Inkjet vs Laser Printers

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I use a Canon Pixma IP3000 ink jet colour printer and I have bought bulk ink so I can top up the tanks once a week. I never let the tanks get empty. So about $150 for black & 3 colours lasts me about 2 years
The Canon system is very easy to refill. Not like the HP which is a pain in the you know where.
I only use the printer for casual home stuff and I don’t print photos because the shop does a better job and costs less than if I bought the paper to print on.
Horses for courses I guess.
All the best

A long time Gnomie

Tony

I switched over to laser printers also, about 5 years ago, I too suggest
to anyone doing any serious amount of printing to go with Laser.

In fact my next printer will be a color laser, since they are going down
in price, and going up in quality.

Tony Rich

I bought a refurbed Konica Minolta Pagepro 1350w from Tigerdirect two years ago for 60 bucks. Since then, I have taken a chance on a refilled toner cartridge for 30 bucks. It worked perfectly. I LOVE that printer!

Since I have a small corporation, I also own an Epson CX7000 do-it-all. Its ink isn’t so painful for my business to buy because they do have individual color cartridges which lessen the ink blow just a bit.

I use HP/Lexmark injets and re-ink with bulk ink (quarts). Our print volume runs between 500 to 3500 copies per week at the church. Yes, it is more labor-intensive, but our print costs are less than 1/5th of what they were a year ago when we ran lasers.

I have an old HP 4P laser printer, which I’ve had well over 10 years – I don’t rember exactly when I bought it. I’ve been refilling the toner myself for several years, at about $10 per refill. So, printing using the laser is almost free, and you can’t beat the text printout quality.
I also have an Epson R300 inkjet, which I rarely use. I mostly use it to print my inkjet printable CDs and DVDs, and the occasional greeting card, collage, etc., where I really want color.

Inkjet is nice BUT, anyone have trouble with nozzles clogging ? I hate inkjets, I print so infrequent that the nozzles plug up and I have to buy a new cartridge.. So, I now have an el-cheapo samsung black and white laser AND last year all of a sudden the color lasers started dropping price quite a bit. I picked up a great lexmark color printer for 125 bucks after rebate. It’s even network enabled (ethernet).
Great prints… and no issues when not using for a while. Worst thing might be that you have to shake the toner cartridge.

Well, here’s my solution for Inkjets – I’ve had an Epson Photo R200 for a long time – a real ink eater at first –
1. Buy your ink at http://www.inkforsale.net – these are good substitute cartridges for Epson – about $20 for complete set including shipping. and the levels are still detected by the printer.
2. Leave your printer powered all the time, otherwise the ink will disappear due to purging on every power up. I’ve never had to purge even after a month of inactivity.

Well, here’s my solution for Inkjets – I’ve had an Epson Photo R200 for a long time – a real ink eater at first –
1. Buy your ink at http://www.inkforsale.net – these are good substitute cartridges for Epson – about $20 for complete set including shipping. and the levels are still detected by the printer.
2. Leave your printer powered all the time, otherwise the ink will disappear due to purging on every power up. I’ve never had to purge even after a month of inactivity.

I went through the thought process and went with laser printers early. But when looking for a new printer to do color, provide duplexing, handle the required duty cycle, and not cost a fortune to refuel, I ended up with an inkjet. This was over 4 years ago and this printer is no longer available — HP Business Inkjet 3000dtn — about 6 cents a page color and 3.5 cents a page black with 5% coverage.

There are good inkjet printers in the business world that don’t require a lot of money to refill. Color lasers are much more competitive these days and so my next printer will probably be a color laser. However, this printer is so durable and versatile it will be in use for quite some time yet.

Hello Again:
Chris I agree with you 100%.. I worked at one of the Big Chain Office Equipmet stores.. I recomended Laser Printers to any one who was doing a large amout of printing.. There was a place for the ink Jets for the casual home use..I use to lean twards HP because when you replaced the ink you were getting a new ink head every time unless you used a reconditioned ink or refilled.. I my self went with an Epson RX 500 because of the ability to do photos. It also has 6 individual inks. Over the years (about 4) I am having second thoughts.. The printer uses way too much ink, it seems it uses every ink all the time.. I contacted the Co. and they said that the printer is cleaning and purging every ink head at the start up.. Also I have started to get a large amount of Black banding .. I am really upset with this $249 printer.. I contected Epson again and they recomended I buy a new printer.. I bought it to be able to print Photos.. Now it doesnt even print Text well! Chris is so so right!
Laser for me this time, and photo prints from a retailer..
Later:
Lar

As A professional photographer it’s less time consuming and it has much more reliable longevity for me to send my prints to a PRO LAB to be printed (digitally) on archival photo paper…….

