Printer ink prices that make no sense....

Cracka

Cracka

CAG Newbie
I have a cheap little printer that came with my computer over 5 years ago. It works fine and has never had problems so i've never felt a need to get a new one. So tonight i go to walmart to pick up some black ink and see that a black ink cartridge is $20, and the color was $20 to $25 too.

I then turn around and look at the printers, and the newer version of my printer costs $32 and comes with black and color ink, and the ink for it is $15 for black $15 for color.

So basically it will cost me $40 to buy some ink, or $32 to buy a better printer that comes with the ink. I'm confused as to how it costs $8 less for me to get the same thing PLUS a printer... With prices like that I'm going to end up just buying a new printer everytime i run out of ink.
 
i saw a show last year where this guy broke down how its easier and cheaper to refill ink yourself and how most of what youre paying for is the name of the ink. used to know his website that sold ink really cheap.
 
Don't buy Lexmark printers. HP is almost as bad.

The business model is like Gillette razors... Give away the handle, and sell the shit out of the blades. They subsidize the printer with the ink costs.

Get a printer that accepts 3rd party ink or from a company that doesn't gouge you. I think most Canon and Brother printers take 3rd party cartridges and don't charge a ton for their own in the first place, but its been a while. You're going to pay more up front, but when it comes time to replace the ink you're paying $2-$3 instead of replacing the printer.

The site I used to use for 3rd party ink is:
http://www.megatoners.com/
 
Err that is kinda the point, if you bought a cheap printer you really are just better off throwing it in the trash versus buying the ink. I will second just refilling your ink though, with my current printer it cost too much to just throw out but it eats ink like a hungry whore. I used my dremel to screw the holes in the cart, took my 12 dollar color refill kit and filled it right back up. Eventually the printer stopped recognizing the cartridge but that was after 4 refills or so.
 
Yeah I have a older epson stylus and ink for it is insanely expensive (well to me atleast) costs like 40 bucks for a color and black.

I found a guy on ebay that does nothing but sell ink carts and I can get like 4 blacks and 4 colors for 15 bucks after shipping and they do just as good a job as the ones put out by epson. His are just knock off no name ink carts and still come in sealed packages with the sticker/seal think you peel off the cart.

I been buying them from him for years now when I need new ones.
 
Keep in mind different cartridges are going to have different amounts of ink. Even if the cartridges are the same physical size, it's very likely the cartridges that came with your printer had less ink than the replacement cartridges.

A few years ago, when I worked at Staples, of the 50+ models they sold only 1 or 2 actually came with full cartridges, everything else came with low capacity "starter" cartridges. If you look closely on the sides (or back) of the boxes you can usually find a size in milliliters, that's your best bet to know how much ink you're actually getting. For example for my printer, which uses HP 02 inks, you can buy a "photo value pack" for $33 that includes all colors and some photo paper, or each buy them individually for a total of about $50, but the photo set cartridges are actually not filled all the way so the price-per-milliliter is better buying the cartridges individually. They're tricky bastards.

But yeah, either way, dafoomie hit the nail on the head with the Gillette razor analogy. 99% of the time, a cheap printer is gonna be an ink hog.
 
HP makes 33% of their profits from ink. 33%!

I used my printer sparingly, but they put a circuit in the ink now that causes the nozzle to malfunction in less then a year (I think they call it freshness control or some BS). This also gets in the way of using those ink syringes that used to work.

I don't use a printer at home anymore.
 
Try supermediastore.com, check if your printer has generic ink carts available for it. I have an old Epson r200 and buy generic ink for it from there.
 
Yeah, be careful. I was tempted to buy a special pack of ink with paper for less than the carts alone, then I read the carts were half full - designed to work with the paper and that's it.

I have an HP and wouldn't really recommend it. The thing started screwing around a few years ago before I found out one of the tubes broke and another clogged. Rather than satisfy the printer gods and getting a new one I fixed it myself, then gave HP the finger by buying third party ink from Amazon. Works perfectly and cost maybe a third of the price. Genuine ink my ass... And let me tell ya HP doesn't want you to fix your printer, what a friggin puzzle that was.
 
I've got an HP Photosmart inkjet printer. I've considered buying third party ink, but I'm worried that the printer will shit a brick or something if I don't use the genuine ink cartridges, since whenever I replace the cartridge it says "Genuine HP Ink Installed" or something like that. Since it's a newer printer I wouldn't put it past HP to make the printer not work with other ink cartridges.
 
We use generic HP toner carts at work and the printers still say that, they don't seem to know any different. I wouldn't put it past some companies to do something that would brick the printer if you did use third party carts though. My Epson has always been fine with them.
 
They kinda do brick the printer. By changing the design of the cartridge and discontinuing the old ones. So you have to buy a new printer.

Then there's the ink level chips in the carts, which can't be reset to "full" status after having it refilled, so that you can't even buy a generic one, and you can bet companies use DMCA loopholes to keep generic cartridge manufacturers from backwards engineering the chip to clone it.
 
Actually you can get generic Epson carts with chips which can be reset. They keep selling the carts for quite a while after the printer is discontinued. Manufacturers have tried suing to stop the production of generic ink carts, but it doesn't seem to have worked.
 
[quote name='crunchb3rry']You want to see disgusting? Buy ink/toner for "office" printers.[/QUOTE]

Those are generally laser printers, which is what I have. 80 dollars or so for the toner cart, and you'll get 5000 or more pages of print. Inkjets are just a waste unless you need to print photos or something, get a laser print, it may be pricier upfront but pays off in the long run.
 
On or around Black Friday, I look for a free printer (after rebate that is). They usually last me around a year. Once the ink runs out, I buy a new free printer. I have been doing this for over 10 years now and its worked well so far.
 
I don't remember where, but a while ago I read online that there are several websites where one could buy generic ink for relatively cheap.

#3 post provided an excellent link, but I'm not entirely sure if that is the website that I heard about.
 
I bought a cheap all in one Epson on clearance for about $20 a few months ago. Just had to replace the black cartridge on it, it was only like $16. I wasn't too upset with that.
 
Go to 4inkjets.com, their carts average around 5 to 7 dollars a piece. Also, the Epson Artisan series are great printers that use little ink and have separate carts for each color so you only have to replace the color that runs out rather than the old carts with the 3 colors in one cart.
 
I stopped using inkjet even though I was using generics for $2 a cart.... I rarely print color so i picked up a brother b&w laser for $30.... the cart lasts about 3000-5000 prints and the refills costs $10 or so.... no brainer for me.
 
[quote name='Rocko']I've got an HP Photosmart inkjet printer. I've considered buying third party ink, but I'm worried that the printer will shit a brick or something if I don't use the genuine ink cartridges, since whenever I replace the cartridge it says "Genuine HP Ink Installed" or something like that. Since it's a newer printer I wouldn't put it past HP to make the printer not work with other ink cartridges.[/QUOTE]

That's what I have. Don't worry, I used a third party ink cart and it also said 'genuine installed'. Works just fine for much less.

*It was from Tonerpals on Amazon.
 
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