Why in the everloving fuck is printer ink so goddamn expensive? I pay £25 every ~2 weeks to restock my HP 4620 with black ink and I barely even print that much.
What is the most economical printer out there right now and what are the major differences between inkjet and laserjet technologies? I don't trust any top 10 pages out there because of paid reviews and I sure am sick of paying to corporations out the ass for their overinflated ink prices.
Laser Jets use dry ink instead of wet and are better for money afaik. better to go with that. I've always just used hp printers
>wanting a cheap printer
doesnt exist
Avoid inkjet get a laser printer
buy an ink printer that can be refilled
or get a laser printer
also turn the printer off when not in use, else it will clean the heads and use up all ink
>I don't trust any top 10 pages out there because of paid reviews
look up customer reviews then
amazon.com
>1 star 66%
If you just print in black, get a laser
HP I think offers an ink subscription that makes buying ink cheaper.
For home/small office, If you don't print a lot (less than once a month)and you don't want colour then a black only laser.
If you want color and print less than once a month then find a great sale on a colour laser or buy used/government/auction.
If you want colour and print a couple time a month and less than 300 pages buy a cheapish hp ink printer and sign up for thier subscription program
If you want colour and print a lot then the tank printers from Epson or brother are the best way to go.
It's all racket reguardless but those tend to be your best options. And if your wanting photos you're generally better bringing it to you local lab if you even have one still
just buy alternatives from ebay
laser printer would be better if you are into blacks
>inkjet
>Why in the everloving fuck is printer ink so goddamn expensive?
It isn't. It's just the business model HP/Canon/.. chose.
> What is the most economical printer out there right now
Epson EcoTank, probably. Refill with tons of ink. That said it still has a higher initial cost and that one consumable part that occasionally needs replacement.
Alternatively find some printer where a CISS can be installed.
The higher initial cost enterprise laser printers also aren't that bad.
BTW even with this very customer unfriendly situation, it's better than it was 5 years ago.
toner is not really ink, it's just small plastic particles that are melted onto the paper , which is why you should go for that instead of inkjet lasers
Because cheap printers are sold at a loss
the absolute worst is how most modern printers software-block you from printing it if detects low ink, even if it's not actually empty and you could potentially squeeze some more prints out, or even if it's just one color that's empty and it's not even a color you need.
On my old printer, that I still keep around for just this reason, I can print and print even when the black ink goes grey and then eventually dries and prints nothing at all, but it will still try. And when they happens, I can just switch my documents to dark blue font, and keep printing that way.
Razor and Blades model.
i've got an old canon i900d, scored it at a garage sale for like $10. has 6 individual ink tanks and replaceable print head/carriage thing. ink is like $2-5 for generics (depending on packs) and print head is like $25. did a huge print job on it a couple weeks ago, printed like 200 half-sized photo pages and only ran out on one tank (red, there was a lot of reds in those photos). love this thing, so easy to work with.
this
Toner isn't actually cheaper or better than ink either and this is why most all mass publications use ink.
And unfortunately it's also not getting spared from the actual problem with printer manufacturers charging exorbitant prices for consumables.
Of course picking between ALL cheap (3rd party?) consumables on inkjet/lasers helps, but it's not automatically toner that is cheapest.
> the absolute worst
Hah, Canon went a step further. A MG5450 will not only have a counter on fucking everything, they also block re-inserting the same ink cartridges after they've been swapped out and the printer can end up in a permanent error state if you use 3rd party ink.
you think the blood of unborn children is free?
i got a all in one laser printer for like $30, time to upgrade grandpa
I actually had the """security""" chip on an HP toner cartridge break on me at work, the damn thing was almost full and it still refused to print at fucking all because the printer no longer recognized it as an original accessory. That's a hundred bucks into the junk pile just because of DRM.
printers are insanely cheap, printer companies manufacture them at a loss because they sell their proprietary ink cartridges for x10 what it's worth
>Why in the everloving fuck is printer ink so goddamn expensive
Because it can be. People will buy it anyway.
if you buy a cheap inkjet printer and run out of ink. dont buy new ink just buy a new printer that comes with ink, its cheaper than replacing the ink. then toss the old printer or donate it to a thrift store.
That might have been the case, but they invented half-filled or less 'starter' ink tanks.
>donate it to a thrift store.
"No!" Take that shit back to best buy. Printers are a bitch to recycle (or you get charged) and best buy is supposed to have their own recycling program. Let (((them)) will reap what (((they))) sow
If they sell them at a loss...
Then why is there planned obsolescense in the printers themselves?
Does LaserJet ink expire?
