I think I paid about $100 for my HP 842C a couple of years ago.

I just bought a new color cartridge and a new black cartridge for it. $70.00 !!!!
I tend to forget over time how much I am paying for probably 25 cents worth of plastic, maybe a dollars worth of electronics, and maybe 3 cents worth of ink.

Somebody needs to start a movement!!

On a side note: That's a weird word - cartridge. Cart and ridge. I guess it means, when you buy 'em, it's like driving your cart over a ridge. Ok, where's my caffeine...

Actually if you think that is bad, I use to work with a billboard company, well, we printed the billboards for companies, etc.

They had four 25 foot long printers we could load the vinyl used to print the billboards on which were close to half a million dollars each. But when your printing billboards from anywhere at 20 feet x 40 feet to 30 feet x 80 feet, you end up using alot of ink. I think their monthly bill for ink alone was anywhere between 30k and 50k.

That was actually a fun job. With only 15 total employees, I'd have to really say that smaller companies are so much more fun to work for at times.

But yeah, I never really understood paying 50 bucks for that cheap printer and the cartridges cost 30 bucks.. I guess that's why they can sell printers for cheap, they make the bulk of their money off the ink, cables that usually are sold separately, etc. Most of the time cables and such are marked up 75% to 80% from what it costs to make them.

I recently bought the wrong cartridges for my hp and lost the reciept. It was cheaper to buy a printer for the 'wrong' cartridges than to go buy the cartridges I needed in the first place.

i learned a while back that HP makes most of its money off Cartidge sales. I used to sell printers and INK and notices that ink did indeed cost more than the printer. It almost came out cheaper to buy a new printer with the free ink everytime you needed new Ink.

just think, if u sell your printer when the ink runs out, use the money towards a new printer with the free ink, you come out on top rather than just buying new ink.

crazy aint it.

Congratulations on Guru Robert Just noticed!

As for the cartridge bit, funny you should mention it. I just came home from Office Depot and was looking at new ink cartridges for my 932C. Yes I certainly agree with the above, I'm not getting ink, instead I'll sell my printer for a hundred bucks and get a newer cheaper printer with ink in the box, and repeat next time I run out of ink. Nearly a difference of 10 dollars if I get a decent price for my printer!

Cool

This must be a common theme today, as I just got back from picking up a new black ink cartridge for my Epson C82. It was only $35, but it seems that Epson makes their cartridges about 1/2 the size of normal ones. With that little ink in it, you could measure the lifespan of it in hours instead of days.

I have seen _loads_ of small offices that think they're getting a great deal when they buy that fancy new inkjet printer at a bargain price. They consistently fail to factor in the equation of consumables (ink and printheads) and time (shopping for and installing) new cartiridges. I have one customer who spent over $100 per month on cartridges!

Their second defense is that "Hey I can print these great color images and send them to my customers", to which I reply "Yeah but they look like you printed them on an inkjet printer, not too professional really."

Inkjets are slow and expensive to run. If you need to print out lots of documentation for filing, correspondance or invoicing you should really look into a laser printer (used ones can be had at a bargain). We picked up a nice Lexmark Optra Rt+ for a client for CDN$250 and tha included a high-yield (14,000 page) toner cartridge. Replacements are about $400 for a branded one and as low as $200 for generic. They're generally faster, cheaper, and easier to maintain. If you really need color then I guess you should bite the bullet and get that inkjet. If you want professional presentations you should probably do your layout, check it on the laserjet and send it off ot your local print shop for production on double-sided glossy stock.