So, you want to buy a printer?

Well, until days of late this was never a contest. Laser printer use to be a lot more expensive so it was never considered in most cases for a home printer unless the customer printed a lot. Then the price per page easily offset the price of the printer. But, nowadays neither is true. Laser are now a reasonable price but also now some inkjets have become less expensive price per page. So, what I suggest to people today is if you are only printing black and you do ot print often, then buy an inexpensive laser. The big advantage to the laser printers is the toner cartridges do not dry out. You can print one page a year and you will be fine. If you go a couple of months without printing with an inkjet you are just throwing out a lot of ink. So, either print one page a month (circle it on your calender) or buy an laser. Unless you really want colour, then make sure you print a page a month.

Now, if you do want colour and/or do print a reasonable amount the new inkjet printers have lasers all beat. Plus most printers now are multifunctions so you have a lot more versatility for the price. It is so nice to just make a copy of something once awhile and not have to go out to do it.

Now, a couple of years ago or so Kodak started producing household printers to the competitions dismay. Their idea was to get the inexpensive ink market. Their printer were not inexpensive but they preach that they were half of the price of the competiton. And back then they were right. but, their printers were also plagued with printhead problems. Kodak gets about 450 pages for a $10 black cartridge and about 400 for the $18 colour. So, 2.2 cents a page for black and 4.5 cents a page for colour...pretty good.

Lexmark and Hewlett Packard fight back. First, I will talk about lexmark which is by far has the least expensive black printer under $500. The Pro901 and Pro905 have a $6 catridge that prints 500 pages. These printers can also function without the colour cartridges in them. So, you have a black printer that prints for just over a penny a page. Both of these are also 4 in 1s so you can print, scan, copy and fax with them. There colour runs a little over 4 cents a page as well so still an excellent value.

The kings are back. HP seems to have decided to trounce the competition. They came out with the Officejet 8500 series, which is around 2.2 cents a page for both black and colour. The Officejet 6500 series prints for around 3.3 cents a page for both black and colour is available for under $150 - my opinion the best home printer. The new Officejet 7500 series printer can print, scan and copy up to 13"X19" and uses the same cartridges as the Officejet 6500. Even the new photosmart plus and premium are the best priced ink for a photo printer and has excellent photo quality, top rated by consumer magazine. And all also come with the new eprint technology which allows you to print to your printer from anywhere in the world. Any one of these printers are the best buy in every category depending on your usage, pick the one that is right for you.

Now, all the pricing I gave was regular Canadian Retail. I noticed when I chose the printers and ink on amazon they were much more cost effective. Check the yields on the cartridges.