Help finding the printer

[darwinjoe1831beta]

Hello,
I am looking for information. I am off to college and my parents are
buying me all my college supplies. As for a printer, my parents will
buy the printer, but I will end up paying for the ink. My question is
what printer has the cheapest ink? As for the printer all I need is a
simple inkjet or a multifunction with (scanning abilities.) Thanks for
your help!

Darwinjoe1831

 

[Edwin Pawlowski]

Hello,
I am looking for information. I am off to college and my parents are
buying me all my college supplies. As for a printer, my parents will
buy the printer, but I will end up paying for the ink. My question is
what printer has the cheapest ink? As for the printer all I need is a
simple inkjet or a multifunction with (scanning abilities.) Thanks for
your help!

Panasonic 1124 dot matrix

 

[Burt]

Hello,
I am looking for information. I am off to college and my parents are
buying me all my college supplies. As for a printer, my parents will
buy the printer, but I will end up paying for the ink. My question is
what printer has the cheapest ink? As for the printer all I need is a
simple inkjet or a multifunction with (scanning abilities.) Thanks for
your help!

Darwinjoe1831

What do you want to do with it? Just text printing? Some color graphics?
Some photos? If the answer to these questions is "all of the above", and
if you want to keep your costs to a bare minimum for ink, try to quickly
locate a Canon printer of the generation just prior to the latest ones like
the ip4000 or ip5000. These have BCI-6 and BCI-3ebk ink cartridges that can
be refilled, and there is a very active online marketplace with prefilled
aftermarket cartridges for a fraction of the cost of the Canon OEM
cartridges. Avoid the ones with the tri-color cartridges as they have a very
small amount of ink in them. If you decide to use aftermarket prefilled
cartridges or refill your own you will find lots of info about good inks and
their sources here and on the nifty-stuff forum. You will need a little
self-education on selection of good and safe products for your printer and
on the technique for refilling cartridges.

The latest pixma printers have cartridges with computer chips and can be
refilled, but there are no aftermarket cartridges available yet. They also
give you a dire message when you refill and reinsert a cartridge that the
ink level monitor will no longer function and that you may lose you
warranty.

There are a few multifunction models that might be available as well. Look
back in the posts on this newsgroup in the last few weeks as a few models
were mentioned. Just be sure that you get a model that uses the BCI-6 cyan,
yellow, magenta, and black cartridges as well as the BCI-3ebk black
cartridge. These models are actually ip4000's with the additional features
of scanner, etc. Maybe someone will jump in to this conversation with the
model numbers to look for. Since your parents are willing to buy the
printer for you I would try to find a new one and not a refurbished printer
as you will then have a full year warranty.

If you only need to print text and grayscale images you might consider one
of the low cost laser printers. You can check on line reviews of several
models under $200. Although the cartridges are expensive, they print lots
of pages and the per page cost is reasonable. It is probably cheaper to use
one of the Canon models I mentioned if you refill your own cartridges. The
downside of inkjets is that you must not let them sit idle for any extended
period of time as the ink dries in the printhead and clogs the jets. Used
at least a few times a week, they usually keep on printing just fine.

 

[Burt]

What do you want to do with it? Just text printing? Some color graphics?
Some photos? If the answer to these questions is "all of the above", and
if you want to keep your costs to a bare minimum for ink, try to quickly
locate a Canon printer of the generation just prior to the latest ones
like the ip4000 or ip5000. These have BCI-6 and BCI-3ebk ink cartridges
that can be refilled, and there is a very active online marketplace with
prefilled aftermarket cartridges for a fraction of the cost of the Canon
OEM cartridges. Avoid the ones with the tri-color cartridges as they have
a very small amount of ink in them. If you decide to use aftermarket
prefilled cartridges or refill your own you will find lots of info about
good inks and their sources here and on the nifty-stuff forum. You will
need a little self-education on selection of good and safe products for
your printer and on the technique for refilling cartridges.

The latest pixma printers have cartridges with computer chips and can be
refilled, but there are no aftermarket cartridges available yet. They
also give you a dire message when you refill and reinsert a cartridge that
the ink level monitor will no longer function and that you may lose you
warranty.

There are a few multifunction models that might be available as well.
Look back in the posts on this newsgroup in the last few weeks as a few
models were mentioned. Just be sure that you get a model that uses the
BCI-6 cyan, yellow, magenta, and black cartridges as well as the BCI-3ebk
black cartridge. These models are actually ip4000's with the additional
features of scanner, etc. Maybe someone will jump in to this conversation
with the model numbers to look for. Since your parents are willing to buy
the printer for you I would try to find a new one and not a refurbished
printer as you will then have a full year warranty.

