OT Techy question re: printers.

16 Mar 2006

Hi guys, I donâ€™t know about anyone else, but I am getting so fed up with the rip off prices of ink cartridges.
When I purchased my new system it came with a Lexmark x2250. Not a bad little toy, its an all in one, ie scanner, fax, photocopier and printer. The quality is not the best Iâ€™ve seen but then what do you expect for nothing.
Get to the point ffs. rolleyes

Ok, over the past year I have spent enough money on ink cartridges to buy the bloody printer ten times over. So my thinking is, why not go the other route, instead of buying a printer because of its capabilities, buy it because of the price of the cartridges?
Ok, well this of course will entail quite a bit of research into cartridge prices etc so I just thought before I embark on this little epic, maybe someone on here has already beaten me to it and could save me several weeks of work.
Well its worth a try biggrin

16 Mar 2006

Generally HP or Epson work out best for this IF you use aftermarket cartridges (IMHO)
The cheapest cost-per-page will always by laser though (B+W).
Hope that helps a little

16 Mar 2006

Pete you are soooooo true mate.
I have a Epson Photo 300. It takes six cartidges in all and to buy the recomended Epson would cost me about Â£72 for all six.
I can buy copies (chipped) made by Print-Rite at about Â£10 per set, which I am using now and they seem to be doing the job OK.
How can Epson justify their price. confused

:
phredd

16 Mar 2006

Print less Pete, you get to save money, and probably a tree, or summint thats got ecological benefit, I've only ever used a tree for hiding behind when caught short, but I'm told they are important than that dunno

16 Mar 2006

Quote by marriedmale
Generally HP or Epson work out best for this IF you use aftermarket cartridges (IMHO)
The cheapest cost-per-page will always by laser though (B+W).
Hope that helps a little

Got there before me.
If you want to print in black and white, get a decent B&W laser printer. As a former techie I bought an old HP on eBay for a total of about Â£60 (it was a type I maintained on a daily basis for over a year, so I knew exactly what I was getting and how to make sure it worked correctly). The cartridge is Â£70 for a genuine HP, significantly less for remanufactured ones, but each cartridge does an average of 6000 pages.
If you want colour as well, a colour inkjet is ok for low volumes or specialist use (photos), but for moderate volume stuff these days I'd look at a cheap colour laser. Certainly if I were doing business literature in colour I'd consider it essential - laser toner is waterproof, for a start, and doesn't smudge or transfer when wet. If you have more than 1 printer (I actually have two set up and another that I want to add - A4 B&W laser, A3 colour inkjet, and I want to add an A3 B&W laser) then I'd recommend getting a network print server of some kind, as it makes the whole setup a lot more reliable.

16 Mar 2006

....or use a printer ink refill kit

Ive never used this site but you can get them from pc world also
hope this helps :thumbup:

16 Mar 2006

I just get my cartridges ( brand new ) on ebay for about a 1/3 of the price !
:giggle:
DeviousLiaisons ! Nice to see they unlocked the chatroom door long enough for you to post hun kiss

16 Mar 2006

I've never used them, but they seem like a decent place to fix your money/printing woes

16 Mar 2006

mrs naughty wigan couple has a epsom R200 and it takes five ink cartridges to buy frompcworld or any other source they would cost each but by buying from a local computer fair she pay's Â£12 for five a saving of not bad for her as she does not print alot.
Also I on the other hand have a hpdeskjet 940c anda colour cartridge costs Â£28 and a black Â£15 but at Christmas mrs NWC bought me a colour for Â£6 from tesco then went back and bought 5 more cartridges because the were a christmas special offer saving me Â£22 on each cartridge plus points so it pay's to shop around and look out for the special offers. hope this helps.

16 Mar 2006

Quote by Fred aka Medic 1
Pete you are soooooo true mate.
I have a Epson Photo 300. It takes six cartidges in all and to buy the recomended Epson would cost me about Â£72 for all six.
I can buy copies (chipped) made by Print-Rite at about Â£10 per set, which I am using now and they seem to be doing the job OK.
How can Epson justify their price. :
phredd

Snap :shock: I've the same printer and it's brilliant for all aplications but it's selling point to me was the fact that it uses seperate cartridges and you only need to renew them one at a time. Thus according tp the sales bumpf saving me money. Well i've learnt my lesson never to beleave what the sale's person tells me, as both times i've had to change the cartridges they have all run out at more or less the same time sad

16 Mar 2006

Yes, I know the prices are very low....but I've used them for over a dozen inkjet carts and every one has worked...

16 Mar 2006

Thanks for all the input guys.
I have shopped around all over the place for mine, going on eBay for more than in the local shop :shock:
The cheapest I have found them so far online is a pair rolleyes

will keep hunting.

