The rub is that the profit margins on consumables is mega high, in some cases in the 1000% range. There is a saying that I used to hear in distribution that if a vendor could legally lock consumers into buying consumables only from them, they would give away the printer. The good news is that this isn't legal and 3rd party consumable vendors abound.
I'm actually VERY happy with my new Xerox Phaser 8500DN with those little wierdly shaped resin/wax sticks instead of toner or ink. Though Xerox wants approx $30/each for color and $15/each for black. With an expectation of 1000 pages per cartrige this is still pretty expensive. Thank god there are third party supplied in the $8/each range for color and less for black.
Might I suggest you checkout Media Street's Niagra system...with 6oz bottles (per color) I can do a massive amount of photo grade printing for VERY little money. The downside is you MUST use it fairly frequently or the nozzles will eventually clog. That and the extra room for the external ink tanks. My Epson Photo 900 costs me $125 for a set of six 6oz bottles...but even after 1000 8.5x11 thumbnail pages (family album restoration project) my tanks are still only 1/2 down./brian chee
Slashdot Mirror
The rub is that the profit margins on consumables is mega high, in some cases in the 1000% range. There is a saying that I used to hear in distribution that if a vendor could legally lock consumers into buying consumables only from them, they would give away the printer. The good news is that this isn't legal and 3rd party consumable vendors abound. I'm actually VERY happy with my new Xerox Phaser 8500DN with those little wierdly shaped resin/wax sticks instead of toner or ink. Though Xerox wants approx $30/each for color and $15/each for black. With an expectation of 1000 pages per cartrige this is still pretty expensive. Thank god there are third party supplied in the $8/each range for color and less for black. Might I suggest you checkout Media Street's Niagra system...with 6oz bottles (per color) I can do a massive amount of photo grade printing for VERY little money. The downside is you MUST use it fairly frequently or the nozzles will eventually clog. That and the extra room for the external ink tanks. My Epson Photo 900 costs me $125 for a set of six 6oz bottles...but even after 1000 8.5x11 thumbnail pages (family album restoration project) my tanks are still only 1/2 down. /brian chee