Any HP printer with individual colored ink cartridges?

[Buyer]

I'm a long time HP printer user, and I'm looking at purchasing a new inkjet
printer. I would like to save money by buying an inkjet that uses individual
colored ink cartridges. Well, at least I think I'll save money. It seems HP
does not make inkjet with individual ink cartridge for each color, is it?

Also among the major printer manufacturer, like HP, Canon, Epson; it seems
only HP build the print head in the ink cartridge. I have been very
satisfied with HP printer, but I would like to try another brand. I have the
impression HP inkjet printers are expensive to operate. Any
ideas/opinions/comments welcomed.

BTW, the Canon Pixma printers look interesting, especially the double-sided
print feature.

 

[John Beardmore]

I'm a long time HP printer user, and I'm looking at purchasing a new inkjet
printer. I would like to save money by buying an inkjet that uses individual
colored ink cartridges. Well, at least I think I'll save money. It seems HP
does not make inkjet with individual ink cartridge for each color, is it?

Also among the major printer manufacturer, like HP, Canon, Epson; it seems
only HP build the print head in the ink cartridge. I have been very
satisfied with HP printer, but I would like to try another brand. I have the
impression HP inkjet printers are expensive to operate. Any
ideas/opinions/comments welcomed.

CP1700 is a nice HP machine. Separate ink carts, but also separate
print heads.

Carts are expensive but contain a lot of ink so last a long time. Pigs
to refill though. I have managed to source appropriate ink, but not to
get it into the cart without trashing it !


Cheers, J/.

 

[Bill]

I'm a long time HP printer user, and I'm looking at purchasing a new inkjet
printer. I would like to save money by buying an inkjet that uses individual
colored ink cartridges. Well, at least I think I'll save money.

That's the key issue...do you really save money with individual ink
cartridges?

If you use only original cartridges, you won't save much money, if any.
The typical user prints fairly equal amounts of colours. It's only an
advantage if you're a non-typical user and you require prints that use a
lot of one specific colour, such as photos that are all blue sky. I'm a
typical user and ink waste is not really an issue for me.

If you think you're saving money buying just one ink tank at $11
compared to HP's cartridge at $33, think again. The cost of all three
ink tanks is the same price. It only SEEMS like you're spending more
because of the checkout price, but generally you're not.

I've been an HP fan too, and last year I wanted to upgrade to a better
printer with good photo output. Everyone was raving about the Canon
i-series, so I decided to try a Canon i850 with individual ink tanks. It
printed very well, as good or better than the competition, and I was
very impressed. But the printhead (which Canon claimed lasted the life
of the printer) failed after some 4000 sheets and only 16 months. A
friend's i550 also had a printhead fail after only 2500 sheets. I was
very disappointed when I found the cost of a new printhead was %95 of
the cost of a whole new printer.

So I dumped the Canon and went back to HP because the printheads are
never an issue.

When I shopped around for a new printer, I compared page yields with
various brands and models and found that the HP models that used the new
94/96 and 95/97 cartridges have some of the lowest costs per page. I
have little need for direct photo printing, so the model I bought is the
HP Deskjet 6540. It uses the identical cartridges as their Photosmart
8450 and prints just as good. The only differences seem to be related to
direct photo printing features and conveniences. I didn't need any of
those so I was able to save some money on the Deskjet series.

It seems HP
does not make inkjet with individual ink cartridge for each color, is it?

Actually they do for their business models. Costs per page are no better
than some of their home printers, but you do get individual ink tanks if
you have non-typical printing needs.

Also among the major printer manufacturer, like HP, Canon, Epson; it seems
only HP build the print head in the ink cartridge. I have been very
satisfied with HP printer, but I would like to try another brand. I have the
impression HP inkjet printers are expensive to operate.

Many years ago, HP had higher costs per page than the competition, but
they had the advantage of better quality. HP has long since lowered
their costs per page, and it's not really an issue today.

For speed, Canon currently holds the photo print speed records. But HP
and Epson are only seconds behind. For home and office users, the print
speeds are merely bragging rights..."my printer is faster than yours".
Having said that, my new HP printer is only a few seconds slower than my
now defunct Canon, but it prints slightly better.

