Colour printers with cheap refills - do they exist?

[sb34]

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If you buy an Epson or Canon you can buy generic non brand names cartridges. BUT they don't last as long as the brand name. I get 2 black and 1 colour for say £10 off ebay. Also buy the most expensive printer you can afford, you get what you pay for!

There are generic cartridges for HP printers but they're not much cheaper than the brand name ones.

I have a Canon i550 and it is very good, also its not too big and cumbersome. Refills are about £8.95 but last a long time.

Go into somewhere like computer world and have a look at the different cartridge prices for Canon, HP etc. You will find that you will probably go through more of one colour at a time so if you can get one which has 4 or 6 different colours it means you are only replacing the one that runs out. If they have a 'colour cartridge' which has magenta, cyan and yellow together and you only run out of magenta you have to replace the cartridge. Couldn't tell you what the difference in prices are though between the seperate cartridges and the joint 'colour cartridge'.

Not really what you're asking, but we're very pleased with our HP colour printer (990cxi) - it's very robust and seems to put up with a lot of abuse! We've always had HP printers as they seem to be the tonka toys of the printer world - very robust (and I don't know if it's still true, but I've heard that for ages the NHS would only buy HP because they were the most reliable).

The downside is the cartridges are NOT CHEAP! That said, they do seem to last a long time. To be honest, it's not a good idea just to price up how much the cartridges are - you'd be best off pricing up how much it costs per page to print. Some shops seem to list these comparison prices (or used to) - you may find somewhere online that compares cost? I'll have a hunt around and see if I can find anything.

Yes, very good point about the seperate cartridges. Much more efficient that way.

Couldn't find a comparison sheet sb34 but according to dh, manufacturers websites should have cost per page assuming 5% coverage on the page on their site. So what you could do is choose 3 or 4 models that you like the look of then go check out their cost per page to see which is the cheapest?

There's an article about the issue (there's discussions about whether manufacturers subsidise cheap printers and artificially inflate the price of the consumables to compensate) here but it is a bit techy in places. Still on the lookout for an easy spreadsheet page for you

Yes, separate colours are a good idea in theory.

However our big'n'expensive Epson always refuses to allow us to change one colour at a time. Could just be our printer, but i have found Epson to be most reliable in the past (more so than Canon).

Agree you should check the prices of generic cartridges when you buy (they may not last as long but they are much better value overall).

Also bear in mind that the major difference between printers is print speed. You won't need a high speed one, but some of the cheap ones are so slow as to be almost useless. Other than that, we have found Epsom and HP to be more reliable than the others.

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we have got a Cannon one and the cartridges are much cheaper. Pay a bit extra for a printer and look which ones do the cheapest cartridges first. I know Lexmark do incredibly cheap printers but there cartridges are usually well over 20 quid mark

Hi, santafio! (Like it )

You're right about Lexmark - we have one and their cartridges are c £25 in the shops. We got it from Dell along with the PC etc and the delivery man said "you want to change that as soon as you can!" - he suggested for Epson or Canon - because it uses ink quickly and the cartridges are silly prices.

However have a found a good site (Inkraider ) where the branded ones are quite cheap, and unbranded even cheaper - check it out for Canon etc too. I bought some last week and they came in a couple of days.

They sell printers too but I don't know how those prices compare.

janh what is your festive name going to be?

I'll be TheGrinch. Very appropriate - I could live without Christmas. (Mind you I don't know the punchline...)

There is a hideous animated one in the shopping centre in Preston - it sings and has mad eyes. Rhubarb's daughter is frightened of it and I don't blame her! It's actually taller than me

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TheGrinch lol

I only did it the once though fio - I've bottled out!

dadslib, I think I'd rather pay through the nose than mess about with black ink in the bathroom sink!

Refilling is a good idea but be careful about the guarantee and warranty's on your printer. It could void them as could no name brand ink cartridges.
Check this out before you buy extended warrantee's etc.

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dadslib, I knew it was you!

Reading this has renewed my anger at DH's friend. We have an HP printer where the refills are about £25 or something ridiculous like that. We bought it to print out stills from our video.

Anyway, DH's friend had photographs he wanted printed out and DH, being somewhat gullible, offered our printer's services. Along comes so called friend and prints out until our cartridge runs out! The b**r never even offered to buy a new one, and he knows how much they cost. So, the stills remain unprinted!

Glad I got that off my chest and sorry for hijacking your thread sb34!

dadslib

many printers cannot be refilled nowadays. The cartridges have electrical contacts which transmit the content of the cartridge to the printer along with a unique ID. If the printer realises that a cartridge that it has seen before has been refilled, then it will refuse to print from it.

Sneaky.