If you’re sick of the high cost of toner, and don’t want to deal with messy refill kits or off-brand versions, here’s a great way to save cash and help struggling manufacturers at the same time: Just buy a new printer every time you run low on ink. Sure, you’ll have a house full of printers in no time, but you can always donate those to Goodwill, or to the local landfill.
Reddit commenter residentskitz needed some ink, and found that a refill of black and color cartridges for a Lexmark printer would come to about $42. And two cartridges for a new Canon would run about $38. But a quick trip to Walmart yielded a new Canon printer, with two ink cartridges included, for $30. “Then I remembered why I have 3 other printers sitting at home with no ink,” residentskitz posted. “It’s cheaper to buy a new printer than to buy new ink.”
We’re not sure this is the case across-the-board, and we know that some printers come with “sample” ink cartridges that don’t print as many pages as the full-price ones. But this may be the right excuse to ditch that old inkjet sitting in the home office and get a shiny new model without the guilt.
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Staples is offering $50 off the price of a new printer if you bring in the old one, plus $3 back in rewards for each of the cartridges in the old printer. I upgraded my old 6-cartridge MFC for a new HP Office 8500 Pro over the Thanksgiving weekend because Staples had the normally $300 machine for $150 off (plus I really wanted to ADF for copying receipts for my expense reports). Add up all the discounts and rewards, and my net cost for the upgrade wound up being $82. Since it had a full set of carts were included, I basically got the new MFC for free. It’s one of the new HP inkjets which are supposed to be close to a low end laser in terms of cost per page, so I may wind up saving money on new carts in the end.
No thanks; I spent around $300 to get a commercial laser printer for manuscripts. The cost per page is much less than an inkjet, and it’s only black and white so I only have one toner cartridge to replace at a time. It also prints lightning fast compared to the little one. I kept the old inkjet for any small color jobs I might need.
The cost of cartridges is arbitrarily high. They’re like concessions at the movies. You spend the money on the printer (ticket) but the cartridge (candy, popcorn and soda) is where the profit is. Even the remanufactured ones or generics are expensive.
DO NOT DO THIS.
The cheap printers that tend to make this look worthwhile have “starter” cartridges, which contain quite a bit less ink, less than a half if I remember right, than the ones you buy. If you’re worried about the price of ink, buy a printer that actually costs as much as it takes to make the thing plus a little profit and you’ll find that the ink for it comes a good deal cheaper.
Just refill the cartridges with a kit. I can’t believe Consumerist is advocating treating printers as disposable, the wealthy nations have such a disproportionate harmful effect on the planet already.
Good Lord NO!
15th Rule of Technology: cheaper the printer the more you pay for it in ink.
4 Printers I “sell” at work with largest carts in black
F4480 – $80 – $35/600 pages
J4680 – $130 – $32/700 pages
6500 Wireless – $200 – $32/1200 pages
8500 Series – $300/400/500 – $35/2200 pages
How about refilling the inkjet yourself? I bought a kit with 120mL of black ink, and all the tools needed to refill my HP psc1350. It cost under $30, and for $40, I could have bought twice the ink!
Theres nothing wrong with generic ink…black is black!
Its much cheaper and saves a lot of waste
Those ink-refilling kits are a waste of time and energy, and on a lot of the cartridges, they don’t work anymore because they are ‘chipped’ with a chip that shorts out or does something when they are emptied, so the printer won’t even recognize them.
I’ve been saying this for about 8 years now, since I bought a used laser printer from a dealer for $35, with a 75% full toner cartridge, and the refill is $75. so when it got low, I just started buying new printers, and DAV gets my old ones.
A model close out enterprise class laser is really the way to go. They tend to have full toner cartridges. I had a cheap mono laser that lasted for years and years on one cartridge and was still going strong when I decided to upgrade to color. Found a HP 3600n that was on closeout for about what the consumer ones were going for and it came with 3000 page cartridges valued far more than what I paid for the toner. Plus its blazingly quick and has a network port built in.
This is definitely true for cheap laser printers. A cheaper color laser printer can be had for about $100, while the black toner alone costs $150.
Great idea if you want to pollute the environment and are willing to settle for mediocre or even poor printing performance.
I’ve found that many mid-level printers have much better ink economy than cheap combined-color cartridge printers.
Their business model is fashioned after the razor industries…sell the initial components cheap and rake in the cash on the subsequent, necessary refills. I actually stopped lugging a portable printer ages ago for business. Instead I stop by Wal-Mart and buy whatever inkjet is in the $50 to $75 range. When I’m done with my trip I drop the printer off at a Goodwill or something.
