My Brother MFC6490CW A3 Wireless "Multi-function Color" (MFC) Inkjet printer broke down a few months back. I only managed to get it repaired a moment ago. The service engineer had the black Inkjet Print Head replaced a moment back. Burnt another hole in my pocket...
Apparently, this Brother printer has the shortest lifespan amongst the rest of my inkjets. Having said that, It's also one of my very first A3 Inkjets & MFCs.
Canon Inkjet printers have been faithful serving all my desktop colour printing needs since the 90's.
Canon Pixma Injet Printer
Couple of years back, I also had the opportunity to work on Epson Large Format Proofers (5000/7000/9000/10K series) using EFI (previously Bestcolor Technology) Colorproof XF 3.x.
These are excellent proofers if both the printers & paper are set with the right ICC profiles. A tedious process if third party (more cost effective) paper is used to calibrate/generate the ICC paper profiles...
I would say printers have really evolved over the years... people no longer need to decide between a Kodak Dye-Sub vs a Solid-Ink Techtronix Phaser vs Thermal Transfer Phaser vs Epson Inkjet vs a Xerox Splash vs a Fiery Canon printer...
Inkjet technology has indeed dominated the print proofing market even thought it's possible to calibrate a Xerox Color Copier to be a proofer. The next wave of proofing will be digital proofing for digital content as more emphasis will be on e-zines (electronic magazines) & internet creatives.
At least for the next 5-10 yrs, traditional print is here to stay.
Even though, we are seeing more portable e-Readers like Amazon's Kindle DX, Apple's iPad, Sony Reader and Barnes & Noble's Nook, Traditional print in my opinion is still the de facto portable reading medium for the mainstream.
Amazon Kindle DX
Apple iPad
Sony Reader (PRS-600)
Barnes & Noble Nook
Btw, it's not just about whose eReader is more sleek - It's about who dominates the Information (News) & advertisement multi-billion dollar market first...
These "readers" are just "plain medium or paper" - monopolizing the whole process or platform for content, advertisement & e-commerce (iTunes/App Stores/iAds, eBay, Amazon.com, etc) is what's drawing tonnes of eBook readers makers...
Why do you think Apple gets lawsuits for iAds? It's definitely more than trademark infringement I tell you...
As the market gradually become more dominated by "digital natives" aka "Generation Z" who will advocate on "green environment" & "eco-friendly movements", there's when the traditional print industry will be endangered...
This might also mean there will be lesser highly paid magazine models as most will be replaced by Computer Generated (CG) ones or even with "Holographic" models or Human-like robots with in-built interactive platform for online purchases, news & advertisement...
Scary what tomorrow might bring yah?
For now, I'm just happy my Brother printer is printing well again...
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