I recently bought a new Lexmark printer after my old printer crapped out. Well my ink has run out, went to a Staples to pick up some more ink cartridges, holy crap, $32.99 for black and $39.99 for color!  Almost $80.00!  I walked out inkless, couldn't bring myself to buy 'em.  Online they are cheaper, but still pricey IMO.

Anybody use those refillable ones?  Hows it work for ya?? That seems the best buy, IF they work.  

Yep, it's that expensive. I've used refill kits and they suck. I've heard that remanufactured cartridges are just as good though. At least toner cartridges for laser printers. I don't nkow about ink jet, but definitely don't buy any of the stupid refill kits that you use to refill with yourself.

Never used the refill kits. They can get messy, according to my friends who have tried them.

Whenver I shopped for a printer, the cost of the ink cartridges was always taken into account. The reason why HP and Lexmark cartridges are so expensive is because they have onboard circuitry and new print heads with every cartridge. You have to pay for all this. I was able to get cartridges for my EPSON 640 for under 10 bucks a pop, because with EPSON, the cartridges are just ink cartridges. The print heads and circuitry stay on the printer.

Quoted: Never used the refill kits. They can get messy, according to my friends who have tried them. Whenver I shopped for a printer, the cost of the ink cartridges was always taken into account. The reason why HP and Lexmark cartridges are so expensive is because they have onboard circuitry and new print heads with every cartridge. You have to pay for all this. I was able to get cartridges for my EPSON 640 for under 10 bucks a pop, because with EPSON, the cartridges are just ink cartridges. The print heads and circuitry stay on the printer.

Canon is also the same as epson, at least on some of their models.

Quoted: I was able to get cartridges for my EPSON 640 for under 10 bucks a pop.

I HAD the same printer, I was paying 16.00 for two cartridges, it was great.  I was pissed when it busted, I knew I'd be paying more for my ink for a newer printer, but it's really crazy!

You can buy Epson cartridges on ebay for under $10 all day long on Ebay for the above mentioned reasons. HP cartridges suck.

In my offices, we consider printers as disposable, I buy 30 or so of hte low end lexmarks a month.  

Ink for inkjet printers is one of the costliest substances on earth.

Search google for it.  In terms of gallons, it's astronomical.

TXL

The ink prices are a scam!  Its cheaper to buy a brand new low-end printer in many cases than buy refiills!

Nobody ever considers the cost of the 'consumables' when they buy an ink-jet printer. For black & white prints, consider getting a laser printer instead. The cost per page tends to be MUCH less.

The NMCI project bought some Lexmark 65 printers for single user use.

You could buy a new one (with rebate) for $49.00 at Office Max, to buy the color and black printer cartridge replacments cost $62.

I've got laser. Much more economical.

The NMCI project also bought Xerox® Phaser® 7300B color laser printers.
These cost about $3800.
Replacement printer ink costs $904 (4 colors).

Most printers come with factory cartridges that are low capacity so hey run out faster.

I ordered the ones off ebay before.  They worked well.

The current Consumer Reports said that the 2nd party inks are vastly inferior the to the OEM inks. The colors were way in the pix that I saw.  And also 2nd party inks require much more maitenance because  they clogged the print heads much more. They said that you could the cheaper print cartridges, but then exchange them for the good ones when you need good quality. The CU's conclusion not worth the trouble. Only the blank ink they could recommend, but you have keep in mind its limitations.

Quoted: Most printers come with factory cartridges that are low capacity so hey run out faster.

Didn't know that, scums.

Quoted: The NMCI project bought some Lexmark 65 printers for single user use. You could buy a new one (with rebate) for $49.00 at Office Max, to buy the color and black printer cartridge replacments cost $62.

Yup.

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Most printers come with factory cartridges that are low capacity so hey run out faster. Didn't know that, scums. Oh sure they are about 1/2 full or less

I noticed that too, I took the first printer back thinking someone had already used all the ink up.

I've started using remanufactured cartridges and couldn't be happier with them.  Total cost for HP color and black cartridges is $34 and you can't tell the difference, even when printing photos.  

Guys - this is a classic "razor blade" model... give away the printer and make out like a bandit on the ink. The printer's low price is subsidized by the subsequent ink business. As with everything, you get what you pay for. If you want cheap ink, then you need to pay up front for a more pricey printer. Do the math based on the total life cost of the printer and your expected throughput.

I pitched my printer a month ago for this very reason, and haven't replaced it yet. I just go to my sister's house if need be and use her laster printer lol. I hope I can keep this "scam" up because I hate paying for expensive disposables.

Kevin

Someone already hit on it, but it's correct - they've pretty much gone to the razor blade model for consumer level printers. Sell the printer cheap, try to make up for it by jacking up the ink. HP went even further by 'expiring' the ink on certain printers by giving them a computer chip with an expiration date. That meant that even if you rarely used your printer and had the in 80% full, it wouldn't work after that date. Their excuse was that using old in was bad for the printer, so they were saving the consumer possible trouble.

Here's a good place to get replacement ink and refill kits for less: www.4inkjets.com/

For black the refills are fine . For color they suck ass.

I use Laser.... I got it cheap at auction, and have printed thousands of pages without having to change the toner... the toner cartridge only costs half again as much as an ink cartridge, and lasts well over 5 times as long.......


