Ink for Inkjets

Community
1

Hi,

This is for an all-in-one WiFi Inkject colour printer.

I’m deciding which is better, going with HP which only has 1 color cartridge, or going with Brother that has 3 color cartridges.

I’ve been buying HP’s all in one inkjet for years.

I used to be a loyal customer of HP for years until I had terrible experiences with them re: my laptop all last year. Even though they eventually tried to smooth things over when I wouldn’t give up, their tech support & entire Canadian HP company is terrible. I can’t speak for the US arm b/c unlike in Canada, they allow Americans to speak to the office of the president as they believe in customer service over there.

All & all I feel tech support doesn’t know what they are doing, they make things very difficult when calling in just to access my file, they ignore phone calls, their complaint center doesn’t let me speak to managers & there are times when they are very rude & condescending. The last guy I spoke to tried to pretend he didn’t understand what I was saying.

I know I’m not the only one who has had problems, when I searched online, there’s hundreds of complaints.

I’ve spent countless hours & months of my precious time troubleshooting things with them & I feel that compared to how things were years ago, their hardware is now sub par.

I shouldn’t have to re-buy another inkjet so soon. I’ve only had this one for 2 or so years & even with this new laptop they sent me I’m having problems again.

I just don’t know if buying the colour cartridges separately when each one runs out is less expensive in the long run vs having to replace the entire colour cartridge, or it makes it more expensive with Brother b/c you have to buy 4 all at once when the testers run out.

I don’t know how long the testers will last or if they run out all at the same time.

I rarely print in colour. I use the all-in-one mainly for faxing & copying & only the odd time do I print on it b/c I don’t want to switch out the scrap in my b/w laser for clean paper.

In fact I just bought a brand new b/w Brother laser printer after using Samsung’s b/w lasers for years. I like it even though it’s HUGE & very heavy. The scanning is a breeze & I’ve had to call tech support twice & they seem to be smarter over there.

Both WiFi inkjets are the same price this week & they have similar stats with sometimes HP being faster for some things & sometimes Brother being faster for others.

Any ideas?

Thanks

Michelle

2

Well you’re issue with ink is the major factor for choosing the right printer, but not because of how many cartridges, but because of actual running costs, I always advise people to buy a printer based on the ink running costs, the simple answer is individual cartridges are the way to go, throwing an all in one cartridge you’re probably throwing colour ink away each time, which is a waste.

I have an Epson which has 6 cartridges, what I do is buy 2 sets of ink each time when the warnings come up that you’re running low, then I have one set to go in when needed, and a spare set so I always have some spare, it also saves money on shipping (usually anyway), but on top of the 2 sets, I also add say 4 more black cartridges, if you use a lot you can get more, once you get used to it you will find the numbers that mean you always have some when needed.

As to knowing when you’re running out, all printers I’ve ever dealt with have a monitoring facility, and warns you when you’re getting low, and even which cartridges have how much left, just install the utility for this, my Epson shows how much each cartridge has at the start of each print session, but my advice is always check out the ink prices of what you’re looking at, and let that be the deciding factor in what you go for, also think about after market inks to further reduce running costs, but be aware it will void the warranty, and will warn you each time you use one about non genuine ink, also don’t buy the cheapest, these will gunk up the printer, and eventually you will have to chuck it away (worst case), research what people say about the ink you’re looking at, and go for one with good feedback, more so about gunking up the printer, hope this helps.

3

Sorry for the delay, SP FINALLY fixed their e-mail problem they’ve had for at least 1-2 years now & so now I’m finally able to log in.

Thank you for the advice, I bought the Brother in the end.

Take care

Michelle

4

Inkjet hardware all-round is sub-bar these days. Higher failure rates than I’m comfortable seeing, and I can’t strongly recommend one brand over another because of how unreliable most of them are. Sometimes, it’s cheaper just to get a throwaway printer for $35 and use it until the ink runs out (considering the price of ink cartridges per mL of ink)–but I’m only half joking there.

The best of the lame ducks are HP, Canon, and Lexmark, in that order. Epson is pretty much the only option if you want high-quality photo printing, but the print heads usually need special care and attention, or they start clogging.