I have a Canon something or other inkjet printer that I use for work / home. I have never seemed to get many colour pages out before a warning comes up that at least one tank is low.... which happened (for 3 of them) yesterday.

I trotted off to Bureau En Gros (Staples) to buy replacements... they'd gone up a little and are now $78 for the four colour pack and $45 for the black.... $ 123 plus tax. For ink.

Feeling a bit peeved off with it all I mooched around the printer department and found a Samsung Colour Laser on sale, reduced from $249 to $99.

Using my phone, I checked online and found that the "Starter" cartridges that come with the Samsung are good for 700 pages each colour, 1000 for the black. The new tanks for the Canon are rated as 340 for colour, 420 for black (or thereabouts), but I swear you don't get anything like that.

The new cartridges for the Samsung cost about $200 for the set... more expensive but they are rated at 1000 sheets for colour, 1500 for black.

No brainer, really. I bought the Samsung for $99 instead of the ink tanks for $123. And, I expect to get over double the use out of the starter tanks in the laser printer.

The icing on the cake was once I'd got it home, the tanks all showed minimum 80% full!

Bottom line, the world has gone crazy when it's cheaper to buy a printer than the replacement ink!

Rant over.....

I feel your pain.....we all do. The only reason we are on this earth is to get screwed! You should get used to it....

I get my refills from: http://www.123inkcartridges.ca/?gcli...FUQ0Qgodu2ytXA

Been really happy with them, I get the 'aftermarket' cartridges and it's really quick delivery too.

I also do my own refills.
I've never understood why ink cartridges are so expensive.

I don't understand the need to print. I don't think I've printed anything except maps in the past ten years.

I do have cause to print stuff and I go through printers because they don't seem to last long. My current HP printer/copier/scanner was about $50 and came with cartridges!

Buy a more expensive printer, the type that businesses use in their offices that are designed to print large volumes. The initial outlay will be much more than the printers you have likely bought before, the reduced cost of the consumables will have you ahead relatively quickly. It is also likely that the quality will be much better as well.

Lessons learned.....next time people are buying computers that come with printers or a cheap printer, just think of this thread. The same applies to people that buy cheap Projectors

However, OP you might be able to do refills? Places like Canada Computer or Tigerdirect have generic brand catridges and there are places in malls that will do refills

I'd be nervous about doing that. I inserted a no-name cartridge a couple of years back and the printer caught fire.

Must be that printer brand? I have had no such experience

Very true!


Thanks for the tip. I looked there and they have some bargains.

Nor me.... until you come across articles like this:

http://blogs.computerworld.com/the_g...er_ink_rip_off


I'd guess you don't have kids in Elementary School...

That's $73 less than the cartridge refills for the Canon!

Good point.

I'm wary of generic... heard some horror stories! What's the scam with projectors?

Nope. Once they reached high school they could email their work. Before that they used crayons. I don't know if any of them can operate a pen or pencil.

Don't use printers at home now as use the ones in work. but before that, I would just buy a new inkjet printer as it normally worked out cheaper than getting new cartridges, plus got a new printer out of it.

GeeDee many thanks, your post made me realise I'm not in my own exclusive little world! My printer 'knows' if I try to fool it with an Amazon replacement. I can quite often feel my blood pressure going up a notch, when I hear my beloved's dulcet tones tripping out "can you just print this off for me?"

If you're fortunate enough to have access to a color printer at work, then take your documents on a USB stick and print them.
Here's a tip - if it's a networked printer, rename the document before you send it to the printer, just in case someone's monitoring it.