Reducing TCO of an Inkjet Printer?

AtariDatacenter asks: "Everyone knows that inkjet printers are cheap, but the cartridges cost a bundle. I was trying to find one with the lowest total cost of ownership for a modest twenty or so pages a week. This PC Magazine article kind of takes this on, but with a small sample group. Are there any printers today that should be avoided? Is ink reducing software like inkSaver as good as they claim?" Inkjets have a lot of drawbacks when it comes to laser printers except one thing: the initial price. When it comes to printing lots of text that you intend to keep for an indefinite period of time, which works out better over the short-term and long-term? I've already had Inkjet printers die after a few years of normal usage, are laser printers any better?

Comments

Don't mix ink types in Epsons!

[inkfox]

If you buy an Epson inkjet printer, throw away the ink that comes with it. Generic ink cartridges for the Stylus series can be had for under $2 per cartridge (yes, even the color ones) with one catch:

Epson's ink congeals on contact with most generic inks and jams up the ink path, often irreparably. This problem is mega, since Epsons have the printing unit built into the printer, not the cartridge as with HP carts.

I've not had a problem with mixing different kinds of generic ink however, so as long as an Epson never tastes an Epson cart, you're good to go.

It's also worth mentioning that there are replacement assemblies available for the epsons, which use tubes going from specially modified print heads to individual pint-sized ink reservoirs which sit in a box beside the printer. If you get one of these, you can print something like ten thousand pages of color without refilling.