Ink prices for printers..why so darn high??

[Rabbitrunner51]

Forgive me ..but I had to get this little rag off my chest....

About two and a half years ago I bought my first printer.., ( which I still have ) , and it ran out of ink about two years ago... that being I never need it much so I never bought any more... The reason for this is I am kind of rebellious about ink prices and cartridges for printers.

My opinion is this whole printer ink cartridge thing and ink prices in general is pure malarky... if i paid regular prices for my old printer ink cartridges...it would amount to cloase to thirty dollars... yeah..yeah.. i got the links to all the ink places to buy at discout..but its still close to that figure... Also, I know about the kit for refilling ink.. and that is the best and most logical deal around.

Geeze..If you had to buy just two sets of cartridges..( one black and one color ) twice in a period of time... you could almost buy another whole printer.. and.. they don't even last that long anyways....
I have some printer paper that i don't think i will ever run out of..because even if i bought ink..the ink would run out long before the paper...

You know..they make cordless mice for the reason of not having to buy batteries evry other week.. Why not make cartridges or better yet...come up with a twenty frist century invention that means something..and makes ones that last the life of the printer... The technology for these is lagging in this area versus the ohter advancements... ( sigh! )

Don't you just get tired of the industry soaking us for all we're worth???

[Steve R Jones]

It's pretty much a racket. They almost give away the printers but recoup their money with cartridge sales. For many people, a new fifty dollar printer is a better oprion than replacing the ink..

I've got two printers sitting in a cloest that work fine if I forked out a ton of cash for new cartridges.

[naptownman]

I remember a couple years ago Target was selling a printer for $30, no rebate required. That same printer uses a black cartridge whose price is $22 to replace. Can't be more than a $1 or so in the entire cartridge and that includes distribution costs!

I bought an Epson printer a few years ago because of its quality making photo prints. Then I found out each cartridge has a chip in it to tell the printer when it's empty (or supposed to be). You can't even use the refill kits because of the internal chip. It's well over $60 for a cartridge set to use the name brand cartridges and still over $50 for generics. Cut a supposedly "empty" crtridge open and you'll still find about 15% of the ink left. THAT'S a racket.

[mireland]

I used to work for HP, they had me try to sell ink carts as much as possible..I refused to do this(which is probably why I don't work for them anymore)

[Rabbitrunner51]

Glad to hear i'm not the only one who feels this way. I remember i wentto this print copy place once and asked him what it would cost to refill me black cartridge. he toldme $12.00. Thats absurd...and so I said "nevermind!"

Speaking of HP. I now have another printer that someone gave away and was thrilled when i got it to finally work. He said it had ink...and so i printed something i wanted to get a copy of for a long time...and after about seven copies ( not much to them ).., it ran out of ink.
I then go to a discount place and check on the replacments and it totalled like $32.00. Are you kidding me. Seems that ink has the same value as Gold.

Ya think the Egyptions had this problem...?? I don't think so... Only in America where suckers are born every minute and peopple will buy anything.

One of the reasons this bothers me so much right now is that the CPU i want to get next for my major major purchase..is like $325.00 LOL

[BipolarBill]

Laser, baby. I bought an HP 1200se 3 years ago and I'm just now getting ready to replace the original cartridge. I use the heck out of this printer too - 2856 pages. I have an inkjet for when I "need" color. Guess how often I need color? That's right - almost never.

Unfortunately, the inkjet scam is trickling down to laser now. You can buy a Samsung laser for just over $100. I'm pretty sure that it costs more than that to make - even in China. Guess how much the low capacity replacement cartridge cost? Yep - $100. Just low enough to make users reconsider tossing the printer in the trash.

[Rabbitrunner51]

GOOD INFO BILL If i ever buy another printer then I will be looking at the laser ones.... if it gets that much use...even with a hundred dollars for a refill, it still beats the heck out of cartridges.. Thks for the tip LOL

[bruceb]

I have a Lexmark X73 all in one printer, scanner, copier, fax (couldn't get fax to work)
It costs $28 or so at Target for the Black Cartridge & about $32 for the Color

I tried the refill kits ... black is the easiest to do as you just enlarge the hole on top
and then stick in the needle .. sometimes it will work fine, sometimes not .. depends
on if the print head is clogged up due to lack of use or if the foam at the bottom is
partially dried out or not .. color refill is very hard as you must pop off the cartridge
lid ... you then have to tape it back on ... as to number of times a cartridge can be
refilled it varies, but it seems two (2) refills are the most reliable for most brands

[dajogejr]

Going off Bill's point...
Keep in mind, a lot of laser printers now a days have "starter" toner in them.
IN other words. the typical toner lasts about 3000 to 5000 pages, depending on the coverage on the page. However, these nice little Starters last about 1500...