>Why in the everloving fuck is printer ink so goddamn expensive? I pay £25 every ~2 weeks to restock my HP 4620 with black ink and I barely even print.
Because it's a fucking scam and nobody is doing jack shit to stop it it's on of thousands Jewish tricks.
youtu.be
One* mobile posting is hard
They need the color ink so they can fingerprint your pages
get laserjet. the prepacked toner that came with mine lasted me 6 months, and im expecting the high capacity cartridge to last me at least a year, this is with printing 100+ pages a month
>>wanting a cheap printer
>doesnt exist
They do second hand.
Recently bought an office model laser printer with flatbed and feed scanners, duplexer, 3 paper trays and 2 extra toners for 50 euro's.
It's called toner, and no.
Seconding this. I forget the model of the Brother laser printer I found for my mom but she was happy with it. $80 new and if she ever has to buy more than one toner cartridge I'll be surprised.
There's DRM but the printers aren't designed to fail. They're cheaply made but still not cheap enough that selling at $50 is profitable, the gantry and controller alone are probably like 10 bucks, and much more for the total assemble, yet they're routinely sold for under $100 after assembly, shipping, software teams and ongoing support in the form of drivers, and the 3rd party retailer's profit margin.
Speaking of which, I just got a new Brother printer for $60. It has a wifi module, a microprocessor to run its UI and print controls and what not, and a microcontroller to control the motion system. I'm sure it's using some cheap encoder and motors and motor controllers to drive the print head and paper feed along with relative good quality linear rods since it prints very well for something that cheap. And it's about 15-20lb of large molded plastic and metal with a complex construction that would probably take me a day to disassemble on the first try. It also came with some "starter ink". Cheap, all plastic toys that are 1/4 the weight sell for more.
not actually true, since those cheap printers don't come with a full stock of ink. They start you out with just barely enough for you to notice that you're getting fucked over with half-filled cartridges.
who actually talks like this lmfao
laserjets are more upfront but are more economical in the long run compared to the average inkjet
laserjets output 10x the VOC of inkjets, so be careful if you literally live next to your printer. Especiallly if you put one in your bedroom.
Refillable inkjets are great, but are also high upfront cost because manufacturers know you can buy cheap ink from wherever for 1/10.
>inkjet
Throw it in the trash. Literally its a garbage product whose sole purpose is to scam you. Those inks are literally more expensive than gold.
>theinquirer.net
Just get a laser printer that doesn't DRM lock you out of custom ink replacement.
2000s were fun until they invented the 1/4 filled starter inks
Buy Inkjet printer, use for 3 weeks. Return back with 30 day moneyback guarantee.
It is the most expensive liquid in the face of the earth. It might use minerals from meteorites maybe. I don't know.
So. HP, Canon and Epson are scams.
Is there a decent printer manufacturer? Is Brother okay?
Get a laser printer and use off-brand cartridges.
As oft noted already, go laser especially if you're just printing black al the time.
Or look into expired ink cartridges (New old stock.) All my HP 27/28/56/57 cartridges came from thrift stores. Maybe one in five is a dud, but considering I paid no more than $2-3 each I'm still coming out way ahead.
weren't Epson printers supposed to be fine since they don't DRM'd their ink cartdriges/tanks like HP of Canon?
also fuck printers, when I was a student I remember getting rid of my printer and just print shit at some local internet-cafe because it was cheaper and faster than going to the store every week to buy or refill ink (since each cartridge can only be refilled like 3 or 4 times)
When my Epson printer needs purple to print black and white document despite working in CMYK that's not fine.
Seven years ago I bought a Brother multifunction laser printer. It was expensive at first, but it is probably one of the best purchases I have ever made, and I've been unironically shilling for Brother laser printers since then: it's cheap as fuck to operate with off brand toner costing ten bucks and giving you something like two thousand pages, if not more; it's always ready, no ink drying up and all the inkjews tricks; it's fast as fuck, and I got mine with auto-duplex which is an amazing feature (plus the scanner, with the document autoloader).
Seriously, it doesn't need to be a Brother, just get an enterprise-tier monochrome laser machine, even if you don't print that much because it will last you a lifetime and since it's enterprise it will be supported for a lifetime.
I fucking hate ink. Super expensive, dries up quickly yet spills out everywhere, pain to refill, the sponge in the printer disintegrates very quickly, etc.
I couldn't be happier after getting a laserjet printer. You can keep the toner in its box for years and will still work without an issue. The printer also has less moving parts, meaning more durability.
My friend swears on ink which I find utter lunacy. I can't wait to hear his thoughts after having to deal with his inkjet crap after year or two.
Brother isn't bad, but also the pay-ahead-of-time Epson Ecotanks are generally quite fine.