This I only do with trips involving trade shows, where my need for convenience outweighs the benefits/risks of a hotel’s business office or the nearby Kinko’s.
I actually have a cheaper and easier solution – buy a good inkjet that doesn’t need all 4 colors to be full. Then only fill the black ink after the other colors run out. This suits my college student “print essays and notes most of the time, every few months print several dozen 8×10 full-color photos at once” usage pattern a lot better than buying a laser printer.
Back in the early 2000′s I heard about an order of monks that dealt in refurbished ink cartridges. And after a quick search I found that they’re still out there: http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fsb/fsb_archive/2006/03/01/8370315/index.htm I think that this is there website? http://www.lasermonks.com/
Every printer under $200 that I’ve bought I’ve been lucky if it lasted a year. Cartridges I don’t care about since I refill my own, but make a printer that does not strip feed gears etc and I’ll be happy.
HP = Junk
Canon = Junk
Epson = Junk
Kodak = Junk
What’s next?
Not sure if you heard, but Costco does ink refills now (for a rather reasonable price):
They don’t mention it online. I first saw it on my Costco Connection magazine they mail me once a month, but here’s more details and the pricing:
http://inkdaddy.wordpress.com/2009/03/25/news-costco-now-refilling-ink-cartdidges/
Another vote for Brother. Paid somewhere between $100-150 for the networked HL5250DN four (?) years ago. 2 kids in school printing plenty, and I probably outdo them both. Original toner that came with the machine dried up late last year and I bought refill toner on Ebay for $25 bucks total. For TWO. Popped off a cap, emptied out the remaining dregs and filled it up to the brim. Printing good as new for the last year.
I’m a bit of a gadget lover, but I’m absolutely sick of manufacturers creating all the low-end Walmart waste machines just to churn the earth into extinction. HP has gone this route the past few years since Fiorina and their reputation is paying a heavy price – wouldn’t touch their computers or even printers anymore.
Make a durable device, price it and your consumables fairly, and I’ll recommend your company to others and buy my next one from you when it finally gives up the ghost. Do the opposite and you will only have my contempt and wrath.
Another vote for Brother. Paid somewhere between $100-150 for the networked HL5250DN four (?) years ago. 2 kids in school printing plenty, and I probably outdo them both. Original toner that came with the machine dried up late last year and I bought refill toner on Ebay for $25 bucks total. For TWO. Popped off a cap, emptied out the remaining dregs and filled it up to the brim. Printing good as new for the last year.
I’m a bit of a gadget lover, but I’m absolutely sick of manufacturers creating all the low-end Walmart waste machines just to churn the earth into extinction. HP has gone this route the past few years since Fiorina and their reputation is paying a heavy price – wouldn’t touch their computers or even printers anymore.
Make a durable device, price it and your consumables fairly, and I’ll recommend your company to others and buy my next one from you when it finally gives up the ghost. Do the opposite and you will only have my contempt and wrath.
Not, “Some” cheaper printers come with a sample low yeild cartridge. ALL, cheaper printers come with one. And its usually on the order of 1/10th normal capacity. I’ve had stupid people come in to work saying ooooh I’ll save money buying this printer instead… Never takes long to make em use their heads…
Laser groupies, these printers may perform nicely BUT they can cause or exacerbate asthma and other serious pulmonary diseases. Studies show about half emit too many microfine particles that get into the lungs and …. well, read this: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/78455.php
I’m sure many others have pointed it out, but the cartridges that manufacturers ship with new printers generally hold way less ink than a new cartridge. This is well known. It might look like a new cartridge in the box, but it’ll run out pretty quick. Maybe some manufacturers don’t do it this way, but it’s my understanding that most do. They’re not going to sell you a printer that cheap and throw in a full cartridge too.
I have always preferred laser printers. Last year, I replaced my old Laserjet 4 (15 years old) with a Samsung 610ND which does both Color and duplexing. In addition, it is networked. I did set up the B&W mode as a default instead of color just to save on toner costs. What I really wish for is a paper tray that holds 500 sheets (which is a standard ream) instead of 250 sheets.
Inkjets? I keep telling people they are the biggest rip-offs around.
My father is a big advocate of “buy a new printer whenever you need ink” policy. (not that I mind, I get really nice printers for freeeeeee) Then I just refill the ink myself, or buy it dirt cheap online. Got 3 printers just sitting in my back room, in case someone needs one.