BTW, the Canon Pixma printers look interesting, especially the double-sided
print feature.

Many printers from all of the big names offer duplex printing, either as
a standard feature or an optional component. Only you can determine if
automatic duplex printing is a valid reason to choose one model over
another.

For me, automatic duplex printing doesn't matter - I'm not too lazy to
reach over and flip a few pages if needed.

 

[John Beardmore]

That's the key issue...do you really save money with individual ink
cartridges?

If you use only original cartridges, you won't save much money, if any.
The typical user prints fairly equal amounts of colours. It's only an
advantage if you're a non-typical user and you require prints that use a
lot of one specific colour, such as photos that are all blue sky. I'm a
typical user and ink waste is not really an issue for me.

I may not be a typical user (whatever one of those is), but I've
certainly had projects where the CD cover and disk we were working on
were largely blue, and subsequently worked for a company where the
corporate colour is orange. Both of these hit some of the tanks
noticeably more than others.

For me, automatic duplex printing doesn't matter - I'm not too lazy to
reach over and flip a few pages if needed.

It's OK for a few sheets, but it's a PITA if you do a lot of copies of
short documents or even occasional large documents.


J/.

 

[Bob Headrick]

I'm a long time HP printer user, and I'm looking at purchasing a new inkjet
printer. I would like to save money by buying an inkjet that uses individual
colored ink cartridges. Well, at least I think I'll save money. It seems HP
does not make inkjet with individual ink cartridge for each color, is it?

HP has a number of printers that have individual ink tanks, typically designed
for the office environments. The Business Inkjet 1200 series is an example.
It has very large individual ink tanks and lists for $199 for the base model.
See: http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/us/en/sm/WF02a/18972-236251-236261.html for
links to the 1200 and other models.

Regards,
Bob Headrick, not speaking for my employer HP

 

[Mickey]

That's the key issue...do you really save money with individual ink
cartridges?

If you use only original cartridges, you won't save much money, if any.
The typical user prints fairly equal amounts of colours. It's only an
advantage if you're a non-typical user and you require prints that use a
lot of one specific colour, such as photos that are all blue sky. I'm a
typical user and ink waste is not really an issue for me.

If you think you're saving money buying just one ink tank at $11
compared to HP's cartridge at $33, think again. The cost of all three
ink tanks is the same price. It only SEEMS like you're spending more
because of the checkout price, but generally you're not.

I'm on my first non-HP printer and I can't agree with your cost
figures. My last HP printer used #78 cart and cost very close to $55
and held the same amount of ink in the Canon I now have, and 3x $11 is
a lot lower cost than $55. The newer carts hold less ink so the lower
cost can't be compared.

If you want to consider refilling, qlty 3rd party ink for my Canon
cost $1 a color to refill and are so much easier than any HP cart to
refill.

I've been an HP fan too, and last year I wanted to upgrade to a better
printer with good photo output. Everyone was raving about the Canon
i-series, so I decided to try a Canon i850 with individual ink tanks. It
printed very well, as good or better than the competition, and I was
very impressed. But the printhead (which Canon claimed lasted the life
of the printer) failed after some 4000 sheets and only 16 months. A
friend's i550 also had a printhead fail after only 2500 sheets. I was
very disappointed when I found the cost of a new printhead was %95 of
the cost of a whole new printer.

Haven't had the Canon long enough to know about long term printhead
reliability but don't recall that has been an often discussed issue in
this forum.

So I dumped the Canon and went back to HP because the printheads are
never an issue.

When I shopped around for a new printer, I compared page yields with
various brands and models and found that the HP models that used the new
94/96 and 95/97 cartridges have some of the lowest costs per page. I
have little need for direct photo printing, so the model I bought is the
HP Deskjet 6540. It uses the identical cartridges as their Photosmart
8450 and prints just as good. The only differences seem to be related to
direct photo printing features and conveniences. I didn't need any of
those so I was able to save some money on the Deskjet series.

Many years ago, HP had higher costs per page than the competition, but
they had the advantage of better quality. HP has long since lowered
their costs per page, and it's not really an issue today.

