New HP printer, scanner, copier cheaper than free

[packrat44]

While at the BX last Friday I accidently came across a HP Photosmart printer, scanner, and copier (C4280) at a sale price of $49.99. The kicker is - there is a military rebate of $50.00. Getting paid to accept a new printer. Is this a great country, or what?

Okay, it is only $0.01. Even if throw the machine away after using the 2 supplied ink cartridges, it was a good deal.

 

[mickeyd]

I wonder what the cost is for a new printer cartridge? I has been my experience that printer "deals" this good usually have very expensive cartridges that can not be refilled.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Printers have become the current version of the 1960's razor handles and blades. Give the handle away and assume the owner will buy your expensive blades instead of someone elses.

Giveaway printers usually come with very small toner carts or ink carts.

But yeah, I get 'em, use 'em and throw them out in favor of the next one. There are regular rebate/coupon combo deals that'll net you a 0-$50 laser printer and make-money inkjets.

 

[mja]

I know it's awfully green/PC of me, but I don't do this. I kinda hate the thought of tossing out something that large just because it ran out of ink.

I chose our current printer based on the cost of the replacement cartridges, and I'm willing to pay $20 every 3-6 months for a new cartridge. Even if I could get a new printer for free that often, that kind of resource waste just doesn't seem right to me.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

I hate it too. But I cant see sticking a $100 replacement toner into a free printer when I can get a newer, faster one for free, with a toner in it that'll last me for 3-4 years...

My color laser is a definite non-refiller. The replacement toners and drum cost $500. A similar new model that weighs half as much and has better output costs $150.

I'd prefer that the manufacturers sell you the printer for the $200-250 that its worth, and the ink/toner carts for the $5-15 that those are worth...

 

[mja]

CFB- I know this doesn't work in your situation, but I could just print what I need to at w*rk. Good environmental ethics, bad w*rk ethics.

I'd probably do that, if I didn't work for the state. I hardly ever print anything, and given the economies of scale for their printing vs my own... I hate these kinds of choices; my own printer (spending my own dollars, higher environmental cost), their printer (using (miniscule) taxpayer dollars for personal things), etc.

I came down on the side of owning my own, but generating as little physical waste from it as I possibly can.

edit- sorry for going a little offtopic on this

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Eh, its pretty germain to the topic at hand...giving printers away in the hopes you wont landfill them and will buy spendy cartridges later on.

I used to do exactly as you say...emailed stuff to myself at work and printed there. I dont print that often, but its usually a lot when I do. Thats why inkjets dont work for me...they dry out between printings. The lasers work pretty well.

I thought about going to walmart/costco/sams club to print my pictures, and trying to get away without printing stuff out...but it was a big pain in the backside.

The stupid part is that you cant even get away with donating these, the donation places dont want them. But the electronics recycler at the dump takes them, for what thats worth. I see that Goodwill is now setting up a recycling option at their donation centers primarily for electronics "waste".

Biggest possible problem I see on the horizon is that it seems like China is building and sending about a million trillion tons of plastic and metal from there to here. Eventually the planet is going to wobble off its axis and crash into the sun.

Maybe we can send them some stuff back. Like Oprah and Paris Hilton.

 

[Goonie]

How about putting them on Craig's List or Ebay. Let someone else pay you for it, and let them buy the new cartridges, and then apply the money toward your next printer.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Give that a whirl and let me know how it works out for you.

Only way I've gotten someone to take an empty printer is to put it into a bunch of freecycle stuff and telling the guy picking it up that it was 'all or nothing'.

 

[Goonie]

Give that a whirl and let me know how it works out for you.

Nah....too much work for me. I just set 'em out for the G-man, he hauls it to the dump, a bulldozer pulverizes it under it's tracks, and then it take up very little room when buried under the earth's surface.

 

[travelover]

.............
Biggest possible problem I see on the horizon is that it seems like China is building and sending about a million trillion tons of plastic and metal from there to here. Eventually the planet is going to wobble off its axis and crash into the sun.

Maybe we can send them some stuff back. Like Oprah and Paris Hilton.

