Budget? :D
I know some awesome printers used for graphic design.

Ah yes, but I do not know how it will translate onto other markets - around $300.

Interesting read here. Soon I'll be in the market for a new printer myself. I would look at the long cost of having a printer and the ink to run them. Even if you have a top notch printer, be careful of the price for ink for it. I bought a A4 Epson PXG-900 (Japan model) as a X-mas present when it first came out. Didn't pay attention to how much each ink cartridge cost. I didn't help myself either buy getting an 8 cartridge printer.

So look at what model you think will work best for you and check the price for the ink. This also goes for lasers as well. Some laser toners cost more on certain brands than others. Should I come across more solid info for you to use I'll post in here.

I have used Lightscribe on about 30-40 discs without an issue, but they were audio discs. They do cost a bit more, but watch for deals if you're expecting to need any. It takes about 15-20 minutes to burn an image on the entire disc. You can shorten this time by keeping things near the middle. Image quality is good actually (I use the highest setting), but monochrome, of course. I don't think you need to worry about data on the other side because it works like a thermal printer and only affects the thermal-sensitive side.

I would definitely stay away from sticky labels for CDs.

Printer-wise, I have a Canon MP620B and do not recommend it. The scanner is great, but it uses ALL of the ink even when I only print using black. I think it wastes the other ink due to it going through a cleaning cycles after every print and I rarely print things out.

I had to break down and go with non-OEM ink this time. I know people say not to, but
$69 for ink is a bit expensive. I just bought a 12 pack for $12, which includes two complete sets of the 5 needed for the printer and two extra large black inks. Normally this would cost me $138 for OEM (and that's excluding the two extra black inks, which would add another $34). Even if only some of those worked and the second set dries up before I need it, I still come out ahead. I just replaced them yesterday and what I've printed looks fine. That's not saying that there isn't a gamble involved...

None the less, be sure to do research on that if that matters to you. I like to conserve the color ink by printing using black unless color is needed. My printer choice was bad in this case. I didn't imagine that would be an issue.

I know this information comes a bit late, but there you go nonetheless! :D

Yes, I knew about this relation just forgot to post - first post edited again. Thanks ;)

It does.

Lightscribing will require another purchase as my current recorder does not support it.

That's why Im looking for printer with CD print support build-in. ;)

Weird (and good warning for me). So far everyone was talking that Canon / Epson are the best manufacturers.

Nope, not late. I still have time to decide :)
Yes, I am aware of that. ;)

No wories. It's not like I said anything new. :p

Where I'm at there are really only two printer makers. Epson and Canon. Sure there are some others but since I use a Mac I have to be careful on driver issues. Fuji-Xerox and one other maker have lasers but they are geared towards small and large offices. For the home office or user there is Brother but most of their printers look like I could break them real easily.

So once I finish my list of possible choice, I'll post here for you and others to enjoy.

Solo

True, but they are relatively cheap. I think the one I got was around $40, but that was a couple years back when my CD drive went bad. But the ability to print on a CD is definitely better looking. I had to take the lower-budget way.

I know, just reaffirming what had already been mentioned.

Overall, I think I would agree with everyone else. I think this one is a rotten apple. Even the best companies have duds.

This one has been a pain. It takes about a minute to print from the time I tell it to print. It goes through some sort of cleaning cycle to get the heads ready (I assume) then it prints and once it has determined that you're done printing (you haven't printed anything else for awhile) it cleans them again. This seems to be what sucks the ink out because I usually only print 1 or 2 pages at a time and not all that often. It probably uses more ink cleaning itself than I do printing.

MP620 is a dud in my book, but I wanted something with a nice scanner because i have a lot of scanning to do and it has one (though not automatic, which would be nice). I researched before buying but still missed out on this ink issue.

(I think you were wanting something higher quality or standard, so I doubt this would have been one of your choices at any stage, but it does serve at least as a warning.)

Just thinking out loud - maybe it is some driver / software issue and it is possible to correct this? Black color could be also generated by using colors together (as K alone is not "pure black") Such combination of colors to get high quality black color is used for example to generate professional printer bleed / registration marks (more about this here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Registration_black). If you are sending unprepared data / unsupported format it could be badly translated in your printer "bios" (more about CMYK's black [K] you can find here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CMYK)

Nope, this printer has five ink cartridges. One large black for printing in black, then CMYK for printing color stuff.

This is a known issue with this particular printer that I learned about too late. I have gone through all steps recommended by Canon to correct the situation. I think it would not be as noticeable if I habitually printed 50-100 pages at a time.

I'm pretty sure it has to do with the head cleaning process.

Epson is probably the cat's meow but you're gonna have to pay to keep that kitty purring. If that's your money maker, go for that brand (and could suggest models but none I'd recommend are in the $300 price range)

For semi-pro stuff, I'd recommend HP. You'll get a solid year out of it (assuming you print 500 papers every two weeks) and can fit a lot of different paper weights. The ink is fairly cheap compared to Canon and you can calibrate the colors on most models (assuming you have a color calibrator -which you will need for semi-pro). The built in scanners most have are okay. Not as good as Canon but printing is better than Canon. You can't buy mine anymore in stores but my friend has a current model and I'll get those details. i think it's the PS7510 model he has but it could be the 8500A PLUS.

Brothers are awesome for black and white and looooots of printing but the ink is a little pricey and a pain to switch out. I used one for an election campaign. They are pretty tough/robust machines (at the end of the campaign I had an awful day because of the ink switching and pulled a fax-machine Office Space moment on it and it could still print manually).

Avoid Canon and Samsung. Canon makes great cameras and they should just stick to that. Samsung prints everything cold (blue) and calibration sucks and sucks up yellow ink.

I took back an HP Photsmart C4795 because the scanner sucked so bad. The scanner driver always reverted back to factory defaults which were too bright and washed out. All of the manual tweaking I did would be lost the next time I went to scan a document. There were also mysterious white specks on all of the scans despite repeated attempts at cleaning everything off.

The printer part was very good though. I just needed something with a good scanner because Windows 7 wouldn't recognize the flatbed scanner we had for years.

I had the exact same one and same issues too. The glass had impurities in the manufacturing. Ended up on my parent's computer bc they don't even know how to use the scanner let alone notice that.

My issue with canon is that they look great when paired with canon cameras but aren't reliable color wise for anything else.