I do miss color though

Well, despite some of the suggestions, I'am going to give the refills a tryInkSell.com, I need to do alot of printing for flyers.  There is a thirty day money back guarantee on the refill kits, if it does not work properly, I'll ship it back.

A brand-new 6,000 page cartridge for a HP-4 or -5 laser printer routinely goes for under $50 on ebay – less than a penny a page. A good used HP-4 printer typically sells for under $200, and will literally last forever in a home environment. Plus, they're repairable – replacement parts are cheap and readily available (unlike the 'throwaway' consumer inkjet printers).

With cheap consumables and a multi-million-page design life, I use my laser printers like a copier – no worries about the cost of printing several hundred form letters or a thousand sales brochures.

I bought a printer today to replace our failing Crapson. It didn't take very long at all reading the reviews at Cnet to figure out that the Canon i560 was a great value. At Costco, they are $80 and seem to be a better overall performer than most others, whether you are looking at price or performance. The refills are $12 per individual color and the print head stays in the machine. It does seem to have a drawback in that to get the highest quality photo's you have to buy the very expensive and hard to find Canon paper. Print quality seems to be fine without it anyway. It works with the Mac and comes with a USB cable. According to the reviews it can be quirky with XP installs or smudging but read the reviews yourself to get a real feel for it. I don't think I'm going to regret buying it.

I recently bought a new Lexmark printer after my old printer crapped out.

Well I hate to say it but you made a serious mistake, Lexmark is about the worse for reasonable ink.

Before you buy an inkjet (or even laser) printer do some research on availability of aftermarket supplies. If you had you would have found Lexmark is a poor choice. You can buy the Lexmark printer at a good price and then get stuck on ink. With some of the Lexmark printers it is cheaper to buy a new printer than to replace the cartridges.

I would suggest anyone buying a new inkjet printer to consider Cannon first. Replacement FACTORY ink cartridges for a Cannon range from about $8 for black to $18 for color. The Cannon cartridges hold less ink than HP cartridges but are about half the cost. BUT you can get NEW (NOT REFILLS) aftermarket Cannon ink cartridges for $2-5 black and $4-6 color this is a HUGE savings.

So before you buy new ink cartridges for your Lexmark take a good hard look at how much it is going to cost you to operate this printer over the next couple of year and don’t be surprised if the best choice is to scrape the Lexmark and buy a Cannon.

Laser Monks is a good place to get ink and laser supplies. These guys are actual Monks that make money to support the monastery and its charities by selling new aftermarket cartridges and cartridges they remanufacture themselves.

www.lasermonks.com/

If you do a lot of printing and don’t really need color take a look at the Brother HL-1440 laser. It can be had for less than $150, is fast, with good quality. The per page cost savings vs. inkjet will pay for the price difference in just a few thousand pages.

Quoted: I recently bought a new Lexmark printer after my old printer crapped out. Well I hate to say it but you made a serious mistake, Lexmark is about the worse for reasonable ink. Before you buy an inkjet (or even laser) printer do some research on availability of aftermarket supplies. If you had you would have found Lexmark is a poor choice. You can buy the Lexmark printer at a good price and then get stuck on ink. With some of the Lexmark printers it is cheaper to buy a new printer than to replace the cartridges...*snip*

I used to work at Best Buy and although we get a discount on many items one that I vowed to never buy was ANY Lexmark Product. As far as I am concerned they are the lowest of lows when it comes to  Printer/toner  manufacturers. ..

Lexy attempts to block 3rd party cartridge manufacturers and make it difficult to refill
news.com.com/2100-1023-979791.html
news.com.com/2100-1028-990501.html

Copyright officials aint buyin that sh*t
www.globetechnology.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20031029.gtlexoct29/BNStory/Technology/

Lexmark's are great disposable printers. You just can't buy new cartridges for them - too expensive.

The ink is the biggest scam.  They make like 5000% profit on the ink cartridges.  After a few years, you will see 3rd party cartridges costing only a couple dollars for your older printer that are just as good as the OEM.

In big expensive printers you will notice they reuse the same ink/toner packaging in all the models year after year so they only have to manufater one type of cartridge.  This makes them cheaper overall, and allows third party vendors to make the majority of the supplies.  Our $10000 printer gets around 6000 pages out of a $20 toner cartridge, around $0.003 per page.  Because with large printers people look at the cost per page, and not the cost of purchase. Take the $70 set of toner/ink cartridges for a cheapo printer and do the cost per page, your probably at $0.10 a page or worse.

In small personal printers, every model uses a freaking different cartridge.  It is the same ink or toner in each one, just packaged differently to make it costlier for companies to copy.  Now they are putting simple microchips in the ink cartridges and the FTC is trying to stop it.  The only reason they are adding the chips, althought the companies spout quality printing BS, is to make them impossible for 3rd parties to copy.

Basically they prey on the uninformed people buying todays computers.  They see the $50 printer and think it is a great deal.  All of the printers sold in normal stores like CompUSA and staples are sold on the same marketing scam.  So, when the buyer looks at all of the cartridges in the store to compare costs, they are all expensive.  Major stores also rarely sell third party supplies.

Most offices or people buying printers for higher use environments, only care about cost per page, and companies that cater to them will list the cost per page on products in their showroom.  It'd be nice if retail stores did this, but they never will.

Best thing to do is buy the new printer if it is cheaper or the same price as cartridges, because they are selling the printer at a loss.  If enough people do this, they will have to change their ways.