Home Printers

[Orphia Nay]

Someone I know has been offered a used Epson home printer (for printing at home, not printing houses, smartypantses ).

They're considering taking it to replace their HP printer they say the ink is too expensive for ($AUD100 for the "large size").

The Epson has individual ink cartridges for Yellow, Magenta, Cyan, and Black. The HP has just colour and black.

The person does a fair bit of printing, including occasional batches of around 50 A4 flyers for local events etc.

Anyone got a rough idea which printer would be more economical?

 

[Norman Alexander]

Inkjets are disproportionately expensive. The major cost is the ink, while the printer itself is dirt-cheap. It has been proven often that when your cartridges run out, it is actually cheaper to buy a whole new printer than a set of replacement cartridges.

Most people print black text only, rarely using colours except for the odd photo. So I suggest that if you are doing a lot of printing, invest in a good quality B&W laser printer instead. Plenty available from a couple of hundred bucks including MFP models. Laser cartridges are cheaper than ink cartridges and print thousands of pages. You can redesign your flyers accordingly.

 

[Trebuchet]

Epson has printers that use ink from tanks you refill from a bottle. Thats supposedly much cheaper.

 

[alfaniner]

Ever since they've come out with specific color cartridges I've gone with that style instead of the 4-color-pack plus black. I used to print a lot of photos and would always run out of one color before the others, requiring me to throw that entire cartridge away. It's nice if you can get one that allows for Photo Black and/or a 2XL black cartridge.

 

[welshdean]

Laser every time.

 

[Norman Alexander]

And if you want good colour prints, use a local photo print service. They will make a better product faster and cheaper than the cost of your inks.

 

[Blue Mountain]

If you seriously need to do a lot of colour printing, look into a 4-colour laser printer. Just be sure to price the cost of replacement cartridges before deciding on a make and model. You could end up paying a bargain for the printer, then paying as much or more when replacing one or two colours.

Also, a lot of printers come with "starter cartridges" that don't print as many pages as a full replacement cartridge. If you can find a knowledgeable salesperson, quiz him or her about this.

In my opinion, recycled and refilled laser toner cartridges are better than refilled inkjet cartridges because I believe there's very little variation on toner: it's basically extremely fine plastic powder. Inkjet, on the other hand, may have different formulations by company and even by product.

 

[Wudang]

Watch out for printers that don't let you use anything other than their new cartridges.

 

[lionking]

Inkjets are disproportionately expensive. The major cost is the ink, while the printer itself is dirt-cheap. It has been proven often that when your cartridges run out, it is actually cheaper to buy a whole new printer than a set of replacement cartridges.

That might look good, but the cartridges in the new printers are only a fraction of the size of the full cartridge. This may not be the case for all of them, but I was caught out.

Of course it’s also possible to buy clone cartridges for a fraction of the price at places like Ink Station.

 

[P.J. Denyer]

Inkjets are disproportionately expensive. The major cost is the ink, while the printer itself is dirt-cheap. It has been proven often that when your cartridges run out, it is actually cheaper to buy a whole new printer than a set of replacement cartridges.

Most people print black text only, rarely using colours except for the odd photo. So I suggest that if you are doing a lot of printing, invest in a good quality B&W laser printer instead. Plenty available from a couple of hundred bucks including MFP models. Laser cartridges are cheaper than ink cartridges and print thousands of pages. You can redesign your flyers accordingly.

This. I was offered an accounting position at a major inkjet manufacturer years ago and at the interview we were discussing this, the hardware is low margin, sometimes even subsidised, as the margin on refills is so high. ETA: Which is also why, as linking points out, they are often supplied with reduced capacity cartridges, otherwise it could in some cases be literally cheaper to replace the whole printer than buy cartridges.

In terms of laser printers, the toner refills are expensive but haven't yet reached the heights of ink, and the capacities are hugely greater. I got a new, overstock, Pantem laser printer, network enabled and duplex for well under £100. Admittedly I was VERY lucky, I'd be amazed if I ever found another deal like that.

 

[Dabop]

I actually hardly ever print anything but text- and pulled out one of my old dotmatrix printers to use (I have to use it with the old tower thats running my CNC mill, as it is the only computer here that still has a parallel port lol)

SOOOOO much cheaper to run than either laser or inkjet (especially inkjets...)

I've got 2 inkjets and a multifunction inkjet- and not one is ever ready to print without buying new cartridges (I sometimes go months without ever printing, and every single time- whatever printer I had hooked up needed new cartridges before I could print anything...)

The dotmatrix just.... works...

(I reinked its ribbon about two years ago, and its still going, I might have to do it again in the next year or two- it's just starting to get a little 'lighter' than it used to be...)

 

[Andy_Ross]

I have a Canon printer, it has combined colour cartridge and a separate, larger black cartridge.
I rarely print colour and use a refill kit to top it up, same with the black.

zi occasionally buy a new black as the heads wear.

I always buy a refilled cartridge from an online company.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Why is printer ink so expensive?

 

[Trebuchet]

I've got a printer ink cartridge ad now at the bottom of the page!