[invictius]

I've got a canon pixma ip1000, and managed to get some black cartridges that literally fell off the back of a truck (at least, the driver didn't make any effort to come back and pick them up...), about 20 undamaged ones. I've noticed with 3rd party cartridges, they've had a very long life until recently - hoping that having genuine cartridges will mean I don't have to buy more ink for a good few years - anyway, what printer is THE most economical?

[ponkan pinoy]

Hehe, I've seen stuff literally fall off the back of a truck. This stuff was just liquid soap though, and a box of tampons. Nothing to interest me.

I think that the most economical printer should be a laser printer, toner's pretty cheap at a per-page level.

[aeiou]

yes, laser would definately be the best, but as far as inkjets go, I would guess that a printer that was easy on ink also would have lower quality prints because in general more ink with more, smaller dots means higher quality.

[schnikies79]

epson or canon are about the most economical from what i've seen (if you're looking into a color inkjet). their ink tankes don't contain the print heads so they are cheaper, and the print quality is great!

[ƒÓÒl]

Laser is hands down the cost-per-page winner.
I just installed the second new toner cartridge in mine this week, and out of curiosity I checked how many pages were printed with the cheap half full cartridge it came with (it says it's only half full in the manual) and the first full (HP) replacement, and it did 4,583 pages!
I did the math comparing my wife's Lexmark (that only takes $23 cartridges) and I could have bought the laserjet itself for 1/2 what her ink ink would cost, printing the same number of pages.

HP Laserjet 1012, from Staples. Toner is $65-$72 for it, depending on where you shop, but ~3000 pages for that cost is excellent.

Anyway, if you've got the free cartidges, get the printer that matches them. That's the only way to beat a Laser with a bubblejet.

[13rian]

In my experience, Epson is by far one of the worst in terms of saving ink. It's a massive ink guzzler like u wouldn't believe. Maybe it's just because my friends and I are graphic designers and we only deal with the higher-end printers. I personally own an iP4000 Canon (borrow my friend's Epson if I need to print good quality ><). So far, it seems to do pretty well.

[pctec]

I have both a laser printer and an ip6000D Canon. I buy bulk toner on ebay for the laser and bulk ink from atlanticinkjet.com for the Canon.

I got 2 refill bottles of toner for $40 (thats about 12000 pages @ 5%)
And I got 6 bottles of refill ink for $85 (each bottle had 250 ml... enough for dozens of refills)

[Randyman...]

When I researched this a few years ago, the Cannon stuff was rated among the highest value for re-fills (cost per page). But it still seems expensive to me

[schnikies79]

holy thread-resurrection batman!