So What Modern Printer Has Low Running Costs and Cheap Cartridges?
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As we are a value orientated community here anyone got experience of which printer has cheap consumables i.e. ink cartridges. I'm looking to replace my faulty older Epson printer and I'm finding it a minefield trying to find a printer with very low running costs. I'm hoping to place the printer on a shelf so it needs to be relatively small which is typically of the budget entry level printers like the Epson XP-2200 but when I look at models like that nowadays they all seem to have expensive cartridge prices.
I realise you always avoid HP like the plague and that is advice that goes back 10 years or more. What is a current or recent printer model that still has cheap cartridges? My mother's printer an older Epson has cartridges that cost about £1 i.e. a bundle of 3 colour cartridges and 2 blacks would be about a fiver or perhaps £10 for 2 such packs. Anything with value like that?
I believe more recent models have chips that are more difficult to duplicate so compatible carts are either non-existent or more expensive.
I saw printer in a charity shop for £8 a Canon model TS-3150 I think. It looked in almost perfect new condition. I checked how much a new colour cartridge would be for that and it was £25 and it was pretty obvious the original owner had abandoned the printer due to consumable costs. I'm not interested in anything like that for sure. Just seems like a scam where the printer is cheap but the ink is expensive you soon end up paying a ridiculous amount over the lifetime of the printer.
I use HP instant ink, you pay a monthly fee and they send you the ink each month automatically . Currently I pay £3.49 per month for 50 pages per month which is plenty for my needs.
Mango4 Unfortunately I print out much more than 50 pages per month. A £1 black cartridge probably does 500 pages or more of the labels I do on A4 paper with much of the paper still blank. I probably print 100-250 pages a month however mostly b/w. Perhaps I should be looking for a very small laser printer with cheap consumables.
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