Cheap inkjet printer

[TimberWolf]

I thought I’d buy a new inkjet printer since my old one either didn’t like the ink refills I was feeding it, or was knackered. I avoided the cheapest £20 HP down at PC World since that one came with ‘special’ starter ink cartridges that don’t last long. Thanks for the honesty, but I thought I’d pay twice as much and get a Lexmark which has a copier too. I didn’t notice anything about low reservoir tanks written on the box of the Lexmark and bought it half expecting the worst but hoping the ink rip-off situation had changed a little since I was last buying inkjets.

Got home to discover they only supply one cartridge, the colour one. You have to buy a new black cartridge if you want black, until which time the colour one will produce washed out black, presumably consuming vast quantities of each colour in the process. So I went to Rymans and tried to buy a new black cartridge. My model wasn’t listed in their book (perhaps because its new) but their best guess was a cartridge that was compatible with that range of Lexmark numbers onwards. It cost me £22 – over half the cost of the ‘king printer already. It went in the printer okay but the printer software rejected it.

Flip, I'm going to be shelling out more on ink than the cost of the printer before I even start to use it. The scams printer manufacturers pull with ink (possibly the most expensive liquid in existence) isn’t funny any more

[bellymonster]

I've had numerous Epsons and Hp's all which failed and cost a lot to run.

I've recently switched to Brother because I found a decent all-in-one with wireless conection for 50 quid.

Best printer I've ever had and the cartridges are pretty reasonable even if you buy the originals.

Staples always have Brother printers on offer, so worth looking there if you are going to discard the Lexmark.

[kirk]

I bought a laser for £50 about 4 years ago, still running and only on the second 40 odd quid toner cartridge

[gingerjedi]

I have an Epson C62 and buy the cartridges on eBay, 8x for £10 delivered.

The only thing that really annoyed me about this printer is it refuses to print a black text doc if the colour cartridge is empty.

[mrdonuts]

have you tried the use black ink only button

[PRC1964]

I bought a laser for £50 about 4 years ago, still running and only on the second 40 odd quid toner cartridge

Me too. I bought a Canon cheapo laser printer about 10 years ago and it's never goen wrong. The toner lasts for years too.

[gingerjedi]

have you tried the use black ink only button

If you mean the setting in printer properties then yes but it still refused to print, it doesn't mater now but was costly at the time as I had no choice but to buy an official cartridge.

Also when using that setting the colour still goes down? I think they 'virtually' deplete after so many pages are printed regardless of how much ink is left.

[s2budd]

Printers...When will they lean

If you want a decent printer then buy an old one.

HP laserjet (mono or colour)
HP Jetdirect card for networking or parallel printer cable
Ink cartridge

Nothing else to buy for years. Not even ink.
You can even get ones that print double sided.
The newer printers are a rip off.

Personally I use a HP Laserjet 4 Plus that prints double sided with a JetDirect card to add it to the network.
I bought it in 1999 for about £100 all included, including the ink.
I've changed the ink once for about £40

[TimberWolf]

If you want a decent printer then buy an old one.

HP laserjet (mono or colour)
HP Jetdirect card for networking or parallel printer cable
Ink cartridge

Nothing else to buy for years. Not even ink.
You can even get ones that print double sided.
The newer printers are a rip off.

Personally I use a HP Laserjet 4 Plus that prints double sided with a JetDirect card to add it to the network.
I bought it in 1999 for about £100 all included, including the ink.
I've changed the ink once for about £40

Yeah, I had a Laserjet 4L and it worked well for years. I still have it actually, but keep it just for emergencies since it smears pages and generally the print quality has become very poor.

I just discovered that my new Lexmark isn't compatible with Ubuntu too, what a croc, I mean fun, buying printers and Linux is

I should really have researched things more, but while I was in the shop...