Best printer w/ cheapest ink!

Looking for a good, well-priced printer that has cheap black ink cartridges. Any ideas?

ps. Anyone have luck with those ink refill kits sold on ebay?

 

Ive been using a refill kit for my Epson for about a year. Just had to buy a new printer and found one that I can use the same cartridges on. Most of my printing is shipping labels, so I go through the black rather quick.

I replaced a CX5600 with a NX515. Got it on sale at BB with purchase of a new computer.

I wouldnt trust the refill ink to print photos... but for text and general printing, it seems to work fine. The only downside is refilling the cartridges. It can be a messy proposition. But for the price savings, IMO its worth it.

 

See if you can find a refill kit with ink made from image specialists. I'd say it's good enough to print photos with.
Just make sure you wear rubber gloves, old clothes and do the refills in the bathroom!

Canons are known to refill easily. Epsons, are the hardest.

 

I bought my HP DeskJet 5850 printers for $5- each at the local salvage store approx 3 years ago. I spend about $50- a year on ink for the two machines combined. (HP #56 carts).

I buy the carts in three packs at Costco when on sale (usually in August). Leave them in the sealed packages, toss the whole thing into another sealed plastic baggie, and the carts will stay fresh for years.

For a reasonably fast inkjet printer that has usb, Bt and ethernet connections (all three can be active is I want), the price I paid is pretty good.

With all of the people (and companies) tossing their printers away these days going with used equipment is a viable path.

If I were buying new? Probably one of the new Kodaks or even an under $200- laser printer. But I probably print less than 1000 sheets a year. The HP #56 carts give me a new print head every time I change the carts. So unless I get a catastrophic mechanical failure, these printers will probably last me for a decade or more.

 

I've had bad luck with refill ink being too thick/thin, thereby wrecking print heads. I ultimately grabbed a cheap $50 laser that was on clearance with a normal toner cartridge (not starter) that I use for all my black printing. Quality is alot nicer than inkjet, which I leave in the closet until I need to print color.

 

lasers are great, but their power consumption, wow.

the idle draw on my inkjets is something in the neighborhood of 0.1 watts with no warm up time.

 

depends on your needs and the laser you use, some lasers have an almost 0 draw when idle and a super fast warmup ... if you print much volume Laser is the way to go and in many cases toner is MUCH cheaper than ink. I run my Samsung CLX-3175N for about half the cost on toner than even commercial ink refills for the canon photo unit especially when you factor in mess and time.

as for ink refills, I use them regularly on my Canon and HP inkjets with no issue, just try and find a decent quality ink and not the cheap crap that plugs print nozzles.

 

I have an HP Photosmart C3140. Normal ink cartridges cost about 30-40$ i think. I was able to buy refilled ink cartridges from OCProducts at 10$ for 2 black cartridges.

The cartridges work fine.

 

There are more reviews on printers than just about any modern office tool. If you want a better recommendation though, you'll need to include more specific needs, i.e. capacity, quality, price, wifi etc.

Otherwise, in general both HP and Canon typically score at the top in the printers market. Although you should know that HP also score at the very bottom on service and repair. Both have cheap inks

 

I worked at an ink refill place and if you were looking for a good inkjet printer that can be cheaply and easily refilled, go with Canon printers that have 4 or more cartridges. These are the cartridges that do not have printheads on their cartridges (each ink color is its own separate cartridge) and don't have the issues that a lot of printhead cartridges have.

I made a somewhat long post about inkjet printers and refilling quite some time ago that you might find helpful here.

 

Well the HP that i got is an HP C4640 and I'm testing it out. Costco didn't really have anything there. The printer doesn't need time to warm up and prints instantly which is a plus, but retail ink is $40 for a black cartridge which in my opinion is BONKERS.

 

You could try Kodak's line of printers. Black ink is only like, 10 bucks.

 

Anyone else try refill kits? Is the printing quality good?

 

The quality with the kit I got off Ebay is just as good as the OE cartridges.

The only difference is the cartridges dont communicate with the printer. i.e. the printer doesnt know when its running out. It continually shows the cartridge going down, but you wont know its empty till it physically stops putting ink on the paper.

 

Kodak currently has the cheapest inks but not by much.

 

It's not just the quality of the ink that's important, but the amount you can use. Third party inks cartridges are not as efficient as OEM, so as in your suggestion, a good portion of the ink is not attainable.

 

Ive actually found I can get more pages with the refill cartridges. My theory is they wont shut the printer off when the printer thinks they are empty. I have found the OEM cartridges wont run until they are dry. For me this isnt an issue since I am not printing anything critical.

 

The problem (from what I've been reading) is the chip inside the cartridges that tells you how much ink is left. I don't want to buy 2 cartridges at a time just in case one runs out as money is short on my side.

I've been reading that Laser printers have cheaper refillable ink, and toners last a LOT longer. I don't really need color :O Can anyone recommend a good laser printer that's around the $100-$150 range?

 

You wouldnt need to buy 2 cartridges. The kit I bought came will all four for the colors. When it runs out, pop it out and refill it, then put it back in.

However... with all the black printing I do, Ive been looking hard at a bare bones laser. BB has a Brother and HP laser for right around $150. The Brother has a paper tray while the HP is, well, an HP.

Brother also has one thats right around $114, IIRC. But you get what you pay for. I havent shopped around yet, just took a peak last time I was there.

 

This WiFi Epson SX515W from Amazon gets good reviews and the ink cartridges are cheap.

Epson Stylus SX515W High-Speed All-in-One Printer with: Amazon.co.uk: Electronics & Photo