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Blazer5913

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jan 20, 2004
386
14
I am a college student and just ran out of ink. Never did it cross my mind that I would have to buy my own ink before. So we've been out of ink for three days now and I'm finally getting around to gettting some extras. I have a Canon Pixma IP6220D printer. Where is a great place to get good deals on printer ink? Also, does anybody else have this printer? We run out of black ink in like two weeks, but when I look in the printer, we only have a Color Ink Cartridge and Photo Ink Cartidge (Cl51 and Cl52). Am I getting the wrong type of ink? thanks alot guys
 
Wow, wake up to reality! :)

Printer ink is pricey no matter where you shop. If you're lucky, you can find a two-pack that's priced a little better. Wal-Mart may be a little cheaper than Office Max or Office Depot. Just shop around.
 
Search the net well as well. I'm not sure if there are compatible cartridges available, but I've been able to get carts here in the UK for about a fifth of the price of the official ones. - www.tonik.co.uk never let me down when I used inkjets.

One idea is to get a laser printer if you mainly print text - the running costs are an order of magnitude lower than inkjets.

David
 
Welcome to the real world.

I generally buy from Staples but sometimes buy from OfficeMax or Office Depot. Staples has some quantity discounts and recycling rebates for returned ink cartridges. Sam's Club also has deals on many cartridges.

If you're not doing colour-sensitive artwork or printing photos, you should be able to use reputable compatible cartridges from a company other than Canon. There are many that I've seen.
 
sorry, i meant to post that im looking towards online stores because I go to Boston College, and we can't have cars all four years! so any good reliable online stores to buy ink cartridges?
 
Blazer5913 said:
sorry, i meant to post that im looking towards online stores because I go to Boston College, and we can't have cars all four years! so any good reliable online stores to buy ink cartridges?

All the stores mentioned have online stores.
 
How much printing do you do?

I would look at possibly getting a cheap monochrome laser printer. Yeah, it's a huge up front cost ($200 or so) but it saved me a ton of money. I bought mine in 2002 and only had to buy toner once. You are talking about thousands of pages of yield versus hundreds with the comparable print cartridges.
 
Our company has over 35 different printers. Two months ago, IT took over the purchasing all of the printer consumables. We had been purchasing them through Olympic Office Supply. I identified all of the various cartridges, toners, etc. Then I went out on the Internet shopping.

Typical: Toner for HP - Olympic $59.99 - Ink4Less $27.00

I have saved our company over 60% across all product lines. I came up with 6 different vendors who have the best price for various products. None of the retailers can match the Internet prices. And, I reject the notion not to purchase OEM products. However, Canon is not one of the products I have purchased for. So, you may want to do a little quick research.
 
have been looking for cheap ink myself to no avail so i have woken this thread from its slumber

anyone out there know where i can get reasonable ink prices for my epson photo 810 ?

the biggest laugh is whsmiths prices :eek:
 
The absolute cheapest method I've found is to get one of them ink reservoirs. They sit beside your printer and have 6 or so tubes that pump ink into the print head. They work incredible, are as cheap as hell and quick and easy to refill.

Cannot fault it at all.

We got ours from Bowlers computer fair.
 
Viking Direct's prices aren't at all bad for Epson inks, and they deliver bloody quick. I've given up on generic inks because they messed up my printers.
 
cheers fellow rumorers for the speedy replies.

seems that i should avoid generic ink then? may as welll buy a laser printer i could put the cost of ink towards the price.

seems so silly that ink can cost £35 :cool:
 
cheers fellow rumorers for the speedy replies.

seems that i should avoid generic ink then? may as welll buy a laser printer i could put the cost of ink towards the price.

seems so silly that ink can cost £35 :cool:

My department buys ink, toner, drums, maintenance kits for a wide variety of peripherals. One thing we stay away from is cheap color ink-jets. However, no color printer is cheap to operate. If you do need ink, there are good OEM products available for half the price. LD Products is one of the vendors I use for solid and liquid ink. Good vendor, good prices. Inks4Less competes well. Different vendors run specials, and we will check their sites.
 
The thing with third party inks and refills is not that all of them are bad -- some are quite good, some are $@#&. How can you telll? You can't, other than by experimenting, or by going on someone else's real-world experience with YOUR MODEL of printer.
 
We run out of black ink in like two weeks, but when I look in the printer, we only have a Color Ink Cartridge and Photo Ink Cartidge (Cl51 and Cl52). Am I getting the wrong type of ink?

YES you are using the wrong type of ink


you need the 50 and the 51 not the 51 and 52.


51 is a colour cartridge that contains cyan magenta and yellow.
52 is a photo cartridge that contains one third black, then light magenta and light cyan

the 50 (the one you actually want) is completely black.
 
If you have an HP printer the best deal you'll get is buying straight from HP. You can get upwards of 15% off, get the two packs, and free overnight shipping.
 
If you are printing ALOT of stuff in college, and your field of study doesnt require alot of color, get a cheap laser (prb find a basic HP one for 150 or less now) Will dramatically reduce your cost-per-page.
 
I've been buying my HP cartridges from Amazon for years. I just recently got a new HP printer, and the cartridges for it are the same price on Amazon as they are at Staples, but otherwise, for the past 4 years, I've typically saved $5 - $9 per cartridge on Amazon. And, if you buy both the color and ink cartridges, you get free shipping since it's over $25.
 
I just go for the cheap stuff. I seldom print photos. I buy my ink at a local computer show at the local fair grounds, sort of a swap-meet for computer hardware.

I buy cartriges for my Cannon i9000. The cheapest price I got them for was $0.85 each but usually they cost me about $2.00-$3.00 each.

I've heard stories of these cheap inks ruining printers and producing bad results for photos but I've never had problems and have used them for years.
 
If you are printing ALOT of stuff in college, and your field of study doesnt require alot of color, get a cheap laser (prb find a basic HP one for 150 or less now) Will dramatically reduce your cost-per-page.

Second that. The laser will pay for itself in productivity and page cost pretty quickly. HP's cheapy's put out the first page in under 10 seconds, and text quality is awesome. Also doesn't smear if you touch it with a sweaty hand. So if you wait 10 minutes to talk to the instructor, you're not turning in a smear...
 
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