Printers and ink

fadetogrey

Just want to relieve my hangover with a quick rant.Tesco are selling HP deskjet 1050 printer copier scanners for £26.97.An excellent price as it comes with ink cartridges supplied.However the cost of replacement cartridges is £25.50 for colour and the same for black.£51 in all.Now how on earth can they do this as it would be far cheaper to buy a printer and when the cartridges are done just bin the lot and buy a new printer.So either HP are able to make a printer copier at a very low price indeed or the ink makers are ripping us off.:mad:rant over just going for some ice to help the hangover.I find 2 cubes does the trick.(in a glass of vodka);)

Azari

The ink cartridges supplied with the printer are usually 'starter' ones with a lot less ink than the normal versions.

Printer ink is a major rip off as they are using the revenue from that to subsidise the printers - hence the ridiculously low prices of the printers themselves.

The people who suffer most, of course, are those who do a lot a printing as they only save on the printer once and then get repeatedly hammered for the ink. It's worth checking out 'compatible' ink where these are available as they are a lot cheaper.

santer_2

A lot of printers arrive with starter cartridges, enough to check the printer works and run off some prints, so buying a new printer instead of replacing the cartridges might not be cost effective.

Unless you are doing exhibition quality prints, or charging for them and want to avoid them being returned after 150 years because the colour faded, consider using compatibles. Whenever you want to buy a printer, checking if compatibles are available is usually a good move.

This is one company which supply HP Compatibles, there are others though I haven't used them, you can also get originals from them, or use their refill by post service at £7 for the black and £9 for the colour.

http://www.refreshcartridges.co.uk/HP+DeskJet+1000-4999+Series-c-24_872_948.html

I have some identical printers and have printed the same image using one printer with genuine cartridges and another using compatibles, no one can tell the difference.

Genuine cartridges usually have anti clogging agents and are more inclined to print if the printer has been idle for a while. I just print a nozzle check every few days or so to keep the printer active

Helix

HP do XL cartridges that usually work out better value, however they often don't support these on the lower end printers that you pay £30 for. The slightly more expensive models do take them though and if you want to use original cartridges and not compatible ones it does end up working out cheaper with the XL ones.

crazyguy

They make all there profit on the inks, I sell them for a living and in the last year or so the ink cartridge price has gone up by a shocking amount compared to other items we buy !

deanos

Thats why you should check the price of carts before you buy any printer !

My HP one uses 6 carts and they are only £1 each for compatible replacements and they last ages as they are XL ones

dizziblonde

It's well worth factoring in and looking at the cost of the cartridges (I'll admit I was looking at that Tesco offer and I'm glad you flagged it up to me on here tbh)... my older HP printer/scanner thingamajig is much cheaper on cartridges than that one - think it's like £10 or so per cartridge (about 12 for an official HP one) and considering the amount I use mine - it's much better than the HP one I had before that which was the best part of £30 a one.

I don't tend to use compatibles unless I'm desperately skint - I just find that I personally don't get as much of a life out of them so it probably panns out even in the long run - I do have my printer settings perpetually on "as cheap as possible" though and go nuts when hubby prints everything out on normal!

pimento

I bought an HP laser printer. I only very rarely have to print colour and the B&W toner catridges last forever.

On the odd occasion I have to print colour, I do it at work but it's hardly ever.

santer_2

dizziblonde wrote: »

I don't tend to use compatibles unless . I just find that I personally don't get as much of a life out of them

A big selling point of most compatibles is that they usually contain more ink than the originals, often double, so not getting more prints from them is odd, though you are not the first person to say they get less out of compatibles.

bluenoseam

I went for a more expensive printer (a Kodak one) having checked the prices of the ink for all the other printers in the "budget" ranges & realising they were about £40 a set while the Kodak ones work out less than £20 a set!

[Deleted User]

If comparing printers and cartridges do compere the quantity of ink in each cartridge as they vary allot.