o/t price of printers ink.

bobs old iron · Sep 7, 2011

have a h/p 4in1 printer, niece needed to copy papers, came over and printer ran out of ink, now a new printer costs about $50>85, the ink for my printer costs $48 + taxes...no wounder why they say it cheaper to buy a new printer each time, now what the he@@ do you do with the old ones if you buy a new one....no one wants the old one because of ink price,,,is this screwy or what......

farmall300u · Sep 7, 2011

Guess you need to understand the business model. HP, Brothers, Canon, Lexmark, etc. give away the ink jet printer and make their revenue on the ink. The key metric is cost/page.
a) Cost per page for ink
b) Cost per page for maintenance items
c) Cost of printer amortized over 3 year est page volume.

In most cases, it is cheaper on a cost/page basis to buy a Laser Printer.

Deere Scotty · Sep 7, 2011

INDEED! They sell printers almost at cost, & sock it too you when the ink goes dry. Have You tried having the cartridges refilled. There are stores that will do it at about half the price of HP. One company that comes to mind is "Cartridge World". I know there is another company locally; but cant remember now what the name is.

MarkB_MI · Sep 7, 2011

Yes, they give away the printer. Kind of like the business model used for years by the razor blade industry.

The more expensive the printer is, the better the cost is in the long run. Stay away from the cheap printers, as the cost of ink will kill you and the quality is so-so.

tlak · Sep 7, 2011

We were looking for a new printer and started by checking the price of ink. My hp uses #92 & 93, about $14 a piece

Mike (WA) · Sep 7, 2011

The inkjet printers are real cartridge hogs. You're far better off with a laser printer, even though cost is a little higher at the outset.

Also, the price comparison of new printer to a printer cartridge is not what it seems, because the new printer comes with a smaller cartridge, and runs out quickly.

thurlow · Sep 7, 2011

Buy generic cartridges.........

Geo-TH,In · Sep 7, 2011

Go to ebay, put in your cartridge #, find "surplus-cartridges", $6.99 each including shipping. I've recently purchased 2 of them, work perfectly. They are actual HP cartridges, don't buy generic or replacements. Search for surplus-cartridges, comes with a 1 year warantee.

Bryan inIowa · Sep 7, 2011

EBAY!! toner for my laser was 87 from staples,found 2 for 47 free shipping on ebay. inkjet deals pretty much the same

Greenday · Sep 7, 2011

HP is a ripoff on there ink cartridges! I use a epsom. I can buy a 2 pack (1 black 1 color) of XL size for 35.00.

Jim in Ma. · Sep 7, 2011

I have used HP printers for years and liked them But the Ink was getting $$. When my last printer died I got a Kodak ESP3200. Cost was around $ 100. It has been great. Prints good photos too.
The ink lasts about the same as the old HP and cost is about 1/2

greenbeanman in Kansas · Sep 7, 2011

I agree with others, if all you need is black printing then get an inexpensive laser printer. I purchased a Brother printer for $49. Works well and has done a lot of printing with the original toner cartridge, but I did buy a spare.

The key to less expensive color inkjet printer is to buy an Officejet model. They use four separate color cartridges so when you run out you only replace the low one. Also the model I have can use standard sized cartridges or oversize capacity ones for even greater savings.

The print head is not built into the ink cartridge for additional cartridge savings and the print heads are easily replaceable should there be a need.

From an Ebay listing I purchased a still new model that had been re-certified by the manufacturer and then added an extended warranty for something like $19. Haven't needed it yet.

There is also improved speed with an Officejet model, higher paper capacity, and they can generally take several paper sizes where home models sometimes cannot.

For a scanner I use a flatbed model I purchased for specific features. It can scan photo slides and negatives and without effort renders the negatives color correct. The only thing wrong with it I've found is that there aren't negative carriers fol all of the old sizes of film, i.e. from the 1940s through the 1970s when 35mm became so predominate. How many of you remember the old 828 camera size?

MFPoor · Sep 7, 2011

Or a tlak printer....just copies the same ol' crappe over and over and over and over

greenbeanman in Kansas · Sep 7, 2011

I was in Office Max the other day and they now have a behind the counter ink cartridge refilling station. Refill while you wait I guess.

Janicholson · Sep 7, 2011

I own an office jetpro series and am happy. The cartridges last and it is a =far easier to swap out a cartridge than get a new printer of marginal value setup and printing. I use a P1505 laserjet HP B&W printer at work, and it is very cheap to operate. Both of these are not throwaway devices. Jim

RodinNS · Sep 7, 2011

If you're doing even a modest amount of printing you're better off with a laser printer. I bought an HP 4in1 this spring. HP cartridges for this thing would run about 400 bucks but if I shop around on the net I can get them for about 120 bucks.... and that will print 1500-2000 pages. I was lucky to get 100 pages from the jet printer I had before. Wait for a sale at Staples or somewhere like that and you can pick up these laser's for ~350 bucks. Toner cartridges don't dry out like inkjets either...

Rod

thurlow · Sep 7, 2011

Buy.com has a COLOR laser printer on sale for $135.99 delivered to your door.

Spook · Sep 7, 2011

I used to have a bunch (25+) of HP LJ printers I was responsible for. They were attached to automated gages, and frequently did 500+ sheet per day. One thing that bothered us was the changing design of the printers, HP would have a new design, and new cartridges come out every year. At one time we had to stock 4 different cartidges, all at $100+ @. We never had much luck with 3rd party cartridges, we never got the production out of them.

greygoat · Sep 7, 2011

I use HP # 15 black, and # 78 color, and am
extremely pleased with price and quality of
refilled cartridges from "Cartridge World".
They have franchises all over the country. To find a location go to:www.cartridgeworldusa.com

Nancy Howell · Sep 7, 2011

My printer has a color cartridge and a separate black cartridge. What irritates me is if either cartridge goes out, the printer will not work until you replace it.

I guarantee you those cartridges have an end date. After that date they won"t work regardless of how much ink they have. BTDT Then the printer won"t work until you replace them.

Its called racket.

Geo-TH,In · Sep 7, 2011

Nancy, the next time your cartridge won't work and it still has ink in it, put the business end of the cartridge on a wet rag until you see ink on the rag. The water will open up the choked ink jets. I do it all the time. Have a printer that I don't use often and have to wet the jets to make it work, especially the colored cartridge.
george.

John Harmon · Sep 7, 2011

Try a Lexmark s405: I think you would stop compaining about your HP if you did. The thing[Lexmark] refuses to operate on any thing but a genuine Lexmark cartridge. When the cartridge is empty it"s empty. Get the cartridge refilled at Office Max ,insert it and it will still not operate. It will not recognize any thing but a new cartridge which must be bought at Lexmark.Talk about a conspiracy!The cartridges have chips installed which a main computor some where regulates,believe that?

CAROGATOR · Sep 7, 2011

The trick to refilling restricted cartridges is to refill before they run out and you won't trip the no reuse chip.

John - OH · Sep 7, 2011

Use ebay, catridges are considerably less money than the store.

o/t price of printers ink.

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