Printer companies have always used the drug dealer method of business - get you hooked on cheap printers and rip you off on the ink. On March 2007, Epson (and by extension the other companies) won a courtroom victory allowing them the right to manufacture printers which refuse to work with compatible cartridges. In the past they just gave a warning. Now they won't work at all. Then they took great pains to make sure the printers could tell if the cartridges weren’t genuine Epson. Since then compatible manufacturers had to jump through hoops. As fast as they made their chips work, Epson changed something in their printer and they stopped working. Of course they also raised prices and lowered the amount of ink they gave. Instead of 20-24ml, they are now giving 12. When you do the math, you are paying about $5,000 per gallon.
Fortunately I found http://ccs-digital.com a company with a unique product - a 2 piece cartridge where the ink is in a separate tank. When the ink runs out, you replace the tank for $3 and keep going. The chip resets to full. And the tanks hold 66% more ink than standard cartridges (20 ml). If you do a lot of printing, there are also continuous ink systems, but they’ve certain “gotchas” like hoses which can get crimped, not to mention you have to pay a lot up front. So I find the reusable cartridges cheaper and more convenient.
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Printer ink is the most valuable liquid in the world (along with perfume).
The type of paper you print on affects ink usage. Normal (cheapo) paper bleeds ink as it is written so the printer adds more ink. If you purchase inkjet paper, and tell the printer it is printing on inkjet paper, then it puts out less ink. If you print on photo paper, there is nearly no bleed and you use even less ink. However, the cost of paper starts to go up.
So what do you purchase, more expensive paper and less ink or more ink on cheap paper? You select.
HP have recognised this as a problem and have started creating XL cartridges which are supposedly cheaper. Have a look at this article to check it out…
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Hi, The costly part of an inkjet printer is the print head itself. On most makes this print head is an integral part of the ink tank itself (usually one for colour and one for black). Obviously when you replace the ink tank you are also replacing the print head as well hence the cost. Interestingly Canon printers generally use a separate print head so Canon ink cartridges tend to be relatively cheap, although a replacement print head will cost more that the original printer.
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Companies know that people will buy a printer based on price tag without considering the cost of ownership. They sell the printer at cost. They make no money on it. The ink cartridges is where they make their money.
How can you stop this? Don't look at just the cost of the printer. Buy a printer than uses ink cartridges that hold the larger volume of ink. These printers will cost more but you will get your money back by not having to replace cartridges so often.
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That's only true for cheap printers
TRY one of those new KODAK printers very cheap ink
Or try a brother i got a brother MFC and my ink is $2 each(tank cartridge) with 4 colors that last about 3 months each with very heavy printing 20+ pages daily though my printer cost $250 2 years ago it's still over $200 but well worth it all prices considered
$32 ink per year $64 total + $250 for printer $314 for 2 years (+$12 for photo ink so far 130+ 4×6 photo's and 3 8×10's)
cheap $50 printer $30 for ink about 100 pages per cartridge you do the math (for me that would be well over $1000 year in ink if i went for a cheap printer)
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That's how they make their money. Get your cartridges re-filled instead of buying another one. It costs less and is superior for the environment.
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Thats because the companies make money on the ink they sell.
try to buy ink refill kits if you’ve a HP Deskjet printer or a Canon.