The price of printer ink

[rich p]

I went to buy some refill ink at PC World yesterday for my Canon printer and the price was £75 for the lot. I could get it a bit cheaper but less quickly online.

The shop assistant told me I'd be better off ditching it and buying a new Kodak printer for £65 including ink. Crazy disposable world.

 

[fossyant]

We had an Epson that worked great off copy cartridges for a long time, until the feed broke.

Our current HP photosmart all in one runs on individual inks, and if you shop round you can get the XL cartridges, all five, for less than £50 (PC world price is nearer £100). Will move to copy cartridges at some point.

For everyday printing, we have an old Laserjet 5n - big bugger, but bought it about 10 years ago when helping a mate out with his accounts. Cost £60 secondhand at the time. Genuine toner is £25 off ebay, and lasts a couple of years. These printers were the old everyday office printers, and were built to last. If you've got space, don't mind it not beeing super lightning quick, do lots of text printing, then these are ideal.

We save the rather nice inkjet for photo's and fancy stuff.

 

[threebikesmcginty]

I get the cheapo ones from eBay sellers for less than 20% of the price of the proper ones and they work perfectly.

Got a link to a reliable one, Mort?

 

[tyred]

For just printing letters or any other texts, my printer is a very ancient Cannon Bubblejet thing with a simple Black ink cartridge which is very easily refilled at home for pennies. I also have a much more modern Epsom which I rarely use unless I want to print pictures as the cost of ink cartridges are ridiculous (and I haven't been able to refill them and get them to work).

 

[numbnuts]

I use this place http://www.ink2u.co.uk/

 

[threebikesmcginty]

I've used this one for the last two lots I've bought and I've had no problems with them.

Sehr gut. Danke!

 

[RecordAceFromNew]

We had an Epson that worked great off copy cartridges for a long time, until the feed broke.

That happened to my Canon shortly after warranty expired. I have no evidence, but I believe they are designed not to last too long and to be irreparable by the user.

 

[asterix]

IIRC Amazon do cheap cartridges.

 

[beanzontoast]

I go here for my Canon ip4300 compatibles.

 

[PpPete]

IIRC Amazon do cheap cartridges.

My HP Officejet uses individual colour cartridges (and a bigger one for black) - Amazon is almost always the best price for the the HP cartridges.

 

[martint235]

A word of warning regarding some print cartridges. A printer usually has two important parts to it, the ink supply and the print head. Now I currently have a Canon ip4600 which separates the two, ie I just plug in a cartridge that is purely ink. This then feeds to the print head which cleans itself peridoically.

On some HP printers, and I'm sure other manufacturers, the print head is included in the cartridge. These print heads aren't designed to self-clean as they would normally be replaced each time the ink is replaced. If you refill one of these (or buy a re-filled one from a website) you may find print quality deteriorates quite quickly.

 

[beanzontoast]

A word of warning regarding some print cartridges. A printer usually has two important parts to it, the ink supply and the print head. Now I currently have a Canon ip4600 which separates the two, ie I just plug in a cartridge that is purely ink. This then feeds to the print head which cleans itself peridoically.

On some HP printers, and I'm sure other manufacturers, the print head is included in the cartridge. These print heads aren't designed to self-clean as they would normally be replaced each time the ink is replaced. If you refill one of these (or buy a re-filled one from a website) you may find print quality deteriorates quite quickly.

I had an HP950C (2 in fact) which was lovely - really good print quality from original cartridges, possibly the best I've ever had - but I got rid of it because of the 'built-in-print-head' issue when I decided I wanted to move to using cheaper compatibles in future. Now, with my Canon, I have the issue that the 'chip' on the particular compatibles I use has to be transferred when you insert a new cartridge, and the levels of ink aren't monitored so I have to manually keep an eye on the ink levels.

There's always something!

 

[ChrisKH]

I never, ever use legit cartridges for my Canon Pixma MP640. I get the cheapo ones from eBay sellers for less than 20% of the price of the proper ones and they work perfectly.

+1. I've got the same Canon printer as well.

I just can't remember the name of the supplier I use. Really quick they are.

 

[Over The Hill]

I got a second hand HP colour laser printer for £100 on ebay. I work from home now so need it for say 200 copies per week.

It has a scanner and copier built in too. Bit of a huge noisy beast but the colour cartridges have about 4000 copies in them. I have had it almost a year and it is still on the original cartridges with tons in them still.

Top tip.
HP laser copiers have an "imaging drum" with a chip on it with a build in life of about 12000 copies. New drum costs about £80 but if the old one is still working OK then you can buy a new chip for it for £5 on ebay to zero the life countdown bit as I think it will stop working when the countdown hits zero.

My £100 printer had about £100 worth of ink in it so I could just treat it as disposable.

I did look at buying a new one but the HP new ones do not come with full ink carts so cost another £120 to fill when new!!

Print quality is brill and it will do a decent job of colour photos as well as real crisp letters and copies.

 

[rich p]

I go here for my Canon ip4300 compatibles.

BlINKing heck!!!
4 full sets of ink for my ip4200 is £25 there. The PCWorld equivalent is £300.

Is it worth paying extra for the premium ink - 2 sets for £30?