I've got a Tally 9412 that I took with me from the company that closed it's doors in 2002. Use it all the time, still haven't replaced the toner...it's an animal!!

I only use my HP 7760 for Photos. However...I print a ton of 'em, or I should say...the missus does...

[millwork]

Hello

Well, I used HP ink printers for a lot of years. Tryed re-manufactured cartridges and re-filled some. Mediocre results at best.

I'm suprised Zybch or G hasn't chimed in here. Last May, I was fed up, too, and went to a Canon printer because of some advice here and one of 'em was on sale at NewEgg plus a rebate. Total was about $46.00 delivered in two days.

The conversations and research encompassed long-term costs as well and in November, I ordered some imported compatible cartridges from OneInk on eBay. How's $9.90 sound for a full set of black and color cartridges? I also do a lot of photos and this compatible ink does a pretty darn good job. Another nice thing about separate color cartridges is, if you run out of one color, you don't have to chuck the other colors.

Considered a laser but, the initial cost was outside my budget at the time. Bill is, without doubt, on the money about long term printing costs if you don't do much color. Still the best choice for high volume & high quality in a business environment. The color laser printers are coming down in price but still quite expensive to maintain.

Some of the newer Canon printers have five (5) cartridges instead of four (4). There's an extra (smaller) black cartridge that's dedicated to mixing with color and the large black cartridge is dedicated to black & white printing only.

Just some thoughts to throw into the mix.

John B.

[dajogejr]

HP's new flagship photo printer has 5 inks as well.
It's all I can do to not put it in my shopping cart when I go to Sam's club. I swear...it really almost jumps off the shelf into my cart...

[bruceb]

The 5 inks idea might be the best way overall ... if when you do printing
your documents use more of one color or another more often, then you
would only need to replace one color when it gets low instead of buying
a tricolor catridge which may still have 2 colors with a good amount of
usablel ink in them ...

Does the new HP track each cartridges ink level seperately ?
I hope it does.

[millwork]

Does the new HP track each cartridges ink level seperately ?
I hope it does.

I would hope so too.

The Canon tanks are transparent with two chambers - one filled with ink (reservoir) and the other with cotton-like stuff. There's something like a light gate for the reservoir side and when the ink level gets low, a box pops up on the screen saying something like, "Hey, cyan is getting low - prepare to change it." You can print a few more photos/pages. Then, when it runs out, a box pops up with something like, "Dummy - I told you cyan was low! Now it's empty!"

Oh, mine has a 1,600 nozzle print head and the higher line models have between 1,856 and 3,584 nozzle heads - the ones with five (5) tanks. These print heads don't wear out or clog with Canon ink, but if you use some funky refill ink and they clog up or are damaged, Canon will send a new one (a C/Net reviewer's experience). These higher line models are still below $200.00 and they even make a couple of wireless (IEEE 802.11b/g WiFi) models for about $230.00.

Those prices are SMRP - discounts abound and rebates ought to crop up between now and May.

I'll drop by Sam's Club to check out that HP with five tanks - a significant departure from their history - Always found HPs to be really reliable, if you use OEM ink cartridges and not refilled ones.

John B.

[rwest]

Dajogejr,
Just to make you feel really good, those laser cartridges will never get the amount of pages they claim. Those numbers (3000 to 5000 pages) are based on aproximately 4% of a page. Most people don't realize or even know this. Look up 'Slerexe letter' this was the standard business letter format used to come up with those numbers. It was originally intended to standardize the amount of print for counting fax pages.

The manufactures have never changed it. Why? Because then the bast_rds would have to tell the truth about how many pages of print your laser printers will actually put out.

[BipolarBill]

Actually, I just got 2940 pages out of the toner for an HP1220.