Printers....
What printer uses the most affordable ink yet still produces a nice print?

I print photos and text


Anecdote below
So I bought an Epson printer and I must say it works great and only cost $60-70. I don't print that often so it sat for couple months, printed a little more, sat again.

Well when I go to use it it says my ink is empty, but if you look at the carteridge it still has ink in it. WTF? Well I did a small amount of research and found that in some cases there is a time limit on the carteridges. Something to do with a chip in the cart. Seemed kinda iffy to me. Too bad as it really was a nice printer and the carteridges cost about the same as the printer.
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HP are one of the worst on ink. I am a big fan of Canon printers, but this is because I like to print photos and they have some of the best machines for that. Do you want an all-in-one, photo printer, or simply a color printer? And yes after 6 months ink will dry up. You should print something every week or two to keep it fresh. Did you ever consider laser? The toner will not dry out for years and much more economical.

I pay roughly $60 for new cartridges for my canon IP500 printer, but the cartridges are 3x the size of HP. Don't be fooled by the price of the tri color cartridges by HP once you factor in how much ink per color is actually in the cartridge. Also, the Epson machines are solid, but the print quality isn't there IMO.
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Ken just let me know if you want a inkjet photo printer or color laser and I will login to my Consumer Reports account and get you their analysis of cost per page. :-)
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I'm an Epson fan. I have an R1800 that gets used infrequently - but have never had that problem really.

Couple of things to try - remove the cartridges and reinstall them. Second, disable ink level reporting (should be an option).

Currently I use a Workforce 600 and find the ink to be a lot cheaper and lasts longer than any HP I ever had. Also have an R280 that's never been out of the box. Gave my brother a used R280 that had not been used in over a year - and it worked fine without adding new ink. (Had bought two on a deal a few years ago)



Ron
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the whole ink problem made me go for a color laserjet a few years ago
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Well, I have found (at least with the NX415) that if you re-install you can get mor life out of your "expired" cartriges.
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I have been using an Epson printer scanner phot copyier for over 2 years now. The cartridges cost me 7 bucks and last 3 or 4 months depending on usage. Some friends gave us another newer one, and my wife is using that one, but the cartridges are a little more expensive 11 bucks a pop. You cannot complain about that.
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