I see this as a future Corps of Engineers project - a tunnel to China. The beauty of it is that one could just toss the stuff in and gravity would take it there.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Well sure, it'd speed up until it hit the middle and then slow down on the other side. Its been a long time since high school physics but I think air resistance could be a major obstacle.

YouTube - Dodge Nitro - Planet (60 second version)

Seems we just need to fill up all of the crappy Dodge Nitro's with spent printers and other junk and then drop them.

 

[Goonie]

Well sure, it'd speed up until it hit the middle and then slow down on the other side. Its been a long time since high school physics but I think air resistance could be a major obstacle.

We could make that tunnel into a GIANT 'spud-gun'. Dump in the junk...including Oprah & Paris (and lots of politicians!)......pump in a bunch of hairspray, and push the gas-grille igniter!

KABOOM!!!

Then 'Reload & Repeat'....to infinity and beyond!

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

I think we just found a good job for NASA.

"We want you to make something out of junk, shoot it off and HIT this planet, and make a hole in it."

 

[packrat44]

I have had fairly good results refilling by HP cartidges. Every once in a while I need to buy a new one. Overall, printing cost has been fairly modest.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Refilling can definitely be a good value. If you can do it.

A fair number of the newer printers have "chipped" cartridges which count pages and stop working when they reach a particular number...even if theres still ink in the cartridge.

Lots of class action suits being brought to bear on the practice. Lexmark got whacked for trying to prevent 3rd parties from developing carts for their printers. HP was in the middle of one over cartridges that actually had an expiration 'date' in them and wouldnt print after that date was reached...not sure if thats been settled or resolved.

Some companies make a "chip resetter" tool or have published how to remove a battery or short a few spots on a cartridge to allow it to accept more ink. Some of the ones with the integrated print heads have a part that wears out after xx pages.

 

[Texas Proud]

I have a HP with SMALL cartridges... just refilled the color one but have not had good results.... I have done the black maybe 4 times...

Bought a cheap B&W laser... seems to be much better

CFB, what / where etc. did you get a good color laser? I might try that next time instead of the inkjet... (does it do photos?)....

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Oh yeah, they do photos, thats about all we use ours for. In fact the output is semi-glossy, so you can often get away with printing photos on stock paper and getting a photo finish effect. On thick glossy stock you get a really great result.

I'd look for a good sale in the office supply stores circulars, check out fatwallet, or check out costco/sams club. Trick is to balance price with the number of pages the toner can put out. The one I bought came with FULL toners (7500 pages) from Sams Club.

Another option is to look closely at the refurbished color lasers from Dell. Some of the higher end ones are pretty expensive but they come with big toner carts in them, so cost per page can get ridiculously low.

I think I saw one of their top end color lasers with 10,000 page toners for around $500-550 a couple of months ago. Compared to an el cheapo $99 version with 1500 page toners, the big one is a better buy. Unless its going to take you 12 years to print 10,000 pages.

Also watch out for the black toner cost and printing regular text on a color laser. A lot of color lasers use a little bit of black for the photos but obviously a lot on b&w text output. And the replacement b&w toners are $250-300. Those you wanna just use for pictures.

 

[Goonie]

I'd really like to get a color laser one of these days. They do such a nice job. That's the ONLY thing I miss about w*rk. We had a Kyocera printer/copier/scanner that made beautiful color photos, and they came out glossy on plain old copy paper.

I'd love to have that Kyocera here at home, but $11K is slightly higher than I want to pay....but at least the toner cartridges were cheap!

 

[imnxpat]

I wouldn't take an HP printer even for free. The ones that had including the multi-taskers were lemons. (You would think that I learned my lesson after the first one.)

 

[FinallyRetired]

Just a couple of days ago I went shopping for a new computer at one of our local computer shows. This is where you go around different booths, choose the vendor you like, and they put whatever you want together on the spot. Anyway, there was an ink vendor there -- yes, ink. All he does is sell ink refills. I told him I had an HP 950 and was thinking of a new printer. He said don't -- the 950 is the best there is for refilling. I realize he was trying to seel ink, but I bought a refill kit from him for 25 bucks that has enough ink for nearly 10 refills of color and b/w. We'll see how it goes. I pay more than that for just one set of cartridges.