I am a very happy owner of an HP Photosmart Pro B9180 Super A3 printer. It takes eight ink cartridges including three blacks. Petty impressive really and it makes beautiful prints. The machine cost me just under £500 which I thought was a great price. It came with a complete set of ink which I have just found out that to replace from the shop where I bought the printer (Caulmet in Manchester) will cost me £200. That means that the printer itself was only £300!
Inevitably, my first cartridge is running dry, when it told me with impressive accuracy that I had 21% of Matte Black ink left, I thought that it was time to find out where I could get the cheapest replacement. I looked at Calumet and there's was £27 which I thought was pretty steep, I looked at other sites I frequent and there was a bit of variety but it was a pain looking at one site after another. As I moaned to a friend, they said that they swear by DealTimeUK and had in fact just been researching their new digital camera there from the 2,400 listed so that they could find the best deals for exactly what they wanted.
Anyway, I digress.....the price range for the HP38 Matte Black I so desperately needed was from, well nothing to nothing as they didn't have one listed....
I then looked for Epson premium glossy paper which is my favourite when I choose to go glossy rather than my usual matt and got a much better result with prices ranging from £19-£25 which I thought was pretty impressive really. The shops were all sites I'd never heard of before and I plan to check them out over the weekend as I'm down to my last three sheets!
The hunt for the ink goes on, but it's nice to have a one stop shop for searching for all sorts of things without it taking over my life (not just geekery, there's also wine, flowers, clothes and various female requisites too) !
Printer ink - definitely one of the expensive things in life but don't forget, you can claim it as a business expense if you've declared yourself to the Inland Revenue.
ReplyDeleteMy preffered outlet for ink and paper is www.7dayshop.com They have original & compatible inks and have you tried the Ilford Gallerie range of paper - luscious stuff :)