Why are ink cartridges more expensive than the printer itself?
 

Why the hell would people buy cartridges anymore?

I went to walmart today to buy a cartridge, and i ended up buying a whole printer.

cartridge cost $30, but they had a brand new z23se for $20 (no rebates). so, i bought the printer and carried it home. btw, the printer came with a color ink cartridge :D.

I dont get this at all.....

Simply, they sell the printer at a lose based on the consumer need for cartridges.
It's a dubious practice at best that many companies (lexmark comes to mind) are proud of. I once saw an HP stock prospectus that described the situation as "establishing a long term relationship with customers". Scary isn't it?

We us all laser printers at the office because it's more expensive on the font end but the 10 year cost is nearly 200% less. i wish more consumers would do the math and see this. In the long run, laser returns it's investment in the form of saved money on ink after about 2 years whereas you never get your investment back on Inkjets, no matter how quality.

That's why I have a laser printer. Cost a bit upfront but it's ethernet, much faster then any inkjet and best of all I get thousands of pages per cart (2 years and have yet to kill my STARTER cart).

My father still uses a laser printer at home that is some 6-8 years old at this point, still going strong.

think of it as the razor:razor blade

give the razor for free, pay for it in blades...

same with printers, give them away,
and people who buy them usualy PRINT
and PRINT out alot, so by doing this,
this ensures the company a steady supply
of ink-- what good is a printer without ink?

just the best of both worlds and get a
color laser

this is dumb stuff tho. they keep on release new and better technolygy printer everyday, so theres no point of buying the ink for the old printer, when u can get a better printer and and for the same price, or less. I change my printer every time i ran out of ink.

This new and better tech you speak of sadly includes creating printers that won't work with any brand of ink cartridge but the manufactures.:mad:
Ink Jets are money losers no matter how you look at it. Unfortunatly most consumers go for the lower intial price as they hate sticker shock and then complain in the long run.

do realize that the start ink cartridges no longer contain full load(they used to like back when the intarweb was in beta).

nowadays the cartridge you get when u buy you shining new jet printer u only get about 25- 50% of a normal fill.

i have a cheapo hplaserjet 1000, for it for 300$ canadian(about 20bucks american) a few years ago and ive only had to buy a new toner/drum cartridge once. it was also cheaper the the cheapest black ink cartridge they had instore too :)

It's done very commonly these days. Even xbox is sold at loss, and they make the money back off the games. same with printers - sell the inkjet printers at loss and reap in the cash on the cartridges.

Its a damn bummer I'm sure. I use an old action laser 1100 for text, still going on the initial toner, since 1996. But my HP 2100 was $150 and it's quite capable. I don't print much so the $25 every few months is no biggie. If one does a lot of printing a laser is much more cost effictive.

I agree with you guys about laser printers. I hate printers for many reasons, but the HP LaserJet 4000 we have at the student org office I hang out in is still using the starter cart after 4 years. Doesn't get a lot of use but that is primarily due to access restrictions. I love the damn thing, takes a licking and keeps right on printing. :)

I think the companies aer being dumb about inkjets though. Throwing out a printer just because it's cheaper to get a new one than to buy a new cartridge is really detrimental to our environment! :(

loss leader products...

you make the capital investment and then you buy the parts to keep it working.

Sheesh, can you imagine if they did that to cars????? I'm surprised the tree huggers out there aren't all up in arms about the waste

I have a cheap B&W Brother laser printer at home, and it is great. I only print every few weeks, and the damn ink cartridges on my old inkjet would clog up if I waited too long between printouts. So, it was totally cost effective to dump the inkjet.

I bit the bullet and went laser over a year ago. We dont print on a daily basis, and our problem was the inks drying up before they were really used. My little color laser is one of the best purchases I have made, i really recommend to anyone who just is so sick and tired of ink costs to grab a laser. As mentioned, they do cost more, but I have never had an inkjet last longer than a couple of ink replacements.

I refill my inkjet cartridges myself, its easy. Average cartridge is good for about 6 or 7 refills and overall it's about 20% of the cost I used to pay.

than how do you explain my Epson Photo 1280? It costed damn near $500 and the carts are $23 and $27. And they are small. Needless to say, it sits with empty ink carts often.

I am just a total sucker? apparently.

Well, is it an inkjet printer?

printpal.com is everything I have to say. its extremely cheap you could probably get 3 packs of black and colors and together they equal about the same price you'd get in a store for just one black and one color or atleast that has been my experience with it

i just bought a laser as well, because of that whole inket thing, i finally gave in when i realized it costs me $250 every time to refill my HP inkjet.

The laser was actually the cheapest printer i've bought in a while, and its fast, works great. $97 from best buy, the refills are $79 i think,, but it lasts a lot longer and price per page is considerably less.

I have an Epson ink jet and reload my own...$24 worth of ink will last for over a year.....if the print head gets plugged, just have an old cartrage handy and fill it with rubbing alcohol...soak for a while and let it clean the print heads.....keep the ink and spare cartrage in the refrig......AND ALWAYS wear plastic gloves---that ink really stains...

I bought a Fujitsu LED printer (a version of a laser printer that isnt as good but does the job) seven years ago. I havent had to replace the print head and I've only had to replace one toner cartridge.. Thats printing more reams of paper I'd care to admit. Mind you, if I ever have to replace the print head (They say they are supposed to last for several years), It will cost me over two hundred bucks and I'd sooner throw the printer out (I bought it from my work for under a hundred)

I am a tree-hugger. *paces the room, totally up in arms*

Dude, I hope you don't do that too often.
(Why does Texas get a bad rap? Waste, Dubya, and human rights abuse. Maybe it's the oil..Oil fields=wasteful behavior?)
Austin is a hip voice in the wilderness, from what I hear.
-Nothing personal, The_Dude, you seem to be very cool, I've just heard some very disturbing things from/about Texas as a whole.

Skinbag you got it wrong. We kill the human rights abusers.
And we buy $30 printers with 1/2 ink instead of $45 for a new full cartrige. Of course we can recycle the old cartrige for a pack of recycled paper, so we are saving the trees. Just not the plastic trees. And think of all the robots who would be out of a job if we dint throw away our printers and buy new ones.

War Roy W. going to Texans next year.

I've found that hp cartridges were the worst ~$50 for hi cap color. hp cartridges include the print head so you're actually paying for and replacing both. Epsons typically have cheaper cartridges but, I'm not sure if you can replace the heads (i ditched epson after buffer/garbage problems with my i740...serious pos). Canon seems to have the best solution. Individual ink tanks for ~$10 each and a separate replaceable head.