OT, throwing away my last hp printer.

[Bill R.]

Finally pitching my last hp printer, no more outrageously priced cartridges for me...The only reason i kept this one was duplex printing capability, I used my canon i850 and i470d for almost all text printing and photo printing and my epson r200 for dvd and cd and photo printing, well after reading the specs on the new canon pixma 4000 which has dual paper paths and duplex printing the hp is headed for the dumpster... On a related note, anybody looking to print directly on printable cd's or dvd's the epson r200 i paid 80 bucks for does an amazing job on them does really nice photos too but I'm primarily using it for cd/dvd .

[winfred]

i always like to point out to people that are trying to decide on a printer look at the ink price and watch them dive away from the hp, they outta give you the damn printer, wally world was selling a cheep ink jet for $20 or less and the ink cartrages ran just under $30, we joked about buying a stack of the printers using up the inks and selling them on ebay and recouping most if not all of the money

Finally pitching my last hp printer, no more outrageously priced cartridges for me...The only reason i kept this one was duplex printing capability, I used my canon i850 and i470d for almost all text printing and photo printing and my epson r200 for dvd and cd and photo printing, well after reading the specs on the new canon pixma 4000 which has dual paper paths and duplex printing the hp is headed for the dumpster... On a related note, anybody looking to print directly on printable cd's or dvd's the epson r200 i paid 80 bucks for does an amazing job on them does really nice photos too but I'm primarily using it for cd/dvd .

[Tiger]

Bill R... I always use http://www.refills.com/ The cost to refill your cartridges is way cheap... great inks... I estimated it cost me less than $1 per refill... they say how many times you can refill but I always ended up doing 2 times more than they said. Any way you put it... less than the cost of one cartridge, you can reill it 8 times.

[George M]

Yeah I have a hpdeskjet 960C printer and the cartridges are dam expensive...prints nice however including color pics with the photo paper. I tried the refilled color cartridge and in my case, the dam thing didn't work and had to buy a new color cartridge. I believe Lexmark printers have even more expensive cartridges...somone correct me if I am wrong...g/f has a Lexmark. Good tips Bill on what to buy next. I use small mylar printed stickers mostly on side loading music CD-R's...that I play in the car for example....full paper labeled CD's bind up in any player that isn't top loaded....car CD players don't like the added thickness...I learned this the hard way :-)
George

[Dick Schneiders]

on the cartridges and on the ones with cheap cartridges they are on the printer? I have had Epson printers where the print heads go bad and the cost to repair was more than buying a new printer. I don't know how long the print heads are supposed to last, but I would rather buy cartridges than printers, even though they are very inexpensive when you get the basic ones.

I like the hp's and currently have two of them on my computer - a 950c that I use for text and a wonderful 7960 photo printer for pictures. The quality is great and I never have any problems with them.

I haven't tried the refill method yet, but that does sound like a good alternative.

Dick Schneiders

Finally pitching my last hp printer, no more outrageously priced cartridges for me...The only reason i kept this one was duplex printing capability, I used my canon i850 and i470d for almost all text printing and photo printing and my epson r200 for dvd and cd and photo printing, well after reading the specs on the new canon pixma 4000 which has dual paper paths and duplex printing the hp is headed for the dumpster... On a related note, anybody looking to print directly on printable cd's or dvd's the epson r200 i paid 80 bucks for does an amazing job on them does really nice photos too but I'm primarily using it for cd/dvd .

[Bill R.]

prints both sides without turning the paper over).... text was good but the cost per page was high due to the ink costs.... and most hp's don't like refilling, I've tried the refill kits from costco and from sam's and clogging problems result frequently with hp, same with using the compatible cartridges you buy, the only thing that seemed to work well for me was genuine hp cartridges, with the canon printers i have, they are
1 faster
2 much more economical with ink
3 just as reliable
4 cheaper
5 heads are replaceable if needed , I've never had to replace the head on my 850 canon yet and have refilled the cartridges at least 20 times on it
printed out the bmw factory service manual, electrical manual for the 3,5 and 7 series cars.... you know how many pages those are
6 ink cartridges are replaceable individually by the color
I was a hard core hp user for years but now will buy only canon, the epson was purchased only for its ability to print cd and dvd's... I've had other epson printers in the past and wasn't a fan but this one is much better than the ones I had in the past.

on the cartridges and on the ones with cheap cartridges they are on the printer? I have had Epson printers where the print heads go bad and the cost to repair was more than buying a new printer. I don't know how long the print heads are supposed to last, but I would rather buy cartridges than printers, even though they are very inexpensive when you get the basic ones.

I like the hp's and currently have two of them on my computer - a 950c that I use for text and a wonderful 7960 photo printer for pictures. The quality is great and I never have any problems with them.

I haven't tried the refill method yet, but that does sound like a good alternative.

Dick Schneiders

[bahnstormer]

i read an article in popular science about cheap ink refills

they may be cheaper, but the quality and more importantly the
durability of the ink sucks. whereas oem hp inks will last 100 or so
years, the "refill" kinds will fade after about 25 years...

so if u're printing pics of your kids, use the good stuff =] but for
everyday text, yeah i guess those cheap knockoffs might work

[Tiger]

Bill... the HP45 cartridge is the easiest to fill with refills.com injector... it cleans the head because it fills the cartridge through the head... backflushing it. I have done it on Deskjet 720C cartridge... it is clean and crisp. I have used Refills.com for 7 years.

Refills stuff sold at Staples, office supply... or anywhere else is just JUNK... I know because I tried them.

If you still are going to throw out a good printer... send it to me... I know people who could use one. I use Laser... Laserjet 4100N with duplexer... like you said.. saves tons of paper.

[winfred]

i read in a digital photo magazine that did a test on the color realizm of the refills, the regular colors were pretty close but the extra photo colors sucked

Bill... the HP45 cartridge is the easiest to fill with refills.com injector... it cleans the head because it fills the cartridge through the head... backflushing it. I have done it on Deskjet 720C cartridge... it is clean and crisp. I have used Refills.com for 7 years.

Refills stuff sold at Staples, office supply... or anywhere else is just JUNK... I know because I tried them.

If you still are going to throw out a good printer... send it to me... I know people who could use one. I use Laser... Laserjet 4100N with duplexer... like you said.. saves tons of paper.

[rickm]

Some of the prefilled refills gag too. Verbatim (I think that's the name) sells refills at Office Depot and/or Office Max. I've had a bunch of them that were unfunctional out of the box, finally told our purchasing person that she can buy them only if she will install them and deal with calls from irate users.

I bought an HP4300TN, it's nice. Dell also has a color laser under 500.00.

Ink is a HUGE part of HP's revenue stream.

Speaking of streams, after 3 days w/o water we finally have some. Whew. Lugging 5 gallon buckets up 3 stories is annoying.