God bless ink cartridge counterfeiters

Congrats, this call for some more humor

A Georgia State Trooper pulled a car over on I-95 about 2 miles south of the Georgia/South Carolina State line. When the Trooper asked the driver why he was speeding, the driver answered that he was a magician and a juggler to do a show and didn't want to be late. The Trooper told the driver he was fascinated by juggling, and if the driver would do a little juggling for him that he wouldn't give him a ticket. The Trooper told him that he had some flares in the trunk of his patrol car and asked if he could juggle them. The juggler stated that he could, so the Trooper got three flares, lit them and handed them to the juggler. While the man was doing his juggling act, a car pulled in behind the patrol car, a drunk good old boy, from S.C., got out and watched the performance briefly, he then went over to the patrol car, opened the rear door and got in. The Trooper observed him doing this and went over to the patrol car, opened the door and asked the drunk what he thought he was doing. The drunk replied, "You might as well haul my a$$ off to jail, cause there's no way in he11 I can pass that test."


<pre><font color=red>°¤o,¸¸¸,o¤°`°¤o \\// o¤°`°¤o,¸¸¸,o¤°
And the sign says "You got to have a membership card to get inside" Huh
So I got me a pen and paper And I made up my own little sign</pre><p></font color=red>

My last one was Canon BJC-2100SP (720x360 dpi), 4 ppm monochrome. Color ink was so costly /page, I didn't buy a single color cartridge after the bundled color cartridge finished. Recently it couldn't draw real straight lines unless I used the slowest mode, in which it printed at only 1ppm.

I haven't bought the new one yet, but it's possibly going to be a Canon PIXMA ip3000. It's possibly the most inexpensive among 4 catridge printers, and canon ink almost always cost less than others'. It costs much more than US price though, I'll have to pay $165 for it.

Do you know for how long Canon makes cartridge for the old printers? My older printer was a 5 years old model, and I didn't find genuine cartridge for it in most of thestores, and ended up with buying pseudo-genuine cartridge.

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what does "baller" mean?

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Spitty...I have used these <A HREF="http://www.ink-refills-ink.com/" target="_new">INKY</A> for a long time in my Canon Pixma 8500. They are half what I paid at Office Depot and they work every time and the prints are great...

<font color=red>GO BUCKS!</font color=red>

I've tried using refill kits before, but they didn't work well. Haven't tried using 3rd party cartridges yet, but probably will if the new printer makes me cost too much for genuine cartridges.

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The price of some of the replacement cartridges you can almost replace the printer as cheap.

<font color=red>!#&$</font color=red> ---<font color=blue><i><b>There's the facts</font color=blue> ....<font color=green> the twisted facts </font color=green>... the distorted facts</font color=blue>,...<font color=red>THEN THERE'S JOURNALISM!</font color=red></i></b>

I tried the refill it your self thing and not only is it messy but when I refilled my HP 660 cartridge it didn't last very long. Then you have the problem of them drying up and clogging, although alcohol seems to fix that.(No RC, not as in beer)
Your smart to consider the price of the refills when deciding what to buy.
Another thing, what's with 3 different cartridges? one for black/white documents, one for color and another for photographs.

<font color=red>!#&$</font color=red> ---<font color=blue><i><b>There's the facts</font color=blue> ....<font color=green> the twisted facts </font color=green>... the distorted facts</font color=blue>,...<font color=red>THEN THERE'S JOURNALISM!</font color=red></i></b>

I used to have the BJC2100 too, although I dunno about the SP suffix.

As for drawing straight lines, it could have been head misalignment, which you can try calibrating through the software. It COULD also have been a dirty head, which you could try cleaning with whatever Canon might recommend for their own devices (usually a q-tip with some warm water is adequate enough).
And finally, the worst of the bunch, the head is done for. Canon's method of manufacturing their printer heads is a double edged sword. It's both a great thing and the biggest problem in their printