Thread: New printer or multifunction unit to buy

a fair point is that with the cheap printers they give you the printer and make their money on the consumables. The higher upmarket you go the more your running costs come down.

Studley

I have three Hps - a 1300 laser an office jet 6210 and an 880C inkjet. I bought the laser jet because they paid me $200 for my 10 year plus laser jet II P which was a great printer but I felt they were trying to phase it out (to durable?). All the printers are excellent except in running costs. The 6210 I use mainly for photocopying and faxing. I use it as a scanner when scanning photos in parallel with an agfa scanner - cuts down time to get an album done. The 880C is almost exclusivly photo printing. I have had no success with cheap ink refills for some reason. Has anyone else in HP's? I do note that HP is the worlds largest purveyor of ink.

In my case the inks are not more expensive than the printers but I know of a case with a colour laser where the refills actually cost more than the printer with (admittedly the new printers come with reduced size cartridges). I know the same happens with cheap inkjets. This hardly seems environmentally sound. The plastics use petrochemicals and it seems foolhardy to make printers as disposable items. I would not mind paying more for the printer and having cheaper inks, cartridges and toner.

Pusser

To give you an idea my epson 3800 cost $2200. It has 8 cartridges for the different colours each holds 80ml. Each individual cartridge costs $80. The SP230 I have which is a good printer cost me $250 but I think they can be had for $150 thesedays and each cartridge costs $22. Individual cartridges hold between 3 and 5ml of ink. They don't actually tell you but as best we can work out.

The really big wide format Epsons that print roll paper in sizes like 36 and 48 inch width come with ink cartridges that hold something like 250ml for pretty much the same price as mine cost. You can spend several thousand to get the printer though.

I think they have worked it out on a sliding scale. Basically you pay your money and you get your choice. I do think there is something to be said for getting the middle range printers. I know mine is a monster but prints great 16x20" prints. It actually only took a few wedding albums and it paid for itself. Going back to an A4 printer just look to get one of the better ones I think you will save yourself some grief when you don't have to get so many ink cartidges.

Studley

shame you weren,t up here in queensland , i have a canon multi function i dont have room for i am getting rid of for $60, in good cond and the aftermarket cartriges are about $4 each on ebay.bob

Probably spend up to $200 at this stage.

$200 bugger... My 12 mth old (now superseded) $3,000 printer is having a problem and I can't wait for it to be serviced so have to go buy another tomorrow for around $3,500 to keep the labels coming.

Can't buy the same one so will have to get one with different toner cartridges at around $1,200 for 4 replacements. All up with toners I'll have over $7000 worth of printers sitting in the office and one is partly stuffed. Then there's the A3 Epson Which has been sitting on top of a cupboard for 2 years, works perfectly prints fantastically but no good for what we need.

Sounds like a lot of money but one printer has saved us over $26,500 in label printing in the last 12 mths alone so I guess it's easily paid for the newie.
The new one by the way, prints 42 full colour A4 pages per minute in high res 2400 x 2400 dpi mode .

Sorry - Sounds like I'm bragging here but I'm not. For us a good printer is essential. Ours is in use every day. Right now it is holding up production because if we don't have labels we can't finish up a run of polish. Needed to print 600 labels today in French & English for Canada will need another 700 different ones tomorrow for them. Then up to a further 1,500 each of 6 different labels, each in French, German, Dutch, and English, to go to Holland in a couple of weeks.

Been waiting a week and struggling by losing 40% of the labels we produce because of printer. It's going to take another week to get parts to fix the bloody thing.

Shut up Neil and go to bed.