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For me, a major inkjet selection criterion is a printer's ability to be adapted to use continuous inking (without major hacking/drilling/etc.). Screw the printer manufacturers and their stupid ink-based business model.

Linky linky:

http://www.nomorecarts.com/
http://www.brandonstaggs.com/epson-r200-continous- ink-system-review.html
http://www.atlascopy.com/cfs/

"I guess now we know why printers are HP's last profitable division."

And, as soon as ink can no longer be sold for $8,000 per gallon (mostly cheap solvent, bought in tank car loads), HP will go out of business? (Also see this analysis about Epson ink: Comparison of ink in bulk to prefilled cartridges.)

If so, then HP has not been a real business for a long time, but has been merely piggybacking on the ignorance of its customers. And that means that Carly Fiorina was not a businesswoman at all, but merely good at giving the appearance of competence. And that, in turn means that people who write for the business press are completely incompetent, too.

Slashdotters should have a mission in the world, to provide at least minimal education to their friends and family and neighbors and political representatives:

Don't buy anything from a spam email.

Buy ink refills from Costco and refill Canon cartridges. (See this comment: 54 cents per refill.)

Wouldn't companies want to make their printers last longer because it would build customer loyalty (and hopefully result in the customer buying LOTS of cartridges from them)?

It's funny to note that the expensive epson 3000,5000,5500,7000,9000
printers (wide print format) don't have print cartridge chips .

As for knocking down color printing costs, I'm looking into getting an automatic ink refill system. These are the ones I've encountered so far.

"IJC Bulk Feed Systems" (chip resetters and 'full' chips)

"Continuous Inking System(1)"
"Continuous Inking System(2)" (not necessarily affiliated with each other.

"Continuous Flow Systems"
(automatic chip resetter at this company)
Parts for building your own feed system for an un-supported printer.

"Continuous Charging System"
(carries continuous refill systems for Canon printers in addition to Epson models and option of buying smaller [cheaper] bottles.)

"Camel Ultra-FLO CRS(TM)"
CRS(TM) - abbreviation for the term Continuous Re-inking System(TM)"
(Carries Canon as well as Epson)

Inkjet Buying Guide(with printer recommendations, and refill companies, drivers, etc.)
"I have two Canon BJ-200 printers that have made a total of at least 150,000 copies without any problems...The gallon of black ink is about $32 including shipping."
"Other than the Canon BJ-200, all other CANON PRINTERS are off my buy list because the HIGH COST of operation."

(The author doesn't give definitive numbers nor methodology --duhhhh...he's not "testing" either)
His copy rate for ink is running at almost 1/50th of a cent ($0.00021) at a fraction of a laser printers speed I suppose --Though he is running two in parallel, and is adding a 3rd I believe; that could speed things up.

For comparison Samsung ML-1430 Laser Printer (a nice printer IMHO) runs at 1/5 of a cent per page at higher print speeds.

This "feature" in Dell printers reminds me of what Epson does to its entire line of ink jets. Personally, I own an Epson Photo 1290 that I use very regularly in my studio to print photos to be framed for sale. Buying loads upon loads of Epson OEM ink is certainly not very economical. So instead, I bought a continuous inking system. Basically, several large bottles of ink are piped directly into a modified ink cartridge, essentially providing a cartridge with mega-capacity. It's economical, it's more convenient, and most of all, it's more versitile. Instead of standard Epson ink, I can choose from inks with different characteristics and color gamuts. You haven't seen beauty until you've seen 4-tone black and white photos from a fairly-standard ink jet printer!

Unfortunately, the chipped Epson cartridges poses a problem. Not only will the chips tell the printer when the cartridges run out of ink, it will also disable the printer until it is replaced. Moreover, the chips don't even check the level of ink remaining. Instead, it counts the number and size of pages printed, and guesses when the ink is gone. With a continuous inking system and it's near-infinite capacity, this is not ideal.

As a result, several groups have developed workarounds. Some have made write-protected chips that are "reset" when the printer is turned off. Others have made devices to alter the ink-level information stored on the chip. And last I heard, there was work being done on a software workaround. Certainly, there are bypasses, and they have already been used for other printer manufacturers.

If anyone is interested in printer-mods, check out CIS and Chip Resetter.

If these workarounds were not available, I would certainly have no bought an Epson printer. But at the same time, I can understand the manufacturers' position on third-party carts. Ink cartridges, not printers, are where the money's made!

continuous inking systems allow you to modify your inkjet to use external pressure fed ink bottles. you can buy the ink by the pound(!), and only fill those colors which need refilling. most vendors also offer a range of specialty inks, and archival quality inks if you're a photographer trying to sell the print. google shows me a few like this:

http://www.getink.com
http://www.inkjetart.com/cis/index.html
http://www.nomorecarts.com
http://mediastreet.com/n2

(However, I would never, ever, under any circumstances, use an inkjet as a primary printer. Try to find a cheap used laser printer. I've been using an Epson ActionLaser 1500 for pretty much all my life, it's served me extremely well. The printer claims it's printed 9600 pages, and I'm not sure it hasn't reset. I would never, ever deal with the noise, lack of speed, and cost of printing homework and so forth on an inkjet, and nobody else should either. Inkjet text looks nasty awful, anyway. Laser prints look muuuch nicer.)

That is just a big No no no.

First of all, it's really not "most of all printer" which have the print head directly on the cartridge.
In fact, HP has the print head on the cartridge, Epson has the printheag IN the printer, and with new canon photo printer (from the S800), the print head is IN the printer but user replacable.

I've got an Epson 1280 and a Canon S800 at home for a while now, printing my own photographs.
Clogging IS a problem with my 1280 if I am not printing often and THAT is the major thing which could ruin a printhead.
I've never got ANY problem with the S800 yet.
One other point, I run a CIS on my 1280 and I've not experience any more problems then by using genuine epson cartridge.
It is less expensive and after a few minor adjustments, I have the same exact "pareil" result.
Epson has came up with the chiped cartridges to solve a problem which wasn't really one. Now, if it was really only to solve that problem of monitoring cartridge, they would not change the configuration of the chip so often, wouldn't they?
Check this site if you want some info CIS vendor, be sure to check which printers are supported, and note that the epson 820 isn't because the chip is different then the other ones...

If you need any more info read on the forums on This digital photography site, section printers

Also, Canon has a way of monitoring their cartriges very efficiently using only prism. So you can refill their cartridge as you will. BUT canon sells their cartridge almost 3 times the price of the equivalent epson cartridge. Canon as sued a german cartridge maker for Patent Infrindgment. And yes, all those company sells their printer at losses and make most of their money on their ink. They can't come on you for selling ink, but don't push your luck, if you infrindge a patent, you WILL get sued, no matter the industry. Now, I much prefer canon's way of doind things. Separate ink cartridge(much less waste), no f*cking chip to mod, yet still monitoring ink usage and I can still use refill if I want, I just have to mess up myself. I think that they really are in their own right to sue if their as been patent violations, research in this area is very expensive and they at least deserve the right to sell their own technology. Nothing stops you from buying ink at the gallons from another supplier tough... So stop trolling about printhead wearing off, yes they do wear, but not at the rate of a printhead for each ink refill. Not even at the rate of 20 ink refill.