If you only need to print text and grayscale images you might consider one
of the low cost laser printers. You can check on line reviews of several
models under $200. Although the cartridges are expensive, they print lots
of pages and the per page cost is reasonable. It is probably cheaper to
use one of the Canon models I mentioned if you refill your own cartridges.
The downside of inkjets is that you must not let them sit idle for any
extended period of time as the ink dries in the printhead and clogs the
jets. Used at least a few times a week, they usually keep on printing
just fine.

Sorry to follow up on my own reply - I just looked for the post by zakezuke
about the model numbers of the Canon multifunction units that don't have
computer-chipped carts. I just pasted the following quote from his post -
"The last multifunctions to employ a chipless system were the mp750, mp760,
mp780..." The 780 is still available from Amazon for just under $200 with
no tax or shipping. You may find closeouts on these items. I read that
last week Fry's electronics had them for $150 after rebate. Some people may
counsel you against buying a multipurpose unit, but if it suits your needs
and budget, go for it. Also, we have a resident troll who puts down anyone
who suggests the use of aftermarket inks and cartridges. Disregard him
totally, but be sure to purchase only the aftermarket items that people
recommend from personal use on this newsgroup or the nifty-stuff forum.

 

[Travis King]

Sorry to follow up on my own reply - I just looked for the post by
zakezuke about the model numbers of the Canon multifunction units that
don't have computer-chipped carts. I just pasted the following quote from
his post - "The last multifunctions to employ a chipless system were the
mp750, mp760, mp780..." The 780 is still available from Amazon for just
under $200 with no tax or shipping. You may find closeouts on these
items. I read that last week Fry's electronics had them for $150 after
rebate. Some people may counsel you against buying a multipurpose unit,
but if it suits your needs and budget, go for it. Also, we have a
resident troll who puts down anyone who suggests the use of aftermarket
inks and cartridges. Disregard him totally, but be sure to purchase only
the aftermarket items that people recommend from personal use on this
newsgroup or the nifty-stuff forum.

I've got a Canon i560. It's been going strong for two years and prints
excellent pictures. Very good printer... It takes the cartridges Burt
mentioned - the BCI-6 for each individual color and the BCI-3e for the
black. (For OEM, each individual cartridge is $12 for each color. These
cartridges last a long time.) Even the OEM cartridges are cheaper than say,
HP or Lexmark. The only word of caution with Canons is to watch the
printheads. My i560 was $100 brand new, but you probably could pick one up
for cheap now. I don't think they make it anymore, so you may have to find
a used one or maybe perhaps you can find a new one for a good price on ebay.
It works with either a USB connection or parallel if you're limited on USB
ports.

 

[measekite]

CHEAP IS NOT ALWAYS BEST

Panasonic 1124 dot matrix

 

[Gary Tait]

My i560 was $100 brand new, but you probably could pick one up
for cheap now. I don't think they make it anymore, so you may have to
find a used one or maybe perhaps you can find a new one for a good
price on ebay. It works with either a USB connection or parallel if
you're limited on USB ports.

The i line seems to have been replaces with the Pixma x000 line about 1.5
years ago (which is what you want), refreshed with the Pixma x200 line late
05, which use the chipped carts.

 

[Burt]

I've got a Canon i560. It's been going strong for two years and prints
excellent pictures. Very good printer... It takes the cartridges Burt
mentioned - the BCI-6 for each individual color and the BCI-3e for the
black. (For OEM, each individual cartridge is $12 for each color. These
cartridges last a long time.) Even the OEM cartridges are cheaper than
say, HP or Lexmark. The only word of caution with Canons is to watch the
printheads. My i560 was $100 brand new, but you probably could pick one
up for cheap now. I don't think they make it anymore, so you may have to
find a used one or maybe perhaps you can find a new one for a good price
on ebay. It works with either a USB connection or parallel if you're
limited on USB ports.

From what I've seen, the only new "i" series printer still in the retail
pipeline is the i9900, a consumer high-end eight color large format
printer - definitely not for a student who needs a general purpose printer
with low ink costs. The supply of ip4000's is pretty much dried up, and the
best deal I've seen more recently in a Canon general purpose pixma printer
is an occasional ip5000. There are some ip6000 printers out there
occasionally, but these are six color printers that would be more costly to
run for a student whose need is not for a dedicated photo printer. If he
can find a new ip4000 or ip5000 for around $100 and considers refilling or
using aftermarket carts that might be the best bet for decent printer and
low ink costs. I'm not enthused about buying a used inkjet printer as they
have a finite life and the possibility of improper maintenance by a previous
user is a consideration. Factory refurbs would come with a new printhead
and inks, but you would then have a 90 day warranty instead of one year.
There are currently refill inks for the newest pixmas but no aftermarket
prefilled or empty carts. If they were widely available I would suggest the
ip4200 printer, the replacement for the ip4000 (but with the one picoliter
printhead.)