Our local supermarket Price Chopper now refills ink cartridges… I hear it’s pretty cheap, $10-$12. I don’t print a LOT, but enough and I will not pay these companies what they are asking for. I’d rather buy a few cartridges on Ebay, bring them all in to the local place to fill and keep them on hand. I agree with what everyone else says- If a company came out with an honest program or price for their printers and ink refills, I would buy it.
Buy cheap knockoff ink online for like $3/cartridge+USPS shipping.
OBJECTION: But it will look crappy! – The colored jobs don’t look AS good as they would with the OEM stuff, but for what you’re probably using the printer for, it’s fine (and text looks good no matter what). If you have a big important printing job, go to Staples and have the copy center do it for you. It’s probably cheaper doing it that way in terms of cost per-page anyway.
OBJECTION: Won’t it break my printer? – No, the OEM wants you to think that so they put scary stuff in the manual, but even if it did – would you care? Weren’t you planning on throwing the printer away and buying a new one anyway?
ive been doing this for years.
I save money on ink by buying on eBay. Many people sell inks with “chips” on them so the printer will work with $1.50 ink tanks vs. $15/ink tanks. Sure the ink fades faster. But at $1.50/ink, it’s well worth it. The manufacturers (I’m talking to you Canon, HP, Lexmark, Brother, etc.) all chip the consumables so you can’t use them past a certain point. There is no reason for this except to sell more consumables than they would otherwise sell. Sure, they’ll claim it’s for the “quality” but the sad truth is this is forcing consumer to buy inflated consumables. I know for sure HP limits the laser image drum to a low number of uses. I’ve re-chipped the image drum at least 3 times (@ $8/chip) rather than spending over $75 for a new image drum. Sure, the quality fades a little. But not much. My Epson chips the ink so I can’t refill it or buy after market inks. But thankfully, there are clever people who get around the Epson limitations. Canon and Lexmark and all the other manufacturers do the same wasteful thing. So, yea, buy that cheap printer for $30 and toss out the old one. That’s the way the printer companies are playing the game.
And they should be stomped on for playing the game like that…… it’s totally anti-customer to do bunk like you mentioned.
I do the same thing with razors.
I’m glad to see I’m not the only one appalled by this post. Is the part about donating the old printers to the “local landfill” supposed to be facetious? If so, it failed miserably! I’ve come to expect way better from the Cosumerist and I’m surprised and disappointed such “garbage” was made public.
Ugh, no! This is an excuse to ditch that old inkjet and get a shiny new LASER model without guilt. A nice laser printer can be had for $100 (or $0, if you have space for an older one and are willing to lurk Freecycle and Craigslist for a while.) Brand-name toner refills are prohibitively expensive from the manufacturer but it’s not hard to find generics for about $30. And, unlike liquid ink, they don’t go bad.
Kodak gets my money. They cap their ink at $9.99 for black and $14.99 for color. I haven’t had any problems at all with mine, either.
Am I the only one here who read this and understood that they’re not saying you should seriously go out and buy a new printer, but that they’re pointing out the absurdity of the cartridge pricing?
And what about places (I’m looking at you NewEgg.com) that attach free printers to your orders with no way to remove them? I’ve got a printer in the mail I don’t even want.
Am I the only one here who read this and understood that they’re not saying you should seriously go out and buy a new printer, but that they’re pointing out the absurdity of the cartridge pricing?
And what about places (I’m looking at you NewEgg.com) that attach free printers to your orders with no way to remove them? I’ve got a printer in the mail I don’t even want.
Am I the only one here who read this and understood that they’re not saying you should seriously go out and buy a new printer, but that they’re pointing out the absurdity of the cartridge pricing?
And what about places (I’m looking at you NewEgg.com) that attach free printers to your orders with no way to remove them? I’ve got a printer in the mail I don’t even want.
As much as I hate the printer/ink racket, the idea of filling landfills with more crap makes me want to weep.
I’ve been saying this for over 5 years. I only buy ink based on the price of the cartridge. So if the cartridge costs $6, that’s the printer I buy…from Canon. It’s how I’ve done it for years. I’m almost positive the next time I go to buy a printer they will have changed the way it works and I’ll be screwed.
Why would you put something like this on this site. Totally irresponsible! Bad for the environment, wont save you money as the cartridges are usually smaller than the ones you actually purchase and you just end up feeding the monster.
Shame on you guys….