Rusted Sky

About three years back, we were looking for a replacement printer. The old HP inkjet wasn't printing magenta, no matter how fresh the cartridge, so it was time to find something new. I picked up a Epson Stylus C66 - and it's done pretty well for the last three years... and then, poof.

Or rather, no poof. No print - just a few faint lines of black. Repriming didn't help, fresh cartridges didn't do it - so it was time again to search for an affordable color inkjet.

Yeah, I'd like a color laster - but like inkjets, it's not the initial cost that's the problem... it's the consumables that'll kill you. Only with the laserjet, it's even more so - I can get an HP Color Laserjet 1600 for about $300 - but the toner cartridges are $82 each. Supposedly you get 2,000 copies per - so you're looking at a per-sheet cost of about 4 cents per sheet. That's not bad, but I don't want to pay more than the printer cost in order to refill it's consumables. Call me cheap, call me a wimp, call me a cheap wimp - but $328 to feed a printer that cost $300 is just a bit expensive.

Then again - when you consider how much color copies used to cost (when they were first available, about 15 years back) it's a miracle you can get something that'll do the job for so little dinero. But that's the way it is with consumer goods these days. You buy something, knowing that in a few years whatever you buy is going to be outmoded or replaced, or both.

(My HP Laserjet 4000 seems to be an exception to that - 10 years, and it's still working tolerably well. I do need to get a new cartridge soon, though. Of course, I paid about $1100 for it, and have put four or five cartridges in it at $120 each, so I'm still below the consumables limit on that one.)

Looking at printers this year, however, was kind of, um, depressing. The HP Deskjets at the price I wanted to pay had ink cartridges that hold very little ink. The prices aren't terribly bad - but spending $20 for a tri-color cartridge with less than a teaspoon of ink total in it seemed a bit much. I'd prefer a multiple cartridge printer with separate black, yellow, cyan and magenta cartridges. But those didn't start with HP until you get up to about the $150 mark.

Reluctantly, I looked at the all-in-one models - and was impressed by the Epson CX8400. The thing's on sale, so it's about $80 - but the ink tanks are tiny and the Amazon reviews range from "Blasted tiny ink tanks!" to "This works very well and the ink life is great."

Well, you pays your money and you takes your chances - and $80 for something that'll scan, read various memory media and print quite well is... affordable. It's a heck of a lot better than anything available 3 years ago for the price, that's for sure.

Even if it IS disposable after a few years.

J.