Recently read an article (Tom's hardware if I remember correctly) on
some of the newest printer offerings and the HP printer came out on
top of the cost/pg chart. For full page color photo when paper cost
was taken out of the figure, the HP cost was a full 50 cents higher
per sheet than the Canon. That adds up to a lot in a short order if
you print color at all, photos or plain paper printing.

For speed, Canon currently holds the photo print speed records. But HP
and Epson are only seconds behind. For home and office users, the print
speeds are merely bragging rights..."my printer is faster than yours".
Having said that, my new HP printer is only a few seconds slower than my
now defunct Canon, but it prints slightly better.

Am I biased against HP printers, you decide but I will say Bill & Dave
provided me with a good living for 25+ yrs. When Bill and Dave were
running the show the "me to" products you see coming from HP would get
you fired for thinking me to was good enough.

Mickey

 

[David Chien]

Yes there are. See www.hp.com for their latest selection.

Anyways, individual ink cartridges make sense when you're printing
pictures or graphics with a certain color in use the most -- when that
color goes, you don't throw away the rest of the inks for no reason at
all. This occurs quite frequently at work in the all-in-one color
cartridge printers, and which is why the switch to individual/lasers was
done. Too expensive to operate an all-in-one system when you run out of
only one or two of the 4-6 inks and have to throw away good ink.

Lasers are the better way to go if photo printing isn't the major
concern. Most are going for <$500 today, and they go thousands of pages
on a cartridge.

For inkjets, refill or use the continuous bottle ink feed system such as
the CIS system at www.inkjetmall.com. (see Yahoo Groups Epson Inkjet
forum for lots of talk on these systems) The CIS system will definitely
save you $$$ because you buy in bulk (think 100s of ml of ink rather
than a puny <50ml cartridge which only goes ~50 letter prints). You can
easily go 1000+ prints w/o stopping for a refill with these bottle ink
feed systems, and are the way to go if you're running hundreds/thousands
of inkjet prints a month.

---

Anyways, keep in mind that all of these consumables are marked up $$$$$
from the plant (think usually foreign - eg. Mexico, China, etc. where
labor and materials are cheap), then marked up again $$ to the
warehouse, then the stores, then mark it up again for everyone's profit
(easily 20-40%+ for inks sold at stores! see CRN - Computer Reseller
News magazine for the various ads on "YOU as a reseller GET $$$%%%%
profit when you sell our products").

Don't believe ink cartridges actually are worth the $$$$ -- you can
easily save $$$$ on refills and CIS systems -- otherwise, you're just
feeding the packaging & reseller chain with your money.

And when you think about it -- there's NO REASON at all makers can't
simply ship a printer pre-filled with ink cartridges the size of a 1
litre bottle and simply let you print thousands of pages w/o having to
go to the store at all for years. (this is what they do for those
super-wide $$$ inkjets for the pro-graphics market -- HUGE ink tanks)

After all, all of that hassle to change tiny cartidges frequently is
just silly!

 

[David Chien]

HP 1200 series
HP cp1700 series
HP 2300 series
HP 2600 series
HP 3000 series

 

[Bill]

I'm on my first non-HP printer and I can't agree with your cost
figures. My last HP printer used #78 cart and cost very close to $55
and held the same amount of ink in the Canon I now have, and 3x $11 is
a lot lower cost than $55. The newer carts hold less ink so the lower
cost can't be compared.

As I've mentioned here in this forum several times before, ink volume
does NOT equate to page yield. It doesn't matter if one vendor has twice
the volume of the other, it's the page yield that you need to compare.
As a prime example, the Canon BCI-6 series has a total ink volume of
(3x14.5)=43.5ml, compared to HP 97 at 14ml, yet page yields are similar
instead of three times as much.

As for page yield numbers, if you compare the HP tri-colour 97 with the
Canon CMY ink tanks, you'll find HP costs a few bucks more, but has
slightly better page yields. The net result is similar costs per page.

Haven't had the Canon long enough to know about long term printhead
reliability but don't recall that has been an often discussed issue in
this forum.

Where have you been...?

It's been mentioned here several times recently. It wasn't talked about
when the printers were new for obvious reasons, but as the i-series
aged, failures started to surface.

