Printer With Low Running Costs

[Heidi Manway]

Hi there,

Whats the best all round Printer to Buy for Home Use with special
consideration given to running costs i.e cost of consumables ink
refills
Brand and Model appreciated

Thanks,

Heidi

 

[Dan G]

Canon, any model with individual ink tanks. For lowest costs and
availability of easy refills and compatibles, look for an older model,
IP4000, IP5000. They can still be found.

 

[measekite]

That advice is 50% incorrect.  Canon is the best choice but never use anything but Canon ink for the most economical running since a failed print head can cost almost as much as the printer itself if it is one of the lower end models like the PI4300.  The current model Canon printers should produce prints with noticeably longer print life.

Dan G wrote:

Canon, any model with individual ink tanks. For lowest costs and availability of easy refills and compatibles, look for an older model, IP4000, IP5000. They can still be found. "Heidi Manway" <[email protected]> wrote in message news:[email protected]...



Hi there, Whats the best all round Printer to Buy for Home Use with special consideration given to running costs i.e cost of consumables ink refills Brand and Model appreciated Thanks, Heidi

 

[Michael Johnson, PE]

Canon, any model with individual ink tanks. For lowest costs and
availability of easy refills and compatibles, look for an older model,
IP4000, IP5000. They can still be found.

I agree with Dan. I have an MP780 and an iP4000 which have worked very
well and compatible cartridges are cheap and plentiful. As a general
rule, avoid any printers with chipped cartridges. Unfortunately there
aren't too many left that meet this criteria. Try these links for a
couple of economical Canon printers:

http://tinyurl.com/y3t4t6
http://tinyurl.com/y7ntcw

My advice is to get a refurbished MP780 as it has the same printer
engine as the iP4000, includes a document feeder, fax, scanner and
copier for about the same price. Basically, any Canon PIXMA printer
that uses the BCI-6 series of cartridges will serve you well.

 

[Taliesyn]

I agree with Dan. I have an MP780 and an iP4000 which have worked very
well and compatible cartridges are cheap and plentiful.

100% correct. I saved over $1,000 ($ Canadian) last year (2005) by
refilling my own cartridges on my iP5000 and iP4000. And both today, as
we're about to go into 2007, still have original print heads that came
with the printer. Not bad for the iP5000 which was bought in 2004!
Naturally there was no problem whatsoever with clogging or fading,
otherwise I wouldn't be using refill ink, right?

-Taliesyn

 

[phineaspaine]

Agreed. Personally, I've got 2 IP5000's, plus my parent's have one,
and my in-laws have one. They're a great little printer, and we all
use generic cartridges (CoralJet). I also use refilled cartridges
(with Image Specialists ink). None of us have had any printhead
issues, all 4 still have their original printheads, and we've had these
IP5000's over 2 years now. My two printers total over 14,000 pages,
and the only OEM carts used were the ones that came with the printers.

Find yourself a compatible cartridge that you're happy with, and save
your money! I pay about C$24 for 12 compatible cartridges (3 of each
black, 2 of each colour), which is a saving of about C$192 over the
outrageous OEM retail price of C$18 per cartridge.

Bullitt

(p.s. ...or refill with quality ink, and save even more, though it can
be messy)

 

[Burt]

I agree with Dan. I have an MP780 and an iP4000 which have worked very
well and compatible cartridges are cheap and plentiful. As a general
rule, avoid any printers with chipped cartridges. Unfortunately there
aren't too many left that meet this criteria. Try these links for a
couple of economical Canon printers:

http://tinyurl.com/y3t4t6
http://tinyurl.com/y7ntcw

My advice is to get a refurbished MP780 as it has the same printer engine
as the iP4000, includes a document feeder, fax, scanner and copier for
about the same price. Basically, any Canon PIXMA printer that uses the
BCI-6 series of cartridges will serve you well.

Heidi - I googled the ip6000 printer and came up with several places selling
them. I would check to see which were new and which were refurbished. This
is a six color printer that is especially well suited to printing photos.
It uses bci-6 carts, and they are available prefilled from several
aftermarket vendors. Better and less costly would be refilling them
yourself. Easy to do once you get the hang of it and also easy to contain
what little mess you will make after you try it a few times. Refilling your
own carts will cost about one dollar per cart. There are a few vendors that
most of the participants of this NG use for bulk ink to refill these carts.
If your were able to find a five cart printer (ip4000, ip5000, or the
multipurpose units someone else told you about in an answer to your original
post), these are regarded more as general purpose printers as they use a
bci-3ebk cart with pigmented ink as well as black, yellow, cyan, and magenta
carts for color and photo printing. The six color ip6000 printer uses lots
of photo magenta and photo cyan (these are low dye load versions of cyan and
magenta - more dilute than cyan and magenta) when printing photos. Good for
photo quality but much more ink used. It doesn't matter at a dollar a
refill, however. Check it out on google.