16 Mar 2006

We've also got an epson R300 it takes 6 seperate carts, they cost over Â£60 a set for genuine epson ones and we get aftermarket carts online for Â£5 a set, still prints with the same quality as the originals lol

17 Mar 2006

I have a A3 Canon printer but wouldnt touch aftermarket carts with a bargepole as they just don't match up colour wise and with my stuff its important that what I see on screen is what gets printed and also after market carts tend to fade very quickly (although with digital you can always re-print)
If you google for "continuous feed inks for epson" there are some great ways to make epson's dead cheap and most are colour profiled as well.
It costs a bit to set up initially but as the inks are in large quantities and you just keep topping up the overall price drops like a stone.
Sadly none of the continuous feed systems are made for canon mad

Inks currently cost more than a high quality champaine and the covernment has investigated price fixing but as usual done nothing :x
What I do now is if I need anything less than A4 size I go to a jessops print store as its 10p a print for standard 6/10's and I cant print that cheap... and you get real film paper photos that will have a longer life than most ink systems.
It is worth telling the stores that you have adult photos (if you do) and asking them if they are ok with that as some have problems and some dont as there doesnt seem to be a company wide policy... and I personally feel that if I let them know then the 16year old YTS person isnt going to come across age inapropriate content.

17 Mar 2006

That's your experience, mine is the opposite.
Rather than buy branded carts, many of which are chipped to expire early, I buy the one that are made for the printer but not the makers brand. To date, I've had no trouble with any of them. I've stayed with one company for a year now, the carts arrive the day after ordering, and they work. The colours are right and the inks don't fade.
As for the makers prices being high....tough. That's what you get when you buy a printer that is sold at a price lower than cost....they have to get some profit somewhere. When (not if) the sale of printer carts that emulate the original makers are banned, and the price of carts is forced down by law, then the printers will go up in price.....and then their life will also be shorter....no money in cheap printers, cheap inks and long life.

17 Mar 2006

Top thread pete, as always......
however, why is it when I followed the link above (always prefer to go somewhere thats been recommended) my ruddy HP 1215 P/S/C was just about the only printer ever made not to be listed!!!!!!
Taking the tablets, right now

17 Mar 2006

The trick to printers is to spend a little extra and buy one with the print heads in the printer, not on the cart.
i have a canon S200, nothing special, has a black tank and a colour tank. Quality is good enough for home printing, carts cost Â£4 & Â£8, if i'm just printing out a basic letter i use the default setting which is now draft quality, anything to go to clients i can print on a higher setting.
also make sure your default is set to greyscale or you'll waste you expensive colour ink to print in black.
don't bother printing photos (except the odd one) take them to Asda/Tesco's etc or find a good Litho/Digital printers to do it for you (ask your local council business advice centre for a recommendation)

17 Mar 2006

Epson are currently bringing about a court case to prevent 3rd party cartridges from being sold. As this is a large part of the public part of the business where I work we are following this quite closely. (The outcome will probablyy be similarto the case regarding the use of proprietory dyes on recordable media cd's and dvd's i.e. companies were made to pay Philips 1p per disk for the use of the thechnology.) As for 3rd party inks not being of comparable quality?? well in some cases this is correct as some of the very cheap carts are water based and therefore thinner than the oficial ones. Some however "inkrite" springs to mind they are indistinguishable from the original manufacturer's . A full set of carts for the epson r200/300 would cost Â£40+ for the epson ink, Â£15 for the inkrite version or Â£5-Â£7 for the water based version. It's a case of horses for courses. If you need high volume printing and aren't too bothered about quality go for the water based ones, for good quality photo prints go for the inkrites and if you believe the statement in your printer's instructions that 3rd party carts damage your printer then go for the manufacturer's. One tip for prolonging the life of your printer's heads is to never turn off your printer, this prevents ink drying up on the head and clogging the tiny holes on the inkjets.
Epson are the only manufacturer that is being investigated by the EEC for not makeing their carridges recycleable and they are facing a lawsuit in America for setting the ink pad lifetime ridiculously low (Most inkjets are capable of 50000+ passes but theyhave set the printers to give a service alert at 20000.)
I hope this info is of use.

17 Mar 2006

I have an Epson Stylus Photo 2100 ( ) and it takes 8 (yes that's right EIGHT) ink cartridges.
Now this printer is a bit special and does produce very photo realistic prints. But, didn't you just know there was going to be a but biggrin

It only produces these stunning prints if you use the Epson or Kodak inkjet photo gloss paper and the original Epson inks. If you use anything else the results are very average.
Now it all depends on what you are going to use your printer for.
If it is for ordinary everyday printing then standard paper and aftermarket inks are fine.
If its for high quality gloss photo realistic prints then you need the real decide what you are going to use your printer for and purchase your paper and ink accordingly.

18 Mar 2006

Yeah...I thought that...but since I run the printer for extended periods, text and photo/text, I can see there is no difference between the standard epson carts and the non-branded ones I use now....so I'm not going to pay for a colour cart when the one does the job with no discernible difference.
I used the inks for xmas cards this year...and the one on the wall at work hasn't faded yet !

18 Mar 2006

There is of course an alternativeâ€¦.
Comes in two versions, the first for everyday or general quality colour jobs

the second for those special enhanced colour jobs

biggrin

Frogster