Recently read an article (Tom's hardware if I remember correctly) on
some of the newest printer offerings and the HP printer came out on
top of the cost/pg chart. For full page color photo when paper cost
was taken out of the figure, the HP cost was a full 50 cents higher
per sheet than the Canon. That adds up to a lot in a short order if
you print color at all, photos or plain paper printing.

I can point you to other magazine reviews that say differently, this one
at PCMag for example:

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1682920,00.asp

Check the performance tests and you'll find a link to the costs per page
of four colour printers.

Which do you want to believe?

Personally, I don't fully trust any of them, so I tend to do my own
investigating and make my own conclusions. That's why I had no problem
buying certain HP printers. Granted, I wouldn't buy any of their low-end
models, but that's true for any brand.

 

[me]

After all, all of that hassle to change tiny cartidges frequently is

just silly!

Amen!!

 

[Taliesyn]

Amen!!

Canon currently has ads in Canada promoting their individual color
cartridge "Think Tank system": "When you need more yellow, just add
yellow."

Funny thing, that's exactly what I've been doing for a couple of
years now... When the yellow cartridge showed low ink, I took it out
and added more yellow - with a syringe! ;-)

Finally, Canon's acknowledged that refilling is the most economical
route to follow. Nice work, Canon! Now when are the other
manufacturers going to wake up? ;-)

-Taliesyn

 

[Arthur Entlich]

Mickey wrote:

Am I biased against HP printers, you decide but I will say Bill & Dave
provided me with a good living for 25+ yrs. When Bill and Dave were
running the show the "me to" products you see coming from HP would get
you fired for thinking me to was good enough.

Mickey

I have a feeling your somewhat obscure reference will go over many a
head here.

However, I suspect what HP today will tell you is they make most of
their $$ from selling ink and paper. It's a very different company.

I too am saddened that the H and P families no longer run much, if any,
of the show. Bill and Dave had some very strong ethics behind their
beliefs that being a good corporate citizen was part of being in business.

Art

 

[Mickey]

However, I suspect what HP today will tell you is they make most of
their $$ from selling ink and paper. It's a very different company.

That was the case when I retired but since C.F. took over, it IS a
very different company and not for the better IMO.

I too am saddened that the H and P families no longer run much, if any,
of the show. Bill and Dave had some very strong ethics behind their
beliefs that being a good corporate citizen was part of being in business.

Art

My son works for the Printer div and I still have some friends that
work there as well as in Corvallis (ink div) and I've not heard a good
word from any in a long time. How sad. Back when I was working HP
always was battling for top position as best Co to work for. Co
hasn't been anywhere near the top and some yrs. Son told me about
posting a few of the "HP way" principles on the wall some time back
and they were pulled within a few hrs.

Mickey

 

[David Chien]

My son works for the Printer div and I still have some friends that work

there as well as in Corvallis (ink div) and I've not heard a good word

forget that! as a customer, there used to be a time when you called
HP for a printer problem, and could actually get the designers involved
to help you fix the problem. Nowadays? Better learn Hindi!

 

[Joan Quinn]

forget that! as a customer, there used to be a time when you called HP
for a printer problem, and could actually get the designers involved to
help you fix the problem. Nowadays? Better learn Hindi!

Amen to that.

I called today and when I gave the serial number using "B-as in Bob" & "T as
in Toy" he got three of the four letters wrong.

They said their computers were down (ha!) so I have to give my complete
information twice when I was transferred. The language gap is wider than
Grand Canyon. I finally gave up and told them I would figure the problem out
myself.

I loved HP but now service is non-existent.

Joan

 

[trendyinc]

HP's print header create too many E-Waste.
Try Epson's printers.

Individual Cartridges printer like R200, R300, RX500, RX600, R800 ....
you can try out bulk ink system for them:

http://www.inkrepublic.com

 

[Anoni Moose]

is it?

HP has a number of printers that have individual ink tanks, typically designed
for the office environments. The Business Inkjet 1200 series is an example.
It has very large individual ink tanks and lists for $199 for the base model.
See: http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/us/en/sm/WF02a/18972-236251-236261.html
for
links to the 1200 and other models.

The new issue of Popular Photography has a review of a HP printer
made for photo printing. It has individual cartridges. Review
summary: good printer, but one can get other (mfgr) ones that are
a bit better and for less money. That one was about $700 street
price I recall it saying.

Mike