I'll share my experience with a Canon MF. I just bought the Canon MP530, and it seems great for an inkjet (I still love frickin' lasers b/c there are no worries with highlighting, water, etc, but inkjet is much kinder to aging power circuits).
First of all, Canon's received a lot of good press for the past few years. AFAIK, they've got affordable 1st-party ink (I've compared refill amounts, Canon seems to offer more ink for less money than HP at this price point), a robust ink delivery system (separate print heads and ink tanks so cheaper refills than HP [tho I think newer HPs separate the heads and the tanks] but apparently none of the issues idle Epsons have), good text and photo quality (HW.fr's got some photo comparos), and
duplexing (IMO, a must). Secondly, no HP matches the MP530's featureset at $180: ADF, quality scanner (per reviews), duplexing, fax, separate color tanks, decently fast for inkjet. Comparably-priced HPs are much smaller units, to be fair, but I was concerned with features and price, not size.
My only complaint is that the scanner (perhaps just mine) emits an annoyingly pitched tone when doing color magazine scanning (specifically, the descreening causes the whiny scanner speed). My older Canon LiDE 20 (also CIS, so put 'em on the glass or they'll be out of focus) scanner moves at a mellower pitch when descreening. The solution is to just scan as 'color document' rather than 'color mag,' the bonus being it's much faster even at much higher res. Otherwise, it's fast and as inoffensive as I expect when making copies using the ADF or platen. Well, it's a bit big--definitely one for the tabletop--but it's probably not unreasonably so for a duplexing ADF.
Seems like at the high end, HP is offering networking as a bonus carrot, and Canon's got duplexing (on everything, basically, even their relatively cheap Pixmas like the $60 iP4200). I ignore Epson b/c of what I've read (perhaps outdated) about print heads clogging when not used daily/weekly and sub-par text. Not familiar with Lexar, but I expect its ink is priced similarly to HP's, meaning more than Canon's. Same with Dell, I figure: low entry price, higher lifetime cost. The Canon's features and overall price won me over.
I like it. I haven't faxed or photo printed (Costco FTW) with it yet, but it prints color/b&w docs nicely on copy paper, very nicely on Costco's cheap but quality Xerox multipurpose paper.
Color lasers are looking pretty good even when photo printing nowadays, and they're getting suprisingly cheap--initially, anyway. I have no idea how pricey color toners are.
Though I'm pretty pissed that I didn't read Apple's rebate closely enough to realize that I only get the $100 rebate when buying a Mac and a printer from Apple themselves. Bastards.
~$100 for the MP530 would be a steal.
Ah, just caught your high-end dictum. I haven't looked at the market above ~$200, so I don't know how HP and other multifunctions stack up in features and initial and lifetime costs at $400+ (the black ink catridges on the 7410 are definitely bigger than the Canon's 13ml tank, tho the tricolor averages about the same as the Canon's individual 5ml tanks). Also, the 530's scanner is just 1200x2400dpi; the 830's clears your hurdle with ease, and as a bonus it's CCD (no glass-mashing, I think). The 530's scanner's no slouch, though. I got a kick out of someone feeding the ADF the wrong side of a doc, and the printout being not a blank page but a faint copy of the right side of the doc.
No idea about photo scans, though.
Edit: The 7410's black ink ain't cheap. 21ml for $30 vs. Canon's 13ml for $15, and the HP hasn't got individual color tanks. Seems like a bust for $400 compared to the Canon 830 and even 530. The 9110's got some big-, no, huge-ass tanks, but dunno their prices. This is assuming both companies use about the same amount of ink per equivalent pages, of course, which may not be the case.
