Found good pricing on ink for Inket Printers

[James Steele]

Hey all... just wanted to share some good info that I came across. I have an Epson Stylus R340 printer that I use for photos and also printing on printable CDs. Ink or course is crazy expensive... especially if you buy the genuine Epson ink. My best source for the Epson brand ink online was antonline.com. Good service, reliable delivery. It's amazing how much cheaper it is than getting it from Fry's. And Staples? Fughedaboutit!!

I turned my uncle, who's even more "thrifty" than I, on to antonline.com, but he did some snooping and turned up Enviroinks.com. I guess they must recycle the cartridges. For his use I imagine it's fine. The cartridges are $4.95 across the board for all colors... amazingly good pricing! Now I can't vouch for print quality with this ink in terms of glossy photos. I imagine there's a possibility I might be disappointed. However, for printing on blank CD-Rs where it's matte finish it might be just fine.

I ordered 3 cartridges of the colors I was lowest on at $4.95 each, then $3.95 USPS shipping. Less than $20 for 3! I'll try to remember to report back here on how my glossy photos come out. I still use genuine Epson paper as I've not had good results when I've tried generic photo paper with my Epson printer.

[Frodo]

I don't know how I missed this thread. I could have used this tip last week since all I've done since then was to print out about 1600 pages of music. The inks I use are about 40% off on that site from what I can find anywhere else.

Thanks for the tip!!

[Phil O]

Hey, Mr. Frodo. If you're printing that much, perhaps it's time to invest in a laserwriter. I recently got an HP LaserJet and I love it. They cost less in the long run if you do a lot of printing. My last one was a tabloid sized HP 4MV, and it lasted about 20 years.

Phil

[Frodo]

They cost less in the long run if you do a lot of printing.

I've been told that by numerous people, but I'm just not seeing it. I looked at a Xerox B&W laser which kept appearing highly rated on "The Google". The printer itself is in the $2500-3000 range and the toner is $100-150.

I did 1600 pages with 6 inkjet cartridges at about $11 a piece. Antonline.com has my cartridges for about $9 each. That's $55 for the headache, some $45+ less than the laser, not to mention the cost of the laser printer itself.

I'm just not sure that the quality of my output (which is pretty high) justifies the expense of laser just yet. I'm using a Canon i9900 ink jet which is kicking serious patudi-- has been for 2-3 years now. I compared my output to that of a friend who has an HP laser. There is some difference, but I'm not convinced that what I perceive as a 5% improvement justifies an outlay of 10x for both printer and toner.

I'm getting a lot of compliments on my output quality. I just got an e-mail yesterday from an orchestra who was raving about what I'd sent them just this week. Laser sounds wonderful, but I'm just not seeing an urgency in getting into laser.

I had an HP laser loaded with tons of RAM. It was such a PITA that I literally GAVE it away to someone. I didn't even have the energy or the stomach to put it on ebay for all the trouble it gave me. It wasn't a tabloid, which was part of the problem, but I paid $5k for that printer. By the time I got fed up with it, there was no way I'd recoup my investment. The thing was truly worthless by that point-- so I just gave it away.

The ppm count is rarely indicative of oversized output any more than it's indicative of how often the toner has to be changed on a laser.

Is there any evidence that a laser printer will beat an inkjet with 1600 pages for $55?

PS: you're a good cat, Phil. Thanks for being around.

[Phil O]

Is there any evidence that a laser printer will beat an inkjet with 1600 pages for $55?

That's actually a very good per page cost for an ink jet. Depending on the coverage I figure toner is costing me between 1 and 3 cents a page. So for 1600 pages, $16 - $48. My last HP died at about the 300,000 page mark and cost about 2 grand, so that adds another 2/3 cent per page. So $27 - $59. I guess were in the same ballpark, but still a little cheaper and very fast! Sounds like the printer you have is doing a great job, though and that IS a good cost per page.

Good cat, eh? We'll make great pets.
Phil

PS, don't you miss that punk, MM?

[Frodo]

PS, don't you miss that punk, MM?

