Washington Post: Americans waste $10 billion each year on name-brand ink. So we tested low-cost options including remanufactured cartridges, ink injection kits — and even making our own.
My advice: get a mono laser printer. Printing is handy but relatively infrequent for a lot of people these days. If that’s your use case, mono laser is the way to go. Toner does not dry out or go bad.
I bought a Brother color laser printer in 2020 after deciding I was fed up with buying ink cartridges. The Staples guy was annoyed I wasn’t buying toner cartridges also. He said “These starter cartridges don’t have much toner. You’ll need a new one before you know it!”. I told him I’d take my chances and come back if needed. Three years later, I print regularly and haven’t replaced anything at all yet. I would have bought a number of ink cartridges over the last few years. Great investment as far as I’m concerned.
From 15 years of experience in IT, and with home printing:
Many inkjet printer manufacturers will refuse to print if you insert non-oem cartridges. Just because one model will allow you to dismiss a warning doesn’t mean they all will. I’ve seen people waste a lot of money doing this.
The ink injections are also tricky. What I’ve seen is that the ink ends up leaking all over the inside of your printer, or worse, the printer will refuse to print it because it knows it’s been tampered with.
Also, unless you have a specific use case for an inkjet (design work, photo prints, etc), just get a cheap laser. Or if you don’t print that much, just throw your documents on a flash drive and go to your local office supply store. Or library.
As for re-manufactured cartridges, especially for laser: stay away. I’ve seen them time and time and time and time again burst in the printer and spill toner all over the place. This kills the machine. So the $50 you might save on a cartridge will end up costing you hundreds or thousands in the long run.
The whole damned industry is predatory, built for lock-in, and designed to fuck you over. It really sucks. But there’s no reliable way around it.
deleted by creator
This is good to know. I had no idea toner is so bad for the environment. It’s yet another reason to use ink tank printers.
I use my HP printer infrequently enough that every time I booted up my inkjet, I had to put it through a printer head cleaning cycle. I’d be surprised if I got more than 20 sheets of paper for each cartridge do to the wasted ink, and the dang thing malfunctioned frequently even after cleaning (streaks, blots, complaining about missing colors when printing b/w, etc).
After switching to a Brother mono laser, I haven’t had to do any maintenance in 3 years and it’s still on the original toner cart which it came with.
This is the way.
Some of you should try ink tank printers. Low ink prices and lots of ink in each refill. They come out of the box with thousands of pages worth if ink! Only problem is they sometimes get clogged.
Some of you should try
I think by “some of you” you mean “heavy printer users”, and if so I agree.
The typical use case for most folks is infrequent (maybe print 100 pages 1 month and 1 page each month otherwise or less) and works when you want to use it.
The two features you describe do add value, but are anti features when an in
- lots of ink paying for more than you need
- sometimes gets clogged
lots of ink paying for more than you need
You pay less for an ink refil on an ink tank printer than you do a toner refil for a laser printer. This is despite the fact that the ink refil lasts longer.
I agree with the idea that infrequent users should consider laser printers. The main issue I have with them though is the cost. A colour laser printer is more expensive than even a tank printer which is expensive to begin with. It also can’t do photos very well which is something a lot of people use printers for. Greyscale laser printers are only good for text.
One caveat: there were some reports of health effects of inhaling toner fumes, so make sure wherever you keep your laser printer is reasonably ventilated.
Commercial printer here! There’s some validity here, but health risks for at-home printing would be minimal in my opinion unless someone is printing a lot. Toner machines tend to release ozone from the corona wires that are used to charge the drums.
There is a safety concern that you shouldn’t clean anything involving toner with ammonia-based products (window cleaners, etc.) It reacts with the plastic in the toner. Isopropyl alcohol can be mixed with a smaller ratio of water to use as a cleaner. I do agree with the original message and always recommend people buy laser over inkjet for most tasks.
Not all toner is plastic polymer. Some are wax based or resin.
Print at work.
If you can’t, print at an office supply store.
Seriously, how much do you need to print?
Print. At. Your. Local. Library.
Not. Everyone. Has. Easy. Access. To. A. Local. Library.
