to fax or copy. The display/controls are very intuitive and it has a full color control screen that is very easy to read in poor light. Also, it has a set of memory card input slots, e.g., like what is in digital cameras. I have not tried it on pictures, but it will do them I'm sure, best to get the gloss photo paper and it may be a challenge to do 4x6 inch prints, the most popular in my home. Lexmark is also one of the easiest to refill cartridges, making ink far more economical.

I need a printer for text and some photos, as noted in my first post. I spent many hours reading reviews and there was no stand-out. Several days ago, my SIL sent a photo she printed at home of an online image of an oil painting. It was so outstanding, I could hardly believe my eyes. Hers is a Canon Pixma mg5320. I ordered an updated version, Canon Pixma mg6320 which has a gray cartridge for better b/w photos. This printer is mainly for text but I was really wowed by her photo, esp as she is not a tech person.

I've got a HP All-In-One prnter, HP Photosmart 3210xi. Its a printer, copier, and scanner. This particular model has USB port. The next model changed the ports, but was essentially the same machine inside. I got this printer because I needed to have achival quality ink for genealogical records, and to print photos. This printer uses 6 cartridges of HP's Vivera ink, and fixed print heads. This printer has worked well for me. The inks are pricey, but the black cartidge does print a reasonable number of pages. To date, I have run 8000 sheets of paper through this machine. I was concerned about clogging of fixed print heads, but that has not occurred. However, I do follow, without fail, HP's instruction to shut the printer off and allow time for it to store the print heads, before removing power. Other HP printers had the print head on the ink catridges, thus, a clogged print head could be fixed by changing the cartridge. The fixed print head was a concern of mine since I had bad experience with a Tektronix printer with fixed heads at my work (when ink jets first became available way back in the 1980s.) Happily, I have not had a problem with my print heads and I have owned this printer for 2 years. The printer does have a habit that startles the user until he becomes familar with it. The printer has an automatic maintence program built-in to keep the heads and ink supply in shape. Periodically, the maintence program will start and may startle the user. The printer is not available for use while the maintence routine runs. There is no recourse but to wait. The maintence routine lasts from 30 sec to 1 minute. Ink cartridges are sold singlely, or in a pack of 6 cartridges with 50 sheets of 4"x6" photo paper. This photo pack, at first, appears to be a good deal until one learns that there is less ink in these cartridges than the regular ones. There is just enough ink to print the number of photo sheets in the package. I found it was economical to buy a couple of these photo packs collecting more photo paper than I would use for awhile, and then switch to buying the regular cartridges. The inks and printer does print nice photos when the special photo paper is used. One caveat: the ink is not as resistant to running if exposed to water droplets as one might hope based on advertisements. It smears even after a drying time of 1 day. But protect the ink from wetting, and the results are fine.

I have owned three Epsons and while they were superior to the print output of an HP I was able to try at home, I too noticed the ink dries quickly in them if you don't print often. I also found they were not very intuitive setting up for printing on 4"x6" photo paper. That may have changed/improved since I used my Epson (7+ years ago) but I still want to avoid one because of the ink issue. I'm going to do some comparisons with Canon and HP printers today and make a decision soon I hope. I am in the process of (re)starting my own home-based design business again. I had it for eight years before accepting an offer I couldn't refuse from a high tech company 7 years ago. I left them in September 2012 and wanted to get my travel to Southeast Asia out of the way before I got serious about going back to work.