 

[Fenrir Enterprises]

Hello,
I am looking for information. I am off to college and my parents are
buying me all my college supplies. As for a printer, my parents will
buy the printer, but I will end up paying for the ink. My question is
what printer has the cheapest ink? As for the printer all I need is a
simple inkjet or a multifunction with (scanning abilities.) Thanks for
your help!

Darwinjoe1831

If you are looking for only black and white printing, I would suggest
a laser printer. Make sure you find out how the page estimate for the
cartridges before you buy one because a $200 laser printer with
cartridges that are only rated for about 500-1000 pages is more
expensive to run than the HP K550 inkjet that has tanks rated for
about 1,200 pages. Also remember they almost always come with
half-full cartridges, so when you buy a replacement, you will get much
more out of it.

If you are looking for color printing, a HP or Canon would probably be
your best bet. The Epson C-series clog too easily, and the Epson
R-series cost more to refill due to 6 color ink, and are not good as
good at text printing for reports, etc, which you are more likely to
be doing unless you're going into graphic design work.

A warning about HP printers! The new series of HP all-in-ones take
disturbingly low ink cartridges, either the 21/22 or the 92/93. They
only take 5ml of ink! That's only 1.66 ml of ink per color in the
color cart. You will be buying ink every week with this thing. Make
sure you get one that takes the 56/57 or 95/96 large tanks (i.e. don't
be satisfied unless the cartridges are 14 ml of ink or higher). From
what I've seen, the only one that is under $399.99 that takes the
larger tanks for /both/ black and color is the all-in-one copier/fax
that doesn't have a flatbed scanner, but has a 'feeder' for the fax
that scans and copies like a standalone fax machine. This puts severe
limitations on what you can scan. Your other option would be to get
one of the HP printer-only models that takes the large cartridges (I
believe there's a $100 or so model that does both) and a scanner
($50-100) which has a 'quick copy' button. If you're doing high volume
printing, a HP K550 has very large ink tanks as well. Going Canon
might be a better choice these days, I'm sure someone else in the
newsgroup has more familiarity with Canon. The only downfall of these
is that the integrated printhead apparently /will/ wear out
eventually, while the HPs have built in printheads with the
cartridges, and the K550 will pay for itself 10x over before the
printheads wear out. (rated around 45,000 prints, which is way up from
the 16,000 that the 1200d printheads have)

I'm about to stop reccomending HP at all with their new ink
strategies. Ink's always been expensive but these 5ml ink tanks are
practically useless, at $20 each, if you do moderate amounts of
printing you'll probably have to buy a new one every two weeks, which
would be about $500 in ink per year.

---

http://www.FenrirOnline.com

Computer services, custom metal etching,
arts, crafts, and much more.

 

[measekite]

If you are looking for only black and white printing, I would suggest
a laser printer. Make sure you find out how the page estimate for the
cartridges before you buy one because a $200 laser printer with
cartridges that are only rated for about 500-1000 pages is more
expensive to run than the HP K550 inkjet that has tanks rated for
about 1,200 pages. Also remember they almost always come with
half-full cartridges, so when you buy a replacement, you will get much
more out of it.

NOT CANON

If you are looking for color printing, a HP or Canon would probably be
your best bet. The Epson C-series clog too easily, and the Epson
R-series cost more to refill

THE MAJORITY OF ALL USERS DO NOT CARE ABOUT REFILLING

 

[Arthur Entlich]

What will the printer be used for? How important is: color images,
size, speed, weight, image permanence, photos, text, etc???

Art

 

[Travis King]

What will the printer be used for? How important is: color images, size,
speed, weight, image permanence, photos, text, etc???

Art

Get a Canon. If you insist on an HP, get an older one, not a new one. (The
one that takes the very large cartridges like the deskjet 950c or the
Photosmart P1000/1100 for example.) My grandmother has an HP all-in-one for
$300 only a year old and it's junk. For it being a $300 device, it's sure
made of very thin plastic (especially the tray that pages are on when it's
done printing.) and the HP drivers are horrible. For any HP printer I've
used, NEVER download updated drivers for it because they create more
problems than fix problems. My grandmother's all-in-one has never worked
right since HP auto-updated the drivers for it. The only way you can get it
to scan now is to use the software provided with it - you can't use the
buttons on the printer itself because it won't connect with the computer.
Also, if you are buying a new HP, make sure it's over $100. I bought an HP
printer for $99 and the piece of junk lasted 9 months and only light
printing at that. Those printers like the one that I bought were well-known
for cartridge cradle problems - which is what I enountered. I printed one
page and all of a sudden I hear a snap noise and the printer never worked
again. It just made whiny noises from there on out. My next printer was a
Canon and so have been the ones after that.