Some questions about printers...

[skillz22]

At this point in time, I've gone through quite a few cheap printers. It has finally dawned on me that cheap inkjet printers are a massive waste of money (the ones that come with the print-head on the cartridge) because I can usually just buy a new printer for the same amount of money as a new set of cartridges. So I settled for cheap inkjets and cartridge refills for the past few years. Now, I kind of had enough and came to the forum for some advice. 

 

I initially thought of going all out and cashing in 300 bucks for a decent laser printer. I did a bit of cost calculation in terms of the toner cartridges and found that, again, a full set of cartridges can cost more than the printer itself... Even on eBay... I have never used a laser printer in my life, so I don't really know how to compare it to an inkjet. I know that it has a much higher page yield, but I still don't feel like this is worth it for my uses, since I usually only print about a few colour documents per week. 

 

So I moved away from laser printers and started having a look at the higher level inkjet ones. I found one in the $100 area that has decent specs and pretty cheap cartridges on eBay. I was planning on buying this, but I wanted some more advice.

 

What do you guys recommend I do? Are laser printers worth the extra purchase and maintenance cost? Or should I stick with inkjet for now?

[mariushm]

$100 is not high end.

 

If you want inkjet with cheaper cost per page, look into CISS printers (continuous ink system), as you can basically buy bottles and refill each color separately by pouring ink into cartridges.

See for example (first epson ciss result on amazon.com, make your own research, not saying this one is the best) :

189$ Epson Expression ET-2650 EcoTank Wireless Color All-in-One Small Business Supertank Printer with Scanner and Copier : https://amzn.to/2MPizVQ

For the one above, original refills are around 35$ (good for ~6k color pages, ~20 regular cartridges) and compatible ink is from around 18$ : https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=ecotank+664

 

 

[Guest]

I'm not a printer expert but the most cost-saving thing I've achieved is:

Bought a 30€ printer (hp deskjet 1510) and scanner and a 10€ refill kit which is easy to use, with 200ml black, x3_100ml colors, after 3 years I'm using the same stock cartridges that came with the printer, and I barely managed to finish the first 100ml black ink bottle after something like 300 document prints

But, after all, it's suitable only for people like me who just barely print stupid documents, this won't solve the cheap printer issues like quality, speed etc...

not the best in a professional environment

[skillz22]

26 minutes ago, mariushm said:

$100 is not high end.

 

If you want inkjet with cheaper cost per page, look into CISS printers (continuous ink system), as you can basically buy bottles and refill each color separately by pouring ink into cartridges.

See for example (first epson ciss result on amazon.com, make your own research, not saying this one is the best) :

189$ Epson Expression ET-2650 EcoTank Wireless Color All-in-One Small Business Supertank Printer with Scanner and Copier : https://amzn.to/2MPizVQ

For the one above, original refills are around 35$ (good for ~6k color pages, ~20 regular cartridges) and compatible ink is from around 18$ : https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=ecotank+664

 

 

That's my mistake, $100 is definitely not high end. Thanks for your suggestion.