High Printer Ink Prices

I have a small Canon Printer Model 6820, nothing special about it. I'm running out of printer ink again and I needed to buy the whole set as each carried is low on ink. I once bought a non- Canon brand and it sucked. I ended up buy Canon brand. So I just purchased five Canon cartridges in a single pack and the price cost $97 with tax. This is the 3rd or 4th time I bought the cartridges and I paid double what my printer cost originally.
I'm wondering if other people have this issue.

 

We had a Canon printer once and because of the high ink prices, I bought a new HP printer.

 

I dont use printers often anymore but when they run out of ink, they are cheap enough to throw away and get a new one, usually cheaper than getting new ink cartridges

 

I have a pal who does just that! It's less hassle - to him. Something I can live without...color printing. 99.99999% of what I print has no color value at all. Actually, I scan more than print.

 

In the early 2000s I bought a high-end HP 13x19 photo printer and used it heavily. After about 10 years it started malfunctioning so I took it to the service shop. The guy said that it was indeed repairable, and would work like new when cleaned and aligned and such, but it would use up most of a supply of ink in the process. He said just to recycle it and get a new printer, as it would be cheaper, so I got one of the higher end Canon 13x19 photo printers.

I also have a smaller "everyday" Canon printer.

I always use the genuine Canon ink in the photo printer, but I've had real good luck with generic house-brand ink in the everyday printer.

Years (decades) ago I had an old HP Deskjet, and got a refill kit at one of those "As Seen On TV" shops. It worked quite well until the printer just wore out.

 

I have a Brother black & white multi-function. Once in awhile I miss the color, like when printing a color-coded chart, but most of the time B/W printing is fine. One cartridge to replace - not cheap either, but lasts quite awhile.


If you really need color,I know someone who found a place that would refill & sell the individual Canon cartridges so may look into that.

 

Between the ink costing a fortune, and the printers starting to malfunction after about 15 months (epson and HP), I bought a $150 Brother Laser Printer, scanner, etc. It's only B/W but I've had it at least two years and have bought toner once.

 

We went out yesterday to Costco to get our cartridges refilled.

We joked that it would be as cheap just to buy a new printer every time but that would environmentally irresponsible.

 

Yeah, I think Costco is the best option

 

After getting frustrated with the ink replacement on both a brother and a canon inkjet I did similar about 10 years ago and got a HP laser printer. I really have no need for a color printer, and I just can't see going back to inkjet. Quality of the print is so much better too.

 

I print quite a bit so I bought a full color laser brother printer a few years back. Cost about $150 on sale.

Printed about 500 pages with just the temporary cartridges it comes with. Using replacements now, generics and it prints fine with them. The whole set of replacem,ets cost me about $40. the brother brand ones would be about $100 but even at that cost its still a good deal.

 

If you only occasionally need color, places like FedEx/Kinkos will do document-quality color prints reasonably. I've used the one at Flamingo/Paradise occasionally when I needed them.

And, if you need occasional color photo prints (this is not a joke) most Walgreens have a newer model Fuji Frontier or Noritsu unit that can do a very good (almost stunning) job of 8x10s. Last year I needed some quick glossies of some shots I did at a trade show and the Wino Walgreens at Flamingo and Maryland did an excellent job.

Many Goodwill locations will recycle old "home" electronics at no charge, including used printers. I've been told that they will push back on an SUV load of old junky monitors, but we've never had them refuse onesie-twosie items that are removed from service.

We actually have one production-quality HP laser four-color printer in our media center. I would call it almost-photo quality. It does excellent posters and short-run brochures and such. You need to watch the contrast on any photos in them. Very fast and decent quality, actually.

 

Walgreens puts their cheap Canon printers on sale for about $20 every now and then, I alos just buy a new one rather than paying double that for a set of cartridges.

 

Our Goodwill will recycle for free, but they won't accept TVs or monitors.

 

Low printer prices are used to sell the printers then you will have to buy the ink or laser cartridge. The money for the manufacturers is in the ink and laser cartridges.

Costco has better prices than most others for ink and such.

I used to buy most my ink Amazon, but what Amazon was selling as OEM was typically not and the most of the secondary stuff was cheap crap.

Have settled in to mostly HP and Brother. IMO (HP seems to have longer life for ink and laser cartridges. Brother is good and more affordable. )

 

I also switched to a laser printer due to high prices of cartridges and how they constantly dry out

 

"Give 'em the razor. Sell them the blades!"

 

Laser is the way.

 

did the same. these can often be had on amazon for like 100 just for the printer only version.

 

Our printer took 5 separate ink cartridges and one would always be empty. Buy a new ink, run the head cleaner; and now another is empty. We finally just gave up on it.

Now, when we need to print something (which is rare), we just go to the library and pay the 10 cents per page.