Best ink jet print for running costs

RaiderHammer

Hi I need a new printer. Any recommendations up to £80. Want cheapist genuine ink replacements.

Is £80 enough to get a scanner / printer all in one these days?

Thanks.

david39

Nip in to Curry's and you'll see a range of printers/scanners at less than that price. Saw them yesterday from about £69 upwards. Try to avoid their own brand Advent.

Suggest, after choosing one, that you go home and try to find it on the Net at a cheaper price, although Curry's are pretty competitive on price these days so taking one off the shelf instead of waiting for delivery may be more appealing than saving a fiver or so.

The Kodak range claim to be the cheapest to run. I have seen the results from one and they look fine to me but the installation procedure involves a download from the internet so can be lengthy.

Original Kodak cartridges are less than £20 for the set and I think they last a good time.

zee_2

ink prices vary for makes ,look up,http://www.inkemporium.co.uk/acatalog/index.html
for ink prices after you see a printer you fancy.
I use epson stylus D129 for printing [ set to black only, and
brotherDPC 33C for multi purpose
both very reasonable to run.
possibly ebuyer.co.uk or staples.co.uk may have good offers
watch out for HP and lexmart..prices

andy2004

note to zee, even when printing to black only, the colours are used to make the black more black, so you color ink levels will drop aswell, and i didnt believe it when i read it to the first time. until I had to replace my colour cartridges when all i did was print in black.

sillygoose

Has to be Epson, some of the others like HP have the head on the cartridge so its hard to make cheap compatibles.

With Epsons they put a little chip on the cartridges to try to make it harder for 3rd parties to reproduce them. When the market becomes flooded with cheap 3rd party ones Epson bring out new models with a new cartridge.

Look for an Epson Stylus SX515W all in one, its one of those Epson is moving on from as they can't make any money on cartridges. This baby goes like a crazy thing, has wifi so you can print from laptops and multiple computers, usb, colour screen, card reader for camera memory cards - and compatible cartridges only cost £1 each!

You may be able to get one for £59 new delivered! sign up for email notification of when its in stock in the Epson shop HERE, it seems to come back in every few days but you will need to buy FAST when it does!

Alternatively you can find new ones on Ebay from commercial sellers for £65 delivered.

This printer is not obsolete, just Epson can't make any money from ones that use these cartridges any more so are clearing them.

Apologies - just read your post again, you want only original cartridges? sorry can't help you on that then, I have been running various machines with (good) compatables for years with no problems so no idea! to anyone else though this is still a cracking buy!

santer_2

I have 6 printers connected to a network to save having to get up to change the paper type, and the only original ink they have seen is from the set which came with them.

On the occasions I have been running a new printer with the supplied inks, I have printed a photo with it, along with the same photo using a printer which already has compatibles in, no one can tell the difference, and these are for images up to A3 plus.

The only advantage IMO of genuine inks is that they are long lasting for photos which are likely to be looked at frequently over the years

For photos, the correct choice of paper will go a long way towards making the difference between a so so print and a good one

RaiderHammer

The only reason why I say genuine cartidges is because the last HP printer seemed to constantly go wrong after I tried using compatiable cheaper cartridges. Don't really want to go down that road again.

NeverAgain_2

Another vote for Kodak.

The cartridges are around a tenner, so there's no need to mess around with unbranded ones or refills.

sillygoose

RaiderHammer wrote: »

The only reason why I say genuine cartridges is because the last HP printer seemed to constantly go wrong after I tried using compatible cheaper cartridges. Don't really want to go down that road again.

HP compatible cartridges are generally 'remanufactured' sometimes over and over because it contains the print head and its very expensive to set up to manufacture so they collect old one and clean and refill them. Unfortunately the heads only have to be made to work once really as the original cartridge so they can get very ropey after going round the system a couple of times.

The Epsons have permanent print heads in the actual printer, they use a piezo mechanism to mechanically push the ink out rather than HP's boil it to blow it out method.

This means that the Epson ink formula is simpler to copy than the HP ink which is quite complex and the Epson cartridge is just a simple plastic tank, hence £1. I have used 3 generations of Epson's with compatibles with no problems, you just don't need to pay a fortune.

pedrothefish

I used epson printers at work because they were so reliable{in bakeries, full of dust and oil}
I've got an old epson RX420 about 6 or 7 years old ( I think) I've always used jettec replacement ink cartridges and its still going strong.
the jettec cartridges have about twice the amount of ink in and automatically resets to full it when the printer says its empty.(once)
i get my cartridges from here. http://www.inkandmedialtd.co.uk/
I used to use a chip resetter before they did it automatically.

Marty999

I'd recommend Brother printers like this one. I have a Brother and it's been faultless. I use compatible ink cartridges which cost around £4 each but the black has 29ml of ink and the other colours have 20ml. That takes some beating for running costs!