Kodak and Fuji have paper rated at 100+ years if stored under the right conditions. There are a ton of clearinghouses online for photos prints if you live in the boonies as well. YES inkets are nice for a quickie print to hang on the fridge, but a real print from a minilab (Fuji Frontier, or Noritsu is most common) will be the best in the long run.

CHRIS……As far as inkjets for photography. There are 2 different kinds of inkjet and photo printers and it’s basically 2 different types of ink…. DYE based and Pigment based.

Dye = stains to make color, like a grapejuice or berry on your white T-shirt.
Pigment = Particles of color… Like colored grains of sand embedded in resin or epoxy.

Pigment based = archival = non fading, (but you must also use archival paper as the paper can be a weak link)

More info here:
http://www.pictureline.com/newsletter/2004/november/inkjetcolor.html
http://www.macworld.com/weblogs/creative/2006/12/inktype/index.php

To sum it up, THERE ARE GREAT PIGMENT based archival printers, they just cost a bit of money and I would rather outsource most of my printing. The only case would be if I did large wide format printing, I may then want to print it myself for giclee prints on canvas, watercolor, etc.

later!

Adam Nollmeyer
Acme Photography

http://www.acmephotography.net – Web
http://www.flickr.com/photos/acmephoto – Recent Images
http://acmephoto.blogspot.com – BLOG

I use my inkjet rarely for those projects that must be in color. My workhorse is a Brother laser printer. Recently I had to do a color job and found my ink had run out. No problem I though, I have some ink carts I bought on sale. Sadly my two spare sets were way past their useby dates. I have now decided that a color laser is the way to go and will be shopping. The cost/benefit ration is strongly in favor of the laser given that color printing is a rare task. Laser consumables last much longer.

I use my inkjet rarely for those projects that must be in color. My workhorse is a Brother laser printer. Recently I had to do a color job and found my ink had run out. No problem I though, I have some ink carts I bought on sale. Sadly my two spare sets were way past their useby dates. I have now decided that a color laser is the way to go and will be shopping. The cost/benefit ration is strongly in favor of the laser given that color printing is a rare task. Laser consumables last much longer.

I use both laser and inkjet — have done ever since daisywheels went out of favour.

Today I mostly use an Epson R310 for colour and odd text jobs and a now ancient Kyocera (10+ years old, toner-only refills, built like a tank) for big jobs in B/W.

My solution for the high cost of OEM ink has been refilling, which is messy but otherwise has worked well for much more than a decade.

The R310 wears a CIS (Continuous Ink System), which works well now the bugs are sorted but took a lot of perseverance to get right — also has an external drain bottle for the waste ink so doesn’t need its waste pads replaced regularly (another bugbear of low-priced inkjets.)

At home, I’ve ditched the inkjet. too expensive, too long to dry, smears too much, etc…

Hp1600 Colour Laser! Waited for it at sale prices… Love it!

Now if only I can convince my bosses at work, that either cheap lasers on every desk or a few workhorse network lasers are the way to go… And one colour laser for special purposes…

Rule of thumb: Most offices DO NOT NEED colour, but if everyone has an inkjet, colour WILL BE USED. My inkjet at the office died 3 years ago, got a cheap B&W laser, and adapted what colour printing I do to B&W, e.g.: Pie chart slices with patterns rather than solid colours…

I use an HP and skip the refills — very often unreliable; often lacking in the same quality and longevity as OEM cartridges; and the cost-per-page and total cost of ownership on HP’s, especially at $150 or higher price points, is generally excellent and well worth the additional investment. The new HP Officejet Pro L7000 features models that, using the XL cartridges, cost less to operate than many lasers in the $500 to $1,000 range.