Should I Have Just Bought A New Printer?

nivrip

nivrip

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My cheap and cheerful Epson printer needed new ink cartridges and I was surprised when I found that they were about £10 each and I needed four of them.

However, if you order them online and then go and collect them at PC World they only cost £7.50 each and £8.50 for black. A reasonable saving and easy to do - recent thread about this sort of thing.

So, it still cost me £31 for the cartridges. Thing is that my daughter recently bought the same printer on a special offer for £29.99, complete with cartridges. :mad:

I use this particular printer only for non-photo purposes, having a dedicated photo printer. It would be cheaper for me to simply get a new printer every time I run out of ink and the chap at PC World told me that this is now happening regularly. :eek:

Crazy world. There are now perfectly good printers lying in skips all over the country. Seems a terrible waste and obviously it is not eco-friendly.

So, should I have just bought a new printer?
 
The cartridges that come with the new printer may not be full, that's what often happens - it would be worth comparing if you get the chance. :)

You could always buy "compatible" carts, which are much cheaper but vary drastically in quality. If you print in B&W (well, just black :lol:) then it might be worth getting a mono laser printer - they have come down loads in price and it's much cheaper than an inkjet.

I went a little extreme and bought a colour laser printer about 4 years ago for £150, and I've only changed the toners once (not long ago). It has printed 1000's of pages and has saved me a fortune. But it's only of use if you print at a moderate volume. If I wanted to print my old thesis in colour on the university printers it would have cost me ~£200... so I did it myself cheaper!
 
Yeah lots of the printer manufacturers only supply part filled carts with new printers..Yes another con..

Ink Carts prices are a joke! And will continue to be whilst people buy the things.:mad:
 
crazylegs said:
Yeah lots of the printer manufacturers only supply part filled carts with new printers..Yes another con..
Click to expand...

The guy at PC World told me that this is not correct. He said that between the cartridge and the printer jet is a reservoir which has to be filled by the very first cartridge you fit. All later cartridges do not have to fill the reservoir and therefore appear to last longer.

He certainly had no axe to grind so maybe he was being honest.
 
nivrip said:
The guy at PC World told me that this is not correct. He said that between the cartridge and the printer jet is a reservoir which has to be filled by the very first cartridge you fit. All later cartridges do not have to fill the reservoir and therefore appear to last longer.

He certainly had no axe to grind so maybe he was being honest.
Click to expand...

If you find a printer like that congrats... printers like that in working order are rarer than rocking-horse ....
The reservoir would dry up after a few days of non use (without power), which is why cartridges were designed to plug into the print head or had the print head built in.

From experience Epsons starter cartridges are 1/2 full, its the same for toners, the starting toners tend to be 1-2k page where as you tend to buy 5-10k page toners.

BubbleJets have reservoirs... generaly anything later doesn't.
(Hence why BubbleJets drank ink)
 
http://www.inkraider.co.uk/main_car...r Cartridges&PrinterModel=Epson Stylus CX5400

As you will see Epson Durabright ink is expensive but very good for photos. Notice the size or capacity 16ml. New printers usually come with half size ie: 8ml cartridges.

Now look at the InkRight 16ml but at a much reduced price.

Now look at the JetTech 20.5ml and even cheaper.

Last lot of ink I got from E-Bay as the were a steal and they were InkRight print text ok and picture quality was not bad fliers etc but not anywhere near as good as Durabright for photos.

The cheaper inks I have found tend to dry out and clog the nozzles if left for too long. The way to avoid this is to print a small multi colour sheet once a week to keep the jets clear. It is no big deal cost wise as the inks are so cheap.

Hope this helps.

happywave.gif
 
In my informed and sometimes knowledgable opinion, and after having considered the circumstances for a reasonable amount of time, I have come to the conclusion that the fellow at PC World is talking a load of b******s :)

Every printer I've ever bought has cartridges - both ink & toner - that are less than full, normally they are only 50% of the amount in a replacement cartridge.
 
floppybootstomp said:
the fellow at PC World is talking a load of b******s :)
Click to expand...


OK :D OK :D

Point is taken. And has been for nearly three months. ;)
 
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