 

[measekite]

un
correct. I saved spent
over $1,000 ($ Canadian) last year (2005) by refilling my own
cartridges on my iP5000 and iP4000. And both today, as we're about to
go into 2007, still have original print heads nada nada nada
that came with the printer. Not bad for the iP5000 which was bought in
2004! Naturally there was no a
problem whatsoever with clogging or fading, otherwise I wouldn't be
using refill ink, right? n

wrongo bongo. you cannot afford canon ink. Not unless Mommy and Daddy
raise your allowace.

 

[measekite]

I agree with Dan. I have an MP780 and an iP4000 which have worked
very well and compatible cartridges are cheap and plentiful.

They are cheap and plentifull but compatible does not mean anything.

As a general rule, avoid any printers with chipped cartridges. There is no reason to.
Unfortunately there aren't too many left that meet this criteria. Try
these links for a couple of economical Canon printers:

http://tinyurl.com/y3t4t6
http://tinyurl.com/y7ntcw

My advice is to get a refurbished

A brnad new one costs about the same

 

[Andy]

They are cheap and plentifull but compatible does not mean anything.
A brnad new one costs about the same

what about the 1P600 it's the cheapest canonI can find?

 

[Burt]

what about the 1P600 it's the cheapest canonI can find?

Did you meant the ip1600? If so it is a very slow photo printer and uses
the tri-color carts with extremely small quantities of ink in them. This is
one of the new Canon printers which probably has chipped carts as well to
thwart the use of aftermarket carts or inks. If you meant the mp600, this
printer also has chipped carts and is definitely not the least costly to
operate. I repeat --- try to find an ip4000, ip5000, ip6000, or a
multifunction unit that uses bci-6 and bci-3ebk carts as they can be
refilled or are available as compatables for a very low operating cost.

The post that said that the cost of a new ip780 was the same as a
refurbished one was probably comparing the cost of the refurbished 780 with
the new line of canon multipurpose units which use chipped carts and do not
have lower priced aftermarket prefilled carts.

If you want to refill the cartridges (easy to do and at a cost of about $1
per cart) you can buy an ip4200 or 4300 for $100 or less. These are the
newest of the Canon printers with chipped carts. Refilling the carts will
possibly void your warranty and will cause the printer to stop monitoring
the ink levels, so you will have to visually monitor the ink levels to
protect your printhead.

My feeling is that the ip6000D printers that are still available new would
be the easiest and most cost effective units to buy. The carts can be
refilled, and there is a ready supply of aftermarket carts if you wish to
use them. You would have the best assurance of predictable ink quality with
purchasing bulk inks from a vendor that others on this NG have successfully
used and refilling your carts.

Disregard any posts on this subject from Measekite as he rants against
aftermarket inks and/or refilling but has never used them or done any
refilling himself.

 

[Michael Johnson, PE]

what about the 1P600 it's the cheapest canonI can find?

That would be a good printer. It uses the BCI-6 cartridges which, IMO,
is the important thing. It has six ink tanks so it should print very
high quality photos.

 

[Burt]

(snip)

That would be a good printer. It uses the BCI-6 cartridges which, IMO, is
the important thing. It has six ink tanks so it should print very high
quality photos.

Michael - that would be the ip6000 which I think would be an excellent
choice and is still available online as the ip6000D. I'm not sure that is
what the previous post was about as there is no "1p600" of which I am aware.
The ip1600 is the cheapest to buy but not the best purchase for operating
costs - the usual rule of thumb that the least expensive inkjet printers
cost the most to operate.

 

[jan siepelstad]

Look to what is sold in Holland, it is a continuous ink system which is
universal, so brand and model are not that important.
Look at www.discount-inkt.nl

 

[jan siepelstad]

Look for a universal CISS at www.discount-inkt.nl

 

[Michael Johnson, PE]

(snip)

Michael - that would be the ip6000 which I think would be an excellent
choice and is still available online as the ip6000D. I'm not sure that is
what the previous post was about as there is no "1p600" of which I am aware.
The ip1600 is the cheapest to buy but not the best purchase for operating
costs - the usual rule of thumb that the least expensive inkjet printers
cost the most to operate.

I figured it was a typo and he meant the iP6000. If not then he should
consider that printer.

 

[Burt]

I figured it was a typo and he meant the iP6000. If not then he should
consider that printer

It was definitely a typo, but the printer he was probably referencing was
the ip1600 which is an extremely low cost unit. His statement was that is
it the cheapest Canon he was able to find. I absolutely agree with you the
the iP6000 printer is his best bet for low running costs. He will recover
the initial outlay very quickly if his printing output is average or
greater. For low cost operation the iP4000, iP5000, and the equivalent MP
units would be cheaper than the six color units as the photo magenta and
photo cyan inks are used at a much greater rate than the others, but either
refilling (my choice) or using inexpensive aftermarket prefilled carts would
keep the ink costs in check. BTW, I never noticed that the Canon
nomenclature had a lower case "i" and upper case "P". That wasn't a typo
on my part, although I often type almost everything lower case in my haste
to get emails out.