Hi:

At present I have the Kodak ESP7 and it eats up ink cartridges after about 10 to 12 pages of printing. And, the printer does not recognize the cartridge when I fill it with fresh ink.

Kodak is sending me a new cartridge but this really is not cost effective for me on the positive. I really regret purchasing this printer-

Can you recommend a well functioning printer that is economical and doesn't require so much attention to maintain it's operation ?

Thanks

Do you need color? Do you need photo quality?

I personally avoid all-in-ones. Most of our printing is with a B&W laser (HP). For photo-quality color, I think Epson is still the leader.

With any printer, the cost of consumables dominates the life-cycle cost. the only way out is refilling and/or remanufactured cartridges. You can base part of your decision on what is offered by the 3rd-party ink vendors.

My HP Officejet Pro L7680 works like a charm and uses HP's "nano" ink technology (at least, that's what they called it back then).

The cartridges last four to six times as long as the deskjet cartridges for the Epson and Lexmark I used to use for about 10% more price per cartridge.

That printer is several years old now and likely has been replaced by a newer model, but take a look at HPs.

Edit: And HPs have a very good track record of working with Linux.

If you want a low cost printer, go for a black and white laser printer with a duplex unit. You can find the really cheap.

If you want color for pictures, go for a inkjet with at least 4 cartridges.

Pixellany:
I do need color but not on demand-
I don't need photo's tho, I'm using the printer to print out copies of my Oil Paintings when needed-

yuesuanbelle:
After your advise think I'll go with an inkjet because I do need color sometimes-

frankbell:
I'm gonna jump onto the HP websites and check out that L7680 you mentioned. Thank you
Looking forward to a printer that is friendly to the Linux kernel I use.

Have a good weekend and thank you all; for good advise
Sincerely,
Ztcoracat

My experience, FWIW, is that HP has good linux support through hplip, Brother support is hit and miss and you are often better off relying on CUPS, Samsung has a universal linux print driver that works (but through a less than elegant installation, although it is improving). You can buy generic cartridges for both Samsung and HP printers - and the price gap with the genuine toner is rapidly narrowing. I suggest doing a few sums for printer + cartridge combo's for the suitable models from HP and Samsung being careful to make sure that the chosen models have the features you need (e.g. duplex, wireless etc).