One thing to check before you get dragged in by the cheap printer prices - price out the ink cartridges!
There was a recent article in our paper about people complaining that their $50 printer used $35 ink cartridges. They get you one way or another! Something else the article mentioned was that some vendors were actually putting chips into their ink cartridges so that you were prevented from refilling them yourself (using one of those cheap ink-and-a-syringe kits) - effectively forcing you to buy their overpriced new ink.
Depending on the type of printing you're planning on doing, you might also want to check out the ink configuration - I've seen all these:
- One cartridge for all colors
- One cartridge for black, another for all other colors
- One cartridge for each individual color
Obviously, the final choice would be preferable, as you don't have to replace any cartridges that are not empty. With the first option, if you print a lot of non-color (i.e. black) stuff, you end up having to scrap the whole thing even though there's plenty of color ink available.