Soon they'll be giving printers away for free

[Mike Buckley]

I'm used to the price of technology falling and falling. Even so, I was surprised to see that I had a choice of two small Epson three-in-one printers that cost only $50 on sale at about half off the regular price. My printer is clearly dying so I took advantage of the sale.

[Tronhard]

I am glad you got a bargain, but to me the really sad thing is that the cost of a printer with a set of ink or toner is often much cheaper than it is to buy replacement consumables for it, leading to a throw away culture.

[James G]

I'd agree partly with Trev about the 'throw away' element, but I have a sneaking suspicion that the manufacturers 'buy' into this as well, and maybe are not too bothered about build quality on these small printers?

last year I had to print about 90 10x15cm shots from a Debs ball for one of my cousins children.I have an Epson SC-P600 A3 printer which has never given me a problem with A4, A3 and A3+ prints, but for some reason cropped the rhs margin for the A6 sizes.

I decided in the end that it was simpler to get a small 3 in 1 for about £50 just for this job. No probs, but at about 80 prints, it stopped feeding automatically, it seemed that the feed roller was slipping in some manner. I ended up feeding the last 10 or so prints manually.
The joke? I immediately took the printer back and got a refund.... we live in a very strange world.....

[george013]

I'm still using my matrixprinter from 1984 once a year And can buy the ribbon.
It's the ink they make money on.

George

[William W]

I'm still using my matrixprinter from 1984 once a year.

Why?

[george013]

Why?

Printing the administration on chain forms at the end of the year. Much easier to keep.

George

[Shadowman]

Cheap printers have been available for years, it is the cost of inks where they get you. Depending on how much you print, replacements inks are usually $25 per tank, you can get a break on generics though and for some reason Amazon always seems to brand name tanks at reasonable prices; I think they have access to refurbished or refilled tanks.

[kazuyar]

the inks they supply with the printer are only about 30% or something capacity, they are "just to get you going" so you soon find you have to buy more.
i like to print out my work but have a problem with printer reliability, i find i always get to a position where no matter how often i clean the heads there's always gaps, so i end up buying a new one.
i just purchased an A3 Epson printer for £200 which i think is a lot so this time i took out 3'yr insurance for £30, i've never had a printer last me 3'yrs so no doubt i will be using it at some point

[charzes44]

i like to print out my work but have a problem with printer reliability, i find i always get to a position where no matter how often i clean the heads there's always gaps, so i end up buying a new one.

I have had this experience too. My latest printer, Epson L805, is a photo printer with refillable tanks (not cartridges). It also has WiFi. Since I have had it I have religiously printed something at least once a week, in order to keep the print head from clogging. The WiFi enables me to do this whilst I am away from home, which I frequently am. I just email a test print to the printer!

[MrB]

Before retiring, one of my responsibilities as a teacher was to look after all the inkjet printers (about 20) in a small school. My experience there was that HP were always the most reliable and consistent. Anecdotal evidence - I know, but it prompted me to buy HP for home printing, so I have two HP inkjet printers - i.e. just printers, not scanner/copiers. One is A4, purchased in 2004 and still working perfectly every day, used for printing everything (double-sided if necessary) except photos. The other is A3 and, despite its title "Officejet" rather than "Photosmart" and having only the four CMYK cartridges, it is used for printing my photos at any size up to A3. The latter printer is new, having just replaced my previous HP A3 Officejet after over 6 years of use printing thousands of good quality photos, as its paper-feed mechanism broke. I would still consider that to be acceptable reliability for a £100 A3 printer (~£17 per year), and the new one was only £70. N.B. I have no affiliation with HP other than as a satisfied customer.

Cheers.
Philip

[rpcrowe]

Canon was giving their photo printers away when you purchased a Canon DSLR camera...

[DavidPavlich]

the inks they supply with the printer are only about 30% or something capacity, they are "just to get you going" so you soon find you have to buy more.
i like to print out my work but have a problem with printer reliability, i find i always get to a position where no matter how often i clean the heads there's always gaps, so i end up buying a new one.
i just purchased an A3 Epson printer for £200 which i think is a lot so this time i took out 3'yr insurance for £30, i've never had a printer last me 3'yrs so no doubt i will be using it at some point

Canon has done away with that practice. Their photo printers come with full size tanks. Well, the really big ones like the 44" and 60" come with 190 ML "starter" cartridges. The 44" and 60" printers have the option of 700 ML cartridges. The larger the cartridge, the lower the price per ML.

David