Hiya, Magi:

I just ran out of ink for my printer, but it turns out I can BUY A WHOLE NEW 3-in-1 PRINTER/COPIER/SCANNER for less than the price of a new stinkin' ink cartridge!!!!

Yes, I date back to the typewriter era and, yes, I know that even then the manufacturers made more money selling ribbons than they did from selling typewriters, BUT...I could NEVER buy a new Underwood for less than the price of even those fancy "correcting" ribbons.

This just strikes me as imbalanced. "Hm...looks like the cyan's low. Time for a new printer!!!"

No fooling?? I just spent half a *** day trying to refill a BIC pen.

Get a color Laser printer. The cost is more, but the cartridges last longer and the quality is better and they are faster. Also, if it ever has a problem you can get it fixed. I would recommend an HP, everybody fixes them and everybody carries the cartridges. They can range in price from 400 to 2500 an HP will last years. I fixed an HP 3 that is atleast 15 years old today.

Please recycle your empty cartridges, ink and toner, if you send them back to the manufacture they ship them to china and end up in the landfills over there.

My Epson Stylus C64 color printer just died a couple weeks ago. Apparently, they build these things to only last a few years. Anyway, I just bought a new color printer by Canon called the Canon Pixma MP500. It's GREAT! It copies, scans, and prints! I'm very happy with it. I only bought it after doing some extensive research online about which printers were the best ones to buy, etc.

Printers are a loss leader. Manufacturers make little or no money off of the printers they sell and actually count on the toner or ink cartridge sales to generate the profits.
I have freinds who wirk for HP and they rell me that many of their home use printers don't make a profit for the company until the go through their third set of cartriges.
BTW the cartridges you get with your brand new printer are generally only a third to half full to start with.

I love my Canon i960 inkjet. It uses 6 cartridges, so you only change what color is actually empty. It prints with 2 picoliter droplets, so the ink lasts quite awhile, and the cartridges are truly empty when it prompts you to change them.

At stores like office depot, the tanks are about $12 per color. I've found them online for more like $9-10.

I'd definitely recommend the Canon line for home use. Quiet machine, speedy, prints great photos, etc.

If you're really cranking out the pages, you might want something a little more industrial.

Kevin