T
Talal Itani
Which new inkjet printer has the lowest cost ink, per coverage?
Thanks
Thanks
Talal said:Which new inkjet printer has the lowest cost ink, per coverage?
Taliesyn said:Probably my Canons refilled with aftermarket ink (HobbiColors).
I just paid $26 US for enough photo ink (the 4 dye colors) to fill 15
(fifteen!) sets of cartridges. If I had bought genuine Canon cartridges
my cost would have been over $1,000.
Lowest cost ink per coverage?... per page?... per letter?.... Forget it,
at the price I pay for ink I don't ever have to calculate how much
something will cost to print. It's totally irrelevant. It's a shame OEM
printer makers with their expensive inks have reduced some of us to
counting droplets of their precious ink to see if they can afford to
print something. There's something very, very wrong with that. I think
simple one color OEM cartridges should cost no more than $3 each ($15
for a set of 5 in a typical Canon printer). Yeah, that's right, $3!
measekite said:It depends what cost really is. If the ink clogs your printhead then it
is very costly. If you print only your best photos and you do not have
a heavy printload then the money you save will not be great.
that case why not get the longest lasting highest quality prints.
Now if you are a kid or a high school student then quality and longevity
are not considerations and $$$ is the only thing that matters.
Michael Johnson said:I'm a little lazier than you. I buy BCI-6 carts filled with after market
ink for less than $1.70 shipped to my door. It will be a sad day when our
BCI-6 based printers die. I thoroughly enjoy the luxury of inexpensive,
quality ink that are available for them from a number of suppliers. We
have saved thousands of dollars in ink purchases over the years.
To the original poster, get a Canon printer with the BCI-8 cartridges.
They seem to be easy to refill. You could also scour ebay for a BCI-6
based printer if you want the option of buying inexpensive cartridges like
I do.
Talal said:In the past, I bought pre-filled cartridges for my series 3 Canon. The
printer failed, and I do not know what caused it to fail. I bought a BCI-8
printer, and I now fear using after-market cartridges. If you are aware of
good BCI-8 aftermarket cartridges, please let me know.
Michael said:I used to use Tyler Martin but they increased their price awhile back so
I tried Neximaging. I bought cartridges for my Canon N2000 from them
and they are inexpensive and work flawlessly in that printer so that is
why I tried them. Their BCI-6 cartridges have also worked flawlessly in
our iP4000, MP780, i9100 and i960 printers and at $1.59 per cartridge
with very reasonable shipping ($10 for around 50 cartridges) they are a
screaming deal for us. My wife doesn't like refilling and I don't care
to have to come running when she runs out of ink so these inexpensive
cartridges are perfect for us. As with you, ink cost is never a concern
in our house.
Here's a link:
https://www.neximaging.com/
Have you considered looking on ebay for a Canon iP4000, iP5000, MP780 or
an "i" series printer? You might pay a little more for a new or
refurbished one but, IMO, the cost/convenience regarding ink use is worth
it over the newer chipped printers.
Talal said:I was told that the series 8 ink cartridges can be refilled, yet the
ink-level indicator would not function. If this is true, why would a series
6 ink be preferable?
Hmmm. Shelf life... Art, do you have any figures on the average shelfArthur said:In general, the four color printers are cheapest run (CMYK), especially
if you will use 3rd party cartridges or refill inks.
Look for 4 color printers with a very small dot to get good image
quality and low ink use. That's 1 or 2 picolitre size drops.
Dye inks are usually cheaper and easier to work with and have a longer
shelf life.
Art
TJ said:Hmmm. Shelf life... Art, do you have any figures on the average shelf
life of bulk inks? I'm wondering about pigmented black and dye-based CMY
inks in particular. Of course, I'm sure it depends on storage
conditions, but what's a good average?
TJ