Over the course of the years I have used many printers. I've owned HP's, Lexmark's, and my last purchases were a few Epson's. The last was the Photo R200 I purchased a year ago.

I have great love for my printer. I think my first Epson was the C86, bought that maybe 2 years ago. That printer was the start of my love for Epson, because of low ink prices. My R200 was chosen not only for the mail in rebate, but because I could print to CD's and that it has 6 seperate ink cartridges.

This post is about money! I think more people are realizing that printer companies sell new printers very close to cost or even sometimes at a slight loss. They know they will make their money back because everyone has to buy more ink. I really despise HP because of this, their cartridge prices are ridiculous!!

I hate the thought of wasting anything. Which is why I don't like those tri-color cartridges that a lot of printers have. They are expensive to replace and wasteful! I love the fact that I can replace only what ink is actually out.

Finally ink costs. This is where I have to give a "shout out" to my boys at PrintPal. Most everyone here knows that I really don't like to "recommend" things. There are a few "proven" people or software out there that have little links on the site. I have not come to terms with the Skype and eBay deal yet. I really don't want to think about that much right now and I still do not know how to feel about that. Anyways...
PrintPal. I have been purchasing ink from them for my printer for about a year now. They always have great prices and you can find discounts sometimes. I receive emails from them on occasion because I've ordered from them in the past. They send out 10% or 15% off emails on occasion. They offer free shipping, which is usually 3-6 days. I have never had problems with their ink or the cartridges either!

So in conclusion. I'm wondering if anyone else out there loves their printer because of it's costs?? I personally think that Epson printers are great and are a very economical choice when you consider ink costs. I think the PrintPal company is great for providing affordable ink cartridges. I don't know how well their customer service is, but that's only because I've NEVER had a problem!!!

Opinions and comments???

I've seriously just considered buying a new cheapo printer each time the ink runs out, in some cases it's just as cheap as buying the cartridges.

The only way to cut costs is to buy 3rd party ink cartridges.

However since my printer bust a while back I've never replaced it, as I know my son will be trying to print everything out it will cost me a fortune. So if there is the odd thing I need printing I do it at work, which isn't very often, which is also why I can't be bothered to buy a new printer as I don't think I'll use it.

But the printer manufacturers are selling there printers a loss leaders. I read in t a PC Mag that per ml most ink is more expensive than Dom Perrion.

I have refused to by a inkjet for this simple reason. I use laser only which is also starting to get extremly expensive in the cartridge market. I can't complain though a cartridge will last me like 4 years.

I want color I go to where I can print color for free.
Photos I send to sams club at an extremly cheap price!

I gotta say, you guys have some good solutions also!! I of course couldn't get away with that....I have to have a printer and many other people out there do to.

I thought about Stidy's "throw away" idea in the past also.

I've had an EPSON Stylus Color 880 for 5 years now and have used enough ink cartridges to fill 2 plastic WalMart bags, and it's still going.

I use Take4Less, because they are real cheap, $2.00-3.00 for black and $3.00-4.00 for color.

I LOVE my Epson...

Hm well I run a shop so I have seen many come and go and owned many.

Multiple epsons stylus color 440, 740, 777(2), c80(3), hp laserjet 3, hp multiple ink jets with current one being photosmart 7960, and a few canons. I also have a brother all in one laserjet 9700.


Out of all of these over the years I have always liked the epsons best and still have a 777 and 740 that are running. The c80's were kind of like the ford pinto and they are more or less worthless. But the epsons always have decent ink prices and the only reason I have the photosmart is because I picked it up used for a good price.

Having said that I pay about .80 - 1.00 for epson ink and 16$ for the photosmart so you can guess which ones are my favorites. In all the testing I have seen epson will always have better print quality within the same price range. The only advantage of the hp's is they print quieter.

Wow, ink cartridges that cheap? If you don't mind telling, where?

well the thing about it is that they only sell wholesale and you have to have a business license. Although I imagine most the places mentioned above buy at the same kinds of places. the thing about it is though that after they pay shipping and handling and for the website and then sell them to you for 2 a piece they are most likely only making 5 to 10 cents on each cartridge.

Thats why I try to stay out of selling those things. It takes me 30 or 40 minutes to wrap it up and package it and about 5 bucks to send it as well as 3 or 4 bucks for the packaging and then people think you are ripping them off for telling them it will be 8 bucks shipping and hadling. To me that means for the last half hour I made a negative of at least 1 or 2 dollars and didn't get paid at all for my time. It's just not worth it.

It's like asking you to come here and work for me and then asking you to pay me for working for me. I don't know of anybody that would be willing to do that.

oh and for the r-300 the ink is about 2.80 plus shipping and and handling. I think. I ordered some for a friend

I've found one of the best places to get info like this is at dpreview.com in the printer forum.

I too am frustrated with the cost of ink, but my emphasis when printing is with quality when it comes to printing photos. (For plain paper printouts quality isn't a concern.)

I just recently purchased the HP 8250 printer. Overall I'm pleased with it and the quality of the prints I get out of it, but the ink costs are still too steep. I could possibly save money by using non-HP inks or look into refills, but I just don't trust the quality (or type) of the ink in those and how that ink absorbs into the HP photo papers. Since I want the absolute best photo printouts for archival ratings, I just close my eyes to the cost and use the HP Vivera inks for this printer. I do like the design of this printer though in that HP has departed from the "printhead & print cartridge" are all in one and the printhead is actually a seperate unit that remains in the printer and the cartridges mount seperately and feed the printhead through tubes. Also, unlike some other printers like Epson or Canon's, when you perform a head cleaning or load a new cartridge and it charges the ink, the ink doesn't get wasted by spraying into no man's land and instead with the 8250, it 'catches' the ink that is sprayed through the printhead in a collection area and it pumps that ink back up into the main ink tanks. Thus, there is almost no wasted ink at all which helps somewhat with the overall costs.

But regardless, the HP inks are expensive and I wished they were lower.