On that note, I highly recommend a Canon CanoScan LIDE scanner - less than €100.
Scan quality is good, and they have the great advantage of not needing a mains power supply - the scanner runs off the power from the computer’s USB port, so it’s really quick to plug in and use when you need it, without having to find an empty power socket to plug it in to.
I’ve had the LIDE 100 model for 15 years and it’s still going strong - the only reason I will have to replace it at some point is that it’s so old that it’s no longer supported by Canon in terms of driver software for current operating systems!
I think the LIDE 400 is the nearest current equivalent:
All the big shops mentioned are probably found in Carcassonne, you shouldn’t need to go to Toulouse. Eg as others have said Darty, Boulanger are the 2 big ones for electiricals. I’d hang on until the July sales if you can and if you can decide what you want I think often worth searching online, I don’t use Amazon 99% of the time and there are other options! The big Intermarche in Castel’ does have some electicals as does the one on the other side of town (on the main road out to head towards Carcassonne), I think it is a Carrefour now (was Geant when I lived there).
Good point, many of our small electircals are from there. My 12 litre front loading / mini oven style airfryer that i love is from there (ahs rotissirie chicken, kebab stick and chip turning basket attachments) it’s fab!! Lots of our garden bits are too, mini chainsaw, hand grass / hedge clipper etc.
I was going to go Epson Tank.Inkjet but recent reviews on most variants aren’t amazing. Wondering if there’s an accessible reliable Laser, does not have to do colour if there’s a major price advantage
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In the olden days, I used to go to the Harrods New Year Sale - I’d queue for hours sometimes if there was something special I wanted. I used to tell my then husband it wasn’t that I’d spent x number of pounds, it was the fact that I’d saved y number of pounds.
They’ve been around forever and their prices are now getting more competitive (though do check). I tend to use them for anything substantial.
Regarding printing, the new tank printers are a game changer in consumable terms. I’ve an Epson and a HP (my first HP) and both are very satisfactory. I prefer the HP because it loads the paper from the front.
Basic lasers are a much better option than inkjet printers IMHO if you want to print documents as opposed to photos, especially if you are an occasional user - inkjets clog up too easily and their cost per page is high.
I had a Brother laser for the best part of 14 years and it was 100% reliable. I now have a Xerox B230dni laser which cost me £95 from Amazon and so far has been just as good - a slightly quirky operating system being the only thing I could criticise.
It has wifi built in so you can print from mobile devices as well.
Laser printer technology is old hat nowadays so any of the well-known brands will be perfectly acceptable for most people.
Yes, Darty, Boulanger, Electro Depot etc all in Carcassonne but you do have a Darty and Promo Electro in Castelnaudary. The idea of Lidl Online is good. I recently bought a mincer/shredder/sausage maker there and it was very cheap. very solid and worked a dream.
Hey @DrSukie a couple of tips in addition to those of others above.
Lidl.fr is good but make sure you join Lidl Plus - download the app and sign up. Then go via the app when you’re serious as that’s where you click to activer the coupons for free shipping and category offers. Beware what looks like 10% or 20% off a whole category of stuff is often only on specific items in that category.
Cashback sites. For Lidl and any retailer above, before you buy always check your favoirite cashback site for offers and buy through that.
FWIW I have found igraal.fr is the most reliable and consistently pays out. They mostly offer slightly lower cashback but watch carefully eg some days they have boosted Lidl to 12% like today, normally 1.5%, also happens for other retailers. They’ll usually give you 3 euros extra for joining.
It does add up. You can get discounted gift cards for retailers also from cashback sites. Usually they come immediately as an emailed code and you then use that on the retailer’s site immediately so an instant discount.
Poulpeo.fr is Retailmenot but I have had Poulpeo refuse to honour cashback clearly proven qualified for. Retailmenot I never had any problems at all with in the US for years. I’d say they are safe for gift cards in France as they are an immediate transaction.
Widilo.fr - high rates of cashback but huge amount of denials of tracking of cashback on days exact same browser setup is tracked fine by igraal or poulpeo.
Ebuyclub ? not used but some recommend
You could check retailer FNAC. They are a bit niche and now owned by someone like Darty. But they did use to have a loyalty club with good bonuses especially boosted in early December for Christmas - not sure if they still have it. A small charge for membership if it’s still running. The trick was to take a very discounted rate in a promo for a 3 year card, or take a new 1 year membership as a new member that gave you a big discount on an item of your choice you bought at the same time.
I remember first encountering their rude and indifferent staff in 1981. I am delighted to be able to report that after my most recent visit, they have managed to maintain, if not increase, the level of rudeness and indifference. .
I was with them in the fun years when they were trendy and everyone got their stuff there. Used to like their espressos at the store in rue du Havre, I think, behind Galeries Lafayette/Printemps. Maybe things deteriorated later but the worst experience I remembee was in Toulouse it felt a bit like Foyle’s - a ittle chaotic and no one on the shop.floor. Their Membership desks aka Custlmer Services, were great
These days all in one is so cheap I don’t think it matters, whereas thirty years ago when I got my first scanner, it was a different story because then they were expensive. OTOH my first scanner could scan up to 3200%, which, believe it or not was occasionally very useful. Today the standard ones don’t have that facility.
A fair point. But my 15-year-old £50 scanner has hardly been a massive overhead!
We should probably not go down the rabbit hole of scanner settings and how many “DPI” you actually need to scan at for a good result - I’ve had many happy “discussions” with fellow photographers about that over the years!
Suffice it to say that most people scan at at a higher setting than they need, based on a confusion between scanner “dots” (which are pixels not dots) and printer “dots” (which are only dots when printing solid black and white!).
There is also a lot of marketing jiggery-pokery going on with scanner specifications - the higher resolutions are often achieved by interpolation which as you know is like a “digital zoom” on a camera - it’s not real data. The Canon LIDE 400 for example has an optical resolution of 4800x4800 pixels but can scan at “19200 dpi” - which is interpolated).
They tend to talk about DPI values not enlargement nowadays I think because often scanned documents and photos never get printed, they just stay digital, as PDFs or JPEGs, so the “final print size” is irrelevant - unlike when scanners first came out when we were typically scanning photos to go into a printed document so needed to calculate the final printed size.
Anyway - enough - very deep rabbit hole with all this!
