Printer Ink Refills

[LCHIEN]

So many similarities. I had an HP inkjet AIO machine. Ink was expensive, and the printer was a hassle. I had to restart my computer every time I wanted to scan something, and there were a variety of other software and hardware issues. I called tech support when it was barely out of warranty. Punjab in India said he knew exactly what the problem was and he could tell me how to fix it, but I had to pay for the support. That's when I decided to use up the remainder of my ink cartridges and buy something else.

I now have a Brother AIO, and have not had a single problem.

I also send most of my photo prints to Walgreens. Between paper and ink, it costs me about 75 cents to print a 4x6 from home, and the quality is not as good. I print the occasional spur-of-the-moment photo from home, but that's it.

there was some horrible HP sw drivers about 10 years ago. My dad had this HP AIO and it took forever to handshake and get going. Usually he had a word document loaded and tried to print before the printer was ready. THen it was hung and you had to reboot and wait again for it to connect before you could do anything. As my dad's IT guy, it was horrible.

[cabinetman]

I tried the refill once and that was the last time. One of ours is inkjet, and when it sits, a new cartridge may not work. So, I use our laser.

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[JoeyGee]

I have had terrible luck with ink refills, and good luck as well...

For my HP PSC1315, I tried the refills from Office Depot. They simply did not work. Took them back and got my money back, tried the ones from Staples, they worked pretty well...

For the difference in price however, the generic / refill inks aren't worth the risk to me. I don't print all that much, maybe 1K pages / year, so no real cost issue. Obviously not free, but not too expensive either...

As far as reliability issues with Inkjets, I am not sure what problems you are having. I have had way more troubles with laser printers over my lifetime than inkjets ever thought of, and that is coming from a guy with a long IT career... Sure there are certain makes / models I won't touch because of reliability, (Canon springs to mind) but overall, inkjets, particularly HP and Lexmark do particularly well. I have also heard very good things about the Kodak printers, although the Kodak company is having a lot of financial trouble these days...

I have only been in IT for about 15 years, so maybe my career hasn't been long enough . I have had nothing but issues with inkjets and pretty good luck with lasers in my brief 15 year career .

What in the world brought this thread back from the dead, anyway?

[toolguy1000]

i used to be a believer in HP inkjets but I'm turned off now - they don't work after sitting , they seem to jam a lot for me, and the cost of ink is huge.

I just use a sub $100 Brother monochrome laser, its soo much cheaper to feed and works very, very reliably, quick and perfect prints.

Photo prints I send to Walgreens via internet a quarter mile away - .19 per print and ready in an hour. No drying, no cutting, no sticking. If they're not right they do them again for free.

I figure photo paper and ink costs run about $1 for a sheet (three 4x6 prints) and the success rate is only about 75% calling for redos and added cost. Takes many minutes and makes a lot of noise.

what is the model number of that brother monochrome? i have a minolta pagepro that i can't get to install with windows vista home edition. hate the lexmark inkjet. tried cartridge world once..won't make that mistake again.

[Charlie R]

I've had good luck with prints from Snapfish.com. The 4x6 prints go on sale for a penny + shipping. Although it is explained on the site, I can't figure out how they calculate shipping so I call. It's always a lot cheaper than when I try to calculate it.
Have two Konica Minolta laser jets. One on an XP and the other on a Vista PC. They don't have updated drivers for Win7.

[dbhost]

I have only been in IT for about 15 years, so maybe my career hasn't been long enough . I have had nothing but issues with inkjets and pretty good luck with lasers in my brief 15 year career .

What in the world brought this thread back from the dead, anyway?

Two points...

#1. You've been at it as long as I have... I guess I just get lucky with printers around me... I have the worst time with lasers...

#2. Me being an idiot...

[alpha]

what is the model number of that brother monochrome? i have a minolta pagepro that i can't get to install with windows vista home edition. hate the lexmark inkjet. tried cartridge world once..won't make that mistake again.

I have a Brother HL-2270DW, my wife has Brother HL-2140. Both running fine on Windows 7. Mine works great on the network. Both are easy to refill the toner. I use InkOwl.com.

Bob

[LCHIEN]

current models:
http://www.brother-usa.com/Printer/B.../#.Tz5aBfFun-w

looks for sales or get on their mailing list - I get e-mails with good brother deals all the time.

My old HL1440 is still gong strong at my moms house. I currently have a DCP7040 multi-function scanner/printer.

For example, I know this deal has expired but this is an example of what i get in the mail from brother (HD2240D 24ppm laser with duplex printing $80 + free shipping, reg$129):
https://info.brother.com/pub/sf/Form...LCEw.?%20rilt=

[jackellis]

We owned an IBM laser that did well for about ten years, which we replaced with a Lexmark laser that's lasted at least as long. It's only problem is bouts of frequent paper jams, which may be due to the humidity or paper quality.

We've had several HP AIOs that have worked pretty well. Only the 7600 was a marginal performer, and it was a well known problem with the sheet feeder. we still have a G85 that's going strong and my wife is pleased with her new 8600. I use my 7600 for scanning documents and on the rare occasions when I do print something, it's on the laser.

I have the cost of ink and toner, but since I also hate trying to track and file paper, I try to avoid printing at all costs.

[cabinetman]

I get deals in email for printers that seem like a good deal, but the cartridges are almost as much as the printer.

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[JSUPreston]

Okay, adding my $.02 worth. I've been in IT for about 17 years now. I've had few problems with HP printers that couldn't be resolved with standard maintenance like maintenance kit for lasers, running a print on occasion through inkjet to keeps the heads from clogging, etc. I've had business class HP lasers chugging for 10-15 years with sometimes 3 million pages on them before retirement.

At home, I have a Dell 2135cn MFP (color laser all in one) that I love...bad thing is that it's not really compatible with the wife's Mac. I found some opensource drivers, but they only do greyscale for her, or have memory issues.

We also have a Canon Pixma of some type. My third Canon, and I've hated them all! I got this one because my FIL has the same model and loves it. I do like how the inks are in different cartridges, but if one color runs out, the whole printer is useless. Example, if the red runs out, I can't scan, copy or print in just B/W. Even though I hate it, I'm about to put it back into service for the wife until I can get another color laser MFP that works with the Mac.

[jziegler]

I get deals in email for printers that seem like a good deal, but the cartridges are almost as much as the printer.

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Sometimes, the printers come with "starter" cartridges that have much less ink/toner than a normal cartridge does. I know that was the case with the color Konica/Minolta I got for my wife last year. The original cartridges only lasted a few months with all of the marketing material she was printing. The printer was about $120 or so. It cost about $300 to replace all 4 toner cartridges, but over a year later, they all still have a lot of life left. To do a proper comparison, you need to know the capacity of the cartridges that come with the printer (they often won't tell you this easily) and that of the replacements.

Jim

[Cochese]

Got turned off of HP printers when they started going downhill before their recent better performers. Still didn't trust them to buy another one yet.

Bought a Lexmark on clearance and it performed fairly well until we started getting refills instead of their 1st party ones. It didn't like it one bit. Not that the quality was poor, but we'd get nagged all the time with their crappy software about how we needed to order genuine ink. Even with that, I took the chance on buying an AIO from them when I started working from home. It worked for all of ten minutes and was a hunk of junk.

Fairly happy with this Canon AIO I have right now, even though it reminds me of a UFO. Bought it in July and just now replaced the color cartridges. $43 was steep, but we'll see how long they last. After the trouble I had with the Lexmark, I'm just going to pay the piper from here on.