Printer–Ink

Gerald

I would recommend buying the best printer for the money you can spend, ignoring the price for the cartridges, then going to amazon and searching for your printer, with another word like “compatible ink” or something like that. My HP laserjet 1018 OEM cartridges cost 70 bucks; I get them on amazon for 26.

Cindy

The basic business model is not unlike video game consoles: lure you in with very cheap printers (sold at a loss) and then sell the cartridges for lots of profit.

Typically if you buy a more expensive printer, the cartridges cost much less than if you buy a cheap printer. This has lots to do with the better engineering of the better printer as well as the fact that those printers are sold for profit (not at a loss)

If you want the cheapest printer to use, get a laser printer. They’re not very expensive and you can get thousands of prints from a single toner cartridge.

Marion

You can always purchase ink online. There are many sites that sell ink cartridges that are “compatible” with your printer. For instance, if I chose to buy a single ink cartridge locally, the price would be $13-$17 each. Well, I don’t do this. I found a site that sells ink for my Epson printer and I can get 4 high capacity cartridges for $26. Simply do a Google search for ink for your printer model and you should be able to find a retailer that sells ink for your printer at a much lower cost. Good luck!

Sandra

You can refill them, there are places like Island InkJet that will refill old ones. Although some companies discourage this and could void the warranty on the printer and they say the quality isn’t as good.

If you print lots you could try a laser printer, but Toner is expensive, but might be worth it if it lasts longer than ink.

Vincent

Printer ink is not the biggest ripoff known to man (yet). It still hasnt cost us hundreds of billions like the stimulus plan. However ink is over $5,000 a gallon (figure it out with $20 cartridges holding a half ounce of ink) which makes oil a bargain in comparison. What can you do?
Buy a printer for which you can find inexpensive cartridges. Right now Epson is having a blowout on the 5-color R280 for $60. It even prints on DVDs.

I get cartridges for my Epsons from for under $3 each. They have a unique product – a two-piece cartridge where the ink is in a separate tank inside the cartridge. When the ink runs out, you replace just the ink tank and the original chip resets itself to full. These hold 50% more ink than disposable cartridges.

As someone who was in the computer hardware business for years (though I rarely sold printers since I couldn’t compete with the crazy rebates) I have always recommended Epson. The print quality is excellent, even on plain paper. I have photos I printed on a 640 about ten years ago hanging in my office which still look good, though not as good as the ones from the CX8400 on glossy paper. The warranty is excellent. For a year, Epson will express-ship a replacement and pick up the old one. I had one customer who needed this. He called one afternoon and had the replacement two days later. Another client bought a Canon. It needed two repairs within a few months. Each time it was taken to the repair center, then picked up a few days later. This client runs a specialty printing business and this really hurt. They have since bought an Epson and have had no down time since.

Epson has also made things easier for their customers by standardizing their cartridges. Most of their printers use one of two types. The three-color plus black use T069 (CX5000 CX6000 CX7000 CX7400 CX7450 CX8400 CX9400FAX CX9475Fax NX100 NX105 NX400 Workforce 30/40/500/600 and C120) and the 5-color plus black use T078 (R260 R280 R380 RX580 RX595 and RX680). This means you should be able to find a lot of people who use the same cartridges you do. When it’s time to replace the printer, the next model will probably also use the same ones.

Samantha

Here is some information which could be helpful to you. You don’t always need to buy new, genuine branded cartridges: