Low cost printer and low cost ink.

Hello,

Hehe, as you can see, yeah, I am cheap.

Anyway, I need to find a printer for my sister, she is going to off to college soon. I need a printer (about $50 or less) that has low cost ink. She just need a printer for printing her papers.

Any suggestion?

TIA.

JC

 

HP 3195, even comes with two ink cartridges.

 

Do you know where I can buy it?

JC

 

The Samsung ML-2010 is an option too. I got one of these a while back for $50 in conjuction with a sale and rebate. I think I got it at Staples or Officemax. Every couple weeks it'll be on sale. Right now, it's not, but wait a couple weeks and it will be.

Currently Staples has it for $130 and Best Buy for $80. I always see them in the weekly ads for $50, so wait a bit and it should come down.

 

target and walmart sell the lexmark z605 i think that's what its called for around $30 plus tax and it includes ink.

 

Thanks guys.

JC

 

I would say pay more for the printer, save money on the ink. That's how they get you, you know - give away free printers, make you buy ink at $35 a pop how often? Arrg!

Laser printers are around $100 now with cartriges. Toner cartriges themselves seem more expensive but last forever. Cartriges for Dell's P1500 I use costs $75 for 3000 pages or $120 or something for 6000 with free shipping. This stuff doesn't dry up from lack of use, unlike all these inkjet cartriges that I've thrown away, and the quality is way better. And, who needs color, anyway?

You should consider laser. She'll love it. I'm getting a laser when I go back to college. It's like with cable internet - once you try it, you won't go back to regular (non-business) DSL.

Malia

 

ya i suggest getting a b/w laser as well because documents look great and they never run out. when i need to print colour, it would be often be for term projects which i would not use regular paper and inkjet for. Since projects don't happen too often, i wouldn't mind paying extras at places like staples for the glossy paper and filling the whole page with colour and have them bind it as well for that professional look

 

Hmmm, laser printer, isnt that too bulky to carry?

Right now, I have a HP Deskjet printer, and I rarely change the cartriges. Its hard to tell how long, probably 6-8 months time to change the cartriges.

JC

 

I would look on FatWallet or SlickDeals. There is often a $50 or less laserjet although sometimes you have to do the rebate thing. A laserjet typically run 1-2¢ a page wheras a inkjet is 6-8¢ per page. Often on cheaper printers, they stick you with euphemistically called starter cartridges that contain 1/3 or less the amount of ink as a typical cartridge. You're running out right after a little bit. They do it on cheap lasers as well. You can get re-fill kits or remanufactured cartridges which tend to be less problematic on laserjets. Good Luck.

 

Well another option but not $50 as far as the printer goes is something like an Epson C66 ($85-$90) and once the carts that come with it go dry or close to, buy the replacements from imarketcity.com The C66 is a 5 cart. printer and you can get replacement generic carts for $9.50 for the 5 Cart. Set. I've used the generic carts from imarketcity for yrs and highly recommend them. No problems and great prices.

 

In Aus at the moment HP has a new tv add saying that their new printers will print 2x as much than a normal printer from one cartridge.

 

They are quite bulky. However, since they don't have a paper tray on the bottom (because printed papers come out on top), they end up having a slightly smaller footprint than inkjets. Once it's set up, doing which may be a little annoying, depending on your sister's dorm setup, it will stay in place, so you will not have to worry about how bulky it is.

How often you change cartriges has to do with how much you use it, so if she will use her printer in a similar way, it's possible that inkjet will work for her. However, as ZaZ mentioned, the cost per page is much less, and she will have to change the cartrige only once in a few years. I discovered that I got more pages out of Dell's cartriges than the 3000/6000 estimate, so if the estimates do tend to run conservative among the manufacturers, that's also a plus.

For me anyway, the primary reason for using a laser printer is the quality - bright, crisp, and sharp every time. And, when the cartrige is running out, you are not just watching the quality slowly degrade, you just take out the toner and shake it - and it prints like new again. Beautiful...

Malia

 

Thanks all for your wonderful suggestion.

JC