Your Online Resource For Ink Jet Cartridges

Finding the best inkjet printer available today really depends on what you plan to use it for. The market is saturated with so many choices that it can be difficult to tell which companies really are the best and which ones just have the best marketing departments. Before you buy the printer your neighbor recommends, do your research and make sure that it will fit your needs too.

For everyday use in your home or office, a smaller, more economical printer is usually sufficient. They may not always print out the very best graphics, but for school papers and memos they work great and are often a bargain. One particular crowd-pleaser for this purpose is the Cannon Pixima iP4200 which retails for less than $50. It prints at a moderate speed of about 30 pages per minute in black though color photos can take nearly a minute each. The down side to the low price of this printer is the price of the ink cartridges. Heaven forbid you have to replace all four at once, which retail for about $15 each. It would actually be less expensive to buy a new printer.

It may not be much of an issue for most of us, but there are certain people that would benefit greatly from having a mobile printer with them at all times. Maybe you are one of those insurance adjusters we see in the commercials that go to the scene of an accident and cut the driver a check right there. For you, HP appears to be an excellent choice. The HP Deskjet 460 Mobile series of printers are trusted by a large number of users who need to be able to print anywhere anytime. At the width of just a little more than the paper it’s printing on, the printer is incredibly easy to carry and transport making it one of the best inkjet printers to have with you on the road. The inkjet cartridges for these printers are in the average-to-high range at about $25 to $35 each. The commonality of HP does make ink cartridges and accessories easy to find just about anywhere.

With digital cameras as common as cell phones now, many people choose to forego the drugstore photo lab experience altogether. There are several very decent “snapshot printers” on the market today and all are very competitive. A snapshot printer is just that. It prints specifically 4×6 photo prints and nothing else. This is a great convenience for most people because it bypasses the need for a computer by connecting directly to your camera or photo card. The HP Photosmart A826 is one of the highest rated snapshot printers for its size, quality and simplicity. Think ink cartridges for the HP are anywhere from $20 to $35 each, making your print cost approximately $.26 per print–not including the paper. Maybe it’s more convenient to print your photos at home, but most retail photo labs have this printer beat on cost per print.

It’s true that only you can really decide which printer is the best inkjet printer for your needs, however don’t discount the opinions of others. Consumer reports—by actual consumers, not printer manufacturers—will give you the honest truth about the pros and cons of each printer you’re considering. One very important factor to consider is the ink cartridge that you will eventually have to replace. There is just no way around it and they are more often than not rather expensive. Check the ink consumption of the printers you’re looking into and price the cartridges that you’ll need to buy. If it’s going to cost more to replace the ink than to purchase a new printer, it may not be that much of a bargain.