Yeah. It's not quite the same without our "Melbourne Mascot".

[James Steele]

I had been out of town for a while, but just got 3 replacement cartridges for my Epson from EnviroInks.com today. $4.95 each just still seems to good to be true. The test will be how well the ink works when printing photos on Epson Photo paper. What IS cool is that they send you a special postage-paid envelope for returning your empty cartridges and give you a $1 credit toward purchases for each one you return!

My uncle says they work great for his Lexmark, but he doesn't print on photo paper, so it seems to be fine for plain paper.

[Frodo]

Oh, I'm definitely going to order a wad of inks from them. For the price of that one Xerox laser toner cartridge I could buy a dozen cartridges I use, which would last me over a year. That they're 40% of what I've been paying now is off the hook. Great find. I just hope they don't get cocky and crank the prices like one store nearby did. That place, which shall remain nameless, is asking $15 per cartridge--- that's a $4 hike over the $11 they charged me over the summer. $9 at antonline? It's a no-brainer.

[bkshepard]

A few years ago, I found a great swingin' deal on ink jet printer ink, so I bought a whole box of them. Unfortunately, by the time I got about 3/4 of the way through the box (about a year-and-a-half or so), the remaining cartridges had dried out and were no longer usable. These were actual Epson brand cartridges, not some off-brand, so I wouldn't recommend buying more cartridges than you will use in about a year.

[James Steele]

A few years ago, I found a great swingin' deal on ink jet printer ink, so I bought a whole box of them. Unfortunately, by the time I got about 3/4 of the way through the box (about a year-and-a-half or so), the remaining cartridges had dried out and were no longer usable. These were actual Epson brand cartridges, not some off-brand, so I wouldn't recommend buying more cartridges than you will use in about a year.

Good info. I'm surprised since those Epson carts are vacuum sealed when they're new! You'd think they'd stay good for a very long time.

[bkshepard]

I know, I was surprised too. I even kept them in an interior closet where they were in the dark and temperature controlled.

[James Steele]

IMPORTANT FOLLOW UP:

Okay... just replaced the stock black cartridge and magenta cartridge in my Epson Stylus printer and printed my first photo on Epson Glossy photo paper. I printed a photo that had a LOT of blacks in it... so I know that much of the image was using the recharged $4.95 cartridge from EnviroInks.com.

I'M PLEASED TO ANNOUNCED THAT RESULTING PHOTO LOOKS EVERY BIT AS GOOD AS WHEN PRINTED WITH THE GENUINE EPSON INK!!!

Color me stoked!! The cartridges are about 1/3 or less the price of the new Epson cartridges and my photos look just as good! Not only that they send you a pre-paid envelope that you drop the empty carts into and mail back to them and you get a $1 credit for each returned empty. I'm sold!!!!

[twistedtom]

That is the best price I have seen so far, I booked marked them.
I was getting it from in4less or ink4art but this site is way less.
Cool thanks man.

[James Steele]

That is the best price I have seen so far, I booked marked them.
I was getting it from in4less or ink4art but this site is way less.
Cool thanks man.

Just be aware that they are refurbished re-filled cartridges, technically not brand new. They do work great however. My uncle turned me on to him but he only prints on plain paper so I was skeptical they'd be okay for printing photos, but I just got my confirmation yesterday!

[mhschmieder]

I like the environ-friendly way that they do business, so may check them out soon.

I switched from Epson to Canon when my Epson gave up the ghost, but the ink costs about the same (I think hp is the company that charges the most for printer ink though). It seems to have gone up in price recently.

Office Depot does carry their own brand of compatible ink that is much cheaper, and briefly had Canon-compatible but no longer do (not sure why -- maybe they found it jammed up the print heads). They definitely cover most of the Epson and hp models as well as a few other brands.

But AFAIK they do not do the recycling aspect like the mail-order place that James mentions in his original post. So for those who stock up on ink in advance or aren't caught in an "emergency", that's the better route. For those emergency situations though, Office Depot's store-branded ink might be a good option to look into.