OMG, my old Cannon printer died last week. So I started using a new Epson regularly that I had bought with replacement in mind only occassionally have been using. I went to get replacement 'black' ink today at Office Max. OMG, #68 black was $42 (two refills) or the larger #97 was $60 (two refills). I want my old Cannon back, refills were $7 ea.

I thought I better check with Rapid Refill before cashing my gold coins for ink. One #68 was $12. I can't imagine that Epson black is worth the added 75% in price, especially in black.

 

I have a HP for my business. Three new cartridges equals the cost of the printer. It's a racket.

 

Mine is a LexMark and I always purchase the "double" cartridges. I can just about purchase a new printer every time I run out of ink.

 

You're right! I paid about $99.00 for my printer/copier, and I've paid for it several times over again when buying ink.

Rapid Refill, Dave? On line store for cartridges?

 

That's why I finally broke down and bought a color laser all-in-one. Higher initial cost but the print quality is better, the toner cartridges seem to last forever and we do a fair amount of printing.

 

Ink Jet manufacturers pretty much follow the "Gillette" marketing plan in my opinion. They "give away" the printer (razor) and then make their money on the cartridges.

As I am employed by an manufacturer of office automation equipment I am fairly well versed on the cost of ownership as expressed in Cost Per Copy (CPC) or Total Cost of Ownership.

Ink jet printers can in fact cost as much as forty-two cents per page or more to print. There is no doubt that LASER printers or multi-function products known as MFP's are the way to go for any business as the CPC of a LASER printer is generally expressed in fractions of a cent.

As HP had a strangle hold on the LASER printer market since the 80's. My employer knew that the only way that we could break that "strangle hold" was to attack the CPC front. Which my employer has been very successful by employing several tools that track printer usage and helps analyze their true CPC across their enterprise network. This approach has been very successful and has helped propel us into the number one market share spot in new placements.

 

Printer ink is where the profit is made by the manufacturer, they about give you the printer and recoup the expense on the ink sale.

Now buyer beware, those refills and off brand cartridges will eventually cost you a print head resulting in the need to purchase another printer.

Here are my guidelines, use the off brand if the replacement cost of your printer is $100 or less. Use the name brand safe cartridges if your replacement printer cost is $100 or more.

 

Matt, I'd agree. I actually have two laser printers at home.

I chose a B/W laser (Dell 1720dn) when I got my new PC about 2 years ago. I've had to replace the starter toner (500 pages) once, at around $130 IIRC. However, the full toner is rated at about 3000 B/W pages. So, as you say, about a fraction of a penny.

When my sister bought her new PC, Dell was offering the Color Laser 1320n for something ridiculous like $79. So I got one of those too. I haven't gone through any of the toner cartridges yet on that one as I don't print much color. It was more of a 'why not' type of purchase.

I'd actually consider that desktop inkjet printers are now an expendable item. It needs anything, throw it out and replace it. You can find ones that can print for $30 pretty often. If you really need the quality, move to a laser.

 

For us (recognizing that the cheap inkjet printers make money for their manufacturers via the ink) the solution is a B/W laserjet and a color inkjet, which we don't use very much -- which inkjet is really an all-in-one (an HP PhotoSmart) that is a copier and scanner, too. HPH

 

^^ We have an HP all in one (scanner, copier, etc.) and the replacement cartridges are very expensive. We also have a little lexmark and the cartridges are much cheaper. The lexmark is print-only, but cost only about $25. It has surprised me in the print quality. Its great for our purposes.