Thursday, February 05, 2004



Buying new inkjet cartridges


I went to the store this week to buy new inkjet cartridges for our printer. The prices are nuts -- it's about $65 to buy the two cartridges I need. I can actually buy a Westinghouse microwave oven at Target for less than the price of a single inkjet cartridge:




Leigh and I had been talking about getting an official "photo printer." Since I was about to blow $65 anyway, I went to look at new printers "just in case." At Circuit City they had a Lexmark P707 photo printer on sale, with a rebate, for $29.



Amazon has this printer as well, and you can buy new ones from their "merchants" for as low as $26.

So I bought one. I open the box and inside there are two brand new printer cartridges with a street value of $65. And the printer is fantastic:It is not the fastest printer in the world -- it takes several minutes to print a photo at the best resolution. I could care less. I'm printing a couple of pictures at a time, not running a photo lab. So this is not a bad deal when you think about it: $65 in ink cartidges + a 4-format flash memory reader + image software + a really nice photo printer, all for $29.

What am I going to do when this printer runs out of ink? I guess I am going to go back to Amazon and buy another P707 for $26. I will throw away the old printer and plug in the new one. At $26, it is cheaper to buy a new printer than it is to buy two new cartridges -- the new printer actually costs half as much as the replacement cartridges.

We've all noticed this -- inkjet cartridge prices are insane. These cartridges should be costing $3.50, not $35. The printers have become disposable, and in some cases they now cost less than half the price of replacement cartridges. How crazy is that?

Comments:
Crazy isn't it. I've done the same thing- buying a new printer to get new ink instead of paying more for the cartridges. I used to sell computers and peripherals a long time ago. Back then most of the printers I sold only came with a "starter" ink. So it was probably more of a racket back then. We weren't supposed to let a customer leave without a printer, gold printer cable, paper, and both ink refills.
 
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