Any advice re: inkjet cartridges?

[AJ Dual]

Yeah, but we don't print a ton of color pics/documents.

And with the CYMK cartridges full of dry powdered polymer, not wet ink, they tend to last a long time just sitting there, even when opened and installed in the printer. Several years maybe if it's a design where the toner to transfer roller interface is relatively "tight", and your house or even your region/state is relatively dry.

Either way, it lasts a hell of a lot longer than ink. And there's no combination of colors when you print black, like some of the ink-jets that add the CYM into the black print to "help" you use the ink faster.  

Also, if there's kids involved, you can put your foot down and make it the rule that anything they want to print, it has to be black line-art, and if they want color, they can fill it in with crayon.

When it's laser, the cents-per-page even makes color shooting targets pretty economical.  

[Boomhauer]

Yeah, but we don't print a ton of color pics/documents.

Look I said the same thing for myself last time it came around to buying printers..."Well surely I can get by on an inkjet since I don't print colors *that* often, I'll be mainly buying Black cartridges"

Well the damn thing even though I never used color still *expletive deleted*ed up by insisting color ink was low, insisting color ink needed to be replaced, etc. Complete pain in the ass. Great at scanning, sucked at printing.

If you print color very occassionaly, get a $100 B&W laser and get the color printing done at Officemax or whatever.

[zxcvbob]

Look I said the same thing for myself last time it came around to buying printers..."Well surely I can get by on an inkjet since I don't print colors *that* often, I'll be mainly buying Black cartridges"

Well the damn thing even though I never used color still *expletive deleted*ed up by insisting color ink was low, insisting color ink needed to be replaced, etc. Complete pain in the ass. Great at scanning, sucked at printing.

If you print color very occassionaly, get a $100 B&W laser and get the color printing done at Officemax or whatever.

Get a little better laser than that; one that can take high-yield toner cartridges.  And duplex capability is handy.  About $200 is where they start, and you can get a really nice one that supports Postscript and PCL6 for $300.

[Sergeant Bob]

I tossed our last desktop inkjet at work into the trash this year.  I'm sure we bought it when lasers were still expensive, but they're not anymore.  We seemed to be in this cycle where we'd buy new ink ($300) before the busy season, and a spare (another $300) thed n only use like 20% of that second set before it went dry while not being used.

Replacement:  http://www.amazon.com/Brother-Printer-HL3140CW-Wireless-Networking/dp/B00BR3VZCG/ref=dp_ob_title_ce

$185 color laser with networking built in.  I'm never going to buy another inkjet again. (Or anything but Brother)

It's $155 right now! Got me seriously thinking about it.

Anyone have some info on the price per page in regards to Inkjet vs Laser (a general number)?

ETA: Bummer it doesn't have a scanner/copy function, don't need yet another device taking up space on my desk.

[thebaldguy]

When shopping for a new color printer, buy the one that uses the cheapest cartridges. I found aftermarket cartridges work good for pretty much all printers except HP printers.

[230RN]

I, too, found that business of the B&W cartridge running dry and still having to replace the color one as well on my HP inkjet.

Bastiches.

However, clever little me found out that vigorous shaking in XYZ axes "woke up" the color cartridge so I didn't have to actually replace it.  Same thing with "dried-out" B&W cartridges (since I don't print that often.)

That generated the hypothesis that shaking them up "re-wetted" the level sensor terminals (or whatever) in the cartridge.

Confirm?

Disconfirm?

Another thing that really ticked me off was that my HP Scan Jet 4300C flatbed scanner is not compatible with Windows 7.  Says so right there in the HP website.

Perfectly good scanner, still gives good service with XP and 2000.

<Expletive deleted> !

Terry

[BobR]

Another thing that really ticked me off was that my HP Scan Jet 4300C flatbed scanner is not compatible with Windows 7.  Says so right there in the HP website.

The same thing happened with my HP 4890, then I stumbled on a workaround that actually worked.

You may be able to do the same thing here, if you haven't looked in a while.

http://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Scanning-Faxing-and-Copying/HP-Scanjet-4300C-compatibility-with-Windows-7/td-p/152092/page/2

bob

[230RN]

^  Thanks!  I didn't see that in my Gargle search. 

I copied that advice to a TEXT file for posterity:

Re: HP Scanjet 4300C compatibility with Windows 7[ Edited ] Options

WORKAROUND FOR SCANNER INCOMPATIBILITY CON WIN7

FROM

http://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Scanning-Faxing-and-Copying/HP-Scanjet-4300C-compatibility-with-Windows-7/td-p/152092/page/2
 
Report Inappropriate Content
 
‎01-08-2011 12:44 PM - edited ‎03-05-2011 12:56 PM

Download and extract the package: ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/scanners/software/sj657en.exe
Right-click SETUP.EXE -> Properties -> Set Compatibility to Windows XP (Service Pack 3)
Run SETUP.EXE
-- Use the shortcut or hppsapp.exe for scanning

This whole planned obsolescence/back-incompatibility thing is getting to me.  I hope it works for a 64-bit machine.

Grrrrerry, 230RN