Buying a printer and ink cartridges

[Pilgrim]

My sister is starting university in January and I'd like to buy her a cheap printer for Christmas. There are deals all over for $30-50 which is fine.

It's been a few years since I've owned a printer, and I have a few questions.

When its time to replace printer cartridges,

a) What brand/models of printers have cheaper printer cartridges?

b) Do you buy printer cartridges online? In store?

c) What about refilling ink cartridges?

[tsehou]

In general, decently priced ink is only available on printers at the $100+ mark.

For example, the Canon printers mp510 and mp620 use individual ink cartridges that provide a lot more ink for the price. You can also find compatible ink cartridges online for much cheaper and do lots of prints.

If your sister is doing a lot of black and white printing, then buy the cheapest laser printer you can find.

[matdwyer]

I just signed on with a deal that is $19.99 a month for 4 refills per month, with a free printer (a crappy brother one).

I plan to make sure I use every last drop of it on my one year contract. The regular fills are about $8/each, so I need to do 3 to break even every month (and they are high volume, 25ml of ink).

Sorry if that didn't help, but for some places like schools they may have one. I know at some of the uni's here there are students who do refills for $10-$15... tell her to keep an eye out.

[Shaftasaurus]

I find HP to have the cheapest ink. Canon's is typically $40-$60 for a pack including one black and one tri-color cartridge. Lexmark is... well... ridiculous. Brother is decent, maybe slightly higher. HP does vary, since there's so many different cartridges, but your average 74/75 pack (black + tri-color) runs about $35.

Don't quote me, as I'm going off memory here, and that has proven to be horrible. But these should be about right :)

[gekkexx]

Don't you find it absurd that the cartridges can cost more than the printer itself. It almost makes more sense to chuck out your old printer and just buy a new one instead of buying cartridges. I mean, Futureshop usually has deals on printers for like $20 bucks or something. That said, I don't think that they give you 100% full cartridges with new printers...