Printers - what a rip off they are....

philip1982_2

I have a printer which is about 5 years old. I have bought a new laptop, and it uses Vista instead of XP. Lexmark do not make software available for their older printers for use with Vista - which is a disgrace.

It got me thinking - I spend £30-£40 on Lexmark cartridges, and they never produce the number of pages they are supposed to, because they always dry up before I have time to use them all.

I am going to buy a new printer, but am unsure what to buy. Certainly it wont be a Lexmark for the above reasons, but I see Kodak are doing a printer with cheaper cartridges.

Are these the best value for money printers? Anyone got any money-saving tips on ink cartridges - are these self-filling ones any good?

[Deleted User]

Hi,

did you try the Lexmark site, for a driver download.

totalsolutions

Just get a black & white laser printer, lower running costs (cost of ownership). Suggest the Brother range. Do you NEED colour? Colour photos are cheaper from high street shop, get then printed while you shop.

philip1982_2

Yes, I did check the Lexmark site.....they aren't supporting old printers.

I suppose I could look at B&W - it just seems a backward step. I don't print photos, but do like to print stuff, forms etc - in the colours that are intended.

kwikbreaks

I bought an Epson All-in-One for less than £40 from Tesco and compatible ink cartridges cost about £2 each delivered off eBay.

If manufacturers were forced to develop new drivers for all their obsolete printers for every new operating system indefinitely then I think they'd cost a tad more than £40 a pop. If they stuck with the same model forever they'd go out of business as others produced better ones.

Your printer would no doubt continue to work perfectly on XP so why not blame Microsoft for producing new software instead of the printer manufacturer for not producing a new driver?

After 5 years just about every bit of computer kit is obsolete - either live with that and replace it or just stick with old kit all round.

Inactive

Buy a Brother Printer, I get cartridges for mine for under £2 each delivered free from Choice Stationery.

macman

Have you tried it with the XP drivers? It may still work. though possibly not with all the monitoring functions etc.
If your Lexmark is five years old then it's done very well-I wouldn't ever buy one, because most are cheap and not very cheerful and you would be lucky to get 2 or even 3 years out of them.
If you buy a mid-range printer for about £50-60 then you will find that the running costs per page are always lower and the machine will last longer. Cheap printers are only cheap to purchase, not to run.
For brands, I would always suggest start with Canon, then maybe HP.

Marty_J

I have an HP all-in-one which worked fine until I upgraded to Mac OS X 10.5; HP only released a printing driver for it, so it will print but not scan. Apparently a working scanner driver can be cobbled together by dissecting the install package for some other HP printer, so I guess they just can't be bothered releasing one for this printer. They helpfully suggested that I purchase a new HP printer, which was nice of them.

I worked out the other day that a litre of printer ink would cost about £2,500. They really are taking the pi$$. Roll on the paperless society, that's what I say.

negg

Just remember that the price of the cartridge is irrelevant. It is the price per ml that gives you the real value of what you are paying. One of my friends ditched a Canon and bought a HP because the 'cartridges were half the price', but you were only getting a third of the ink - something they hadn't spotted!

If the cartridges are drying up, then you aren't doing much printing. Try a laser printer instead. The printers are more expensive, the cartridges are much more expensive but they don't dry up. Further, you may get 5,000 pages from a toner but only 500 from an ink (according to the manufacturer coverage of 5%, which no-one ever does!).

isofa

Many printers have separate cartridges, Epson certainly weren't the first in this, and I believe many models still have combined colours. Canon has had separate colour tanks for years, some models have a 3-in1 colour and single black or separate cartridges, depends on the model and how much you want to spend. Manufacturers make their money from the cost of ink, not the original printer, which is why low end models are so cheap, it's often cheaper to rebuy the printer rather than replace the full set of cartridges.

I've found Epson printers to be most wasteful of ink (especially on "charging" and cleaning), and worse quality on plain paper, but just my experience.

HP have been my choice for years, long lasting, high quality and reliable. And crucially to me in draft and black on plain paper they are as good as a laser (which I also own for comparison).

alanrowell

Op - have you tried plugging the printer in and seeing if Vista can find suitable drivers?