# ½ Price Printer



## boyoh53 (Nov 28, 2002)

I bought Lexmark printer at PCWorld.co.uk for £29.99 = ½ price.
I don't yet need it but I couldn't pass it at that price.
My son bought one and when I seen the quality I got a second one.


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## hewee (Oct 26, 2001)

I hear that they are good and they have good printer at cheap prices.

BUT

It is not really that cheap because the ink cost more then other printers.
One thing that needs to be looked at more then the cost of the printer is the cost of printing.
You can spend 3 or 4 times more for a printer but it will cost you a lot less in ink and really save you money because of the cost per page in printing.


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## boyoh53 (Nov 28, 2002)

Hello hewee, for my little usage of printer I have been using the cheap brands
of ink, seems to keep me going OK.
We have an older Lexmark printer and the ink cartridge for it is about the same cost of said printer. It belonged to Windows 98 set-up. I d/loaded the drivers for XP from one of the sites and it worked OK for a while but now has stopped. I don't know whether or not my son messed it up, but it shouldn't stop working for no reason. 
The spare printer I bought to-day may work out costly because the printer with this is still under warranty. Maybe by the time I get to use new one the ink could be off. Have to wait and see. At the price I thought it would be worth the gamble.


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## brushmaster1 (Jun 15, 2002)

I bought a Lexmark Z25 printer on sale for $34.95. New ink cartridges cost over $70...I now have 3 of these printers...cheaper than buying ink!

I tried a refill kit and it not only wouldn't work, it destroyed one of the printers. I should have known better...I used to do printer tech support and was always warning customers about the dangers of third party ink. I didn't listen to my own advice!


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## boyoh53 (Nov 28, 2002)

Hello brushmaster1, I was checking the cartridge prices after reading hewee's
post. Both the manufacturer's and compatible inks are very expensive, I wonder what the "mileage" is like for both. I have it in mind to return printer for refund.
I am discouraged with the high cost of replacement ink.

An interesting item on the high price of ink;

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3626373.stm


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## Cosmic (May 5, 2003)

I went to a computer show today and I also was shopping for printers. 

Those ones brushmaster1 mentioned (Lexmark Z25) were "On Sale" for like $30 Usd but I didn't bite. The catch was they didn't include the black ink cartridge and no USB cable. Also the ink cartridges are small dinky things. Wicked expensive too. As he says cheaper to buy a new printer.

Sometimes things aren't what they seem. I like to buy computer stuff in person as much as possible.

The best deals are the Epson's. Ink is a third of the cost of most others and fairly good sized cartridges. Can't believe how small some are. Canon's are bad too, very tiny cartridge and expensive. HP ink is expensive but the cartridges are good size.

If you are going to refill, best to judge the contents and refill before it is empty. The sponge area can not become completely dry in any area. Again the best luck seems to be in refilling Epson's.


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## brushmaster1 (Jun 15, 2002)

Refilling any cartridge is risky. The problem is that the ink in the refill kits is not expressly formatted for that particular printer. Ink that is too thick will quickly clog the nozzles, and ink that is too thin will leak.

All printer manufacturers rely on ink sales for their profit. Printers are sold nearly at cost...ink is their major source of revenue. For that reason, their own ink is specially formulated...they don't WANT you buying refill kits!


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## hewee (Oct 26, 2001)

You may want to read up on printers.

http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-7604_7-1016838.html

http://reviews.cnet.com/Peripherals/2001-3132_7-0.html

Also if your just wanting to print out text then there are the Laser printers that you can get that are better in that you get alot of pages per toner cartridge. The toner cartridge cost more then ink but your get more per pages out of it so it's cheaper.

http://reviews.cnet.com/Printers/4502-3159_7-0.html?tag=pageNav&orderby=-7eRating&qt=

Like the Brother HL-1440 cost $129-$249. Replacement toner cartridges run $60 for the 3,000-page capacity and $85 for the 6,000-page capacity. That works out to about 2 cents and 1.4 cents per page, respectively. If you want to reduce your costs even more, select the toner-saver mode in the print-driver settings.
So not too bad when you look at the over all cosy boy.

Plus I was told but don't really know that you don't have the trouble like the inkjet drying up on you if you don't use you printer much. I don't print much and the ink just dried in the printer. I did all the cleaning anf even got new ink cartridges but the printer just will not let the ink tru. It just gets to hot here in the summer and buy me not using the printer more it just dries up so I am not going to buy any more ink or even a inkjet printer. I would like to get a B&W Laser printers that would be better for the way I use a printer. But they are a lot bigger and don't really have the room for it in here. But they too are getting smaller.

I just seen last week or the week before a thing on the cost and rating of ink cartridges and compatible inks cartridges. I forget where it was but it had some good marks on some compatible inks cartridges and what printer brands and models they worked good on etc. I think also it was Staple compatible inks cartridges that was listed on some too. Some you saved more then others also.

Anyhow here is a search in printer ink.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=printer+ink

Good luck boy.


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## boyoh53 (Nov 28, 2002)

Hello, thanks to everyone for input, I am very undecided about this Lexmark, good thing is "money back" no problem. I presently have a small Epson and I hadn't used it for weeks and was surprised when it started printing without a problem, even with cheap ink. 
There is no USB cable with this Lexmark either.
I wonder how it would work out if ink was stored in fridge. I ordered 2 black cartridges (Epson compatable) with some discount for £6.63. About $12. 
Home refilling seems to get a bad press.


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## Fyzbo (Feb 6, 2002)

My mother father and myself all own different printers all for different reasons. I own the HP1220C which is meant for company use(bulk printing), the cartridges are at about $55, but they hold a lot of ink. My father bought a cheap lazer printer, his cartridges cost $60, but he only needs to buy a new one about once a year. My mother went out and bought an expensive all-in-one printer. It's nice and great quality, but the cartridges are about $45 and a third of the size of mine. Print off a bunch of photos and they are spent. So I always recommend spending the money and buying a business printer.


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## hewee (Oct 26, 2001)

Your welcome boy. 

Then your hear from others that like to get photo's printed out say it is cheaper to have them printed for you at a printing place then doing it yourself because it cost you so much more for ink and you can use up one color but have to buy a new cartridge because of that one color. I will go along with that too because they have lots of ink and the photo paper that they pays less for then we could buy it for.


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## boyoh53 (Nov 28, 2002)

Hi Fyzbo, thanks for reply. 99.99% of my printing is for taking bits and pieces of the net for future reference. So a very basic printer fulfills my needs. I think it would be a waste for me to buy a high spec. machine.


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## hewee (Oct 26, 2001)

You know boy someone posted at a nothing forum long ago how a fax is soooooo much cheaper for printing out data like you seem to want to do. Get a plain paper fax machine and your have another phone also. 
So look into that and you get something on the cheap side that the cost of using is also cheap for what you need it for.


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## boyoh53 (Nov 28, 2002)

Hello hewee, would that work with ordinary dial-up?


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## hewee (Oct 26, 2001)

What a plain paper fax machine?

I would say yes.

But ask about them and go and read up on them.
I will see if I can find some reviews.


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## hewee (Oct 26, 2001)

http://www.epinions.com/Fax_Machines-Plain_Paper/sort_~rating/pp_~1/sort_dir_~des

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=plain+paper+fax+machine+reviews

Your want one that prints on plain paper with ink that last. The one's that have the rolls of paper use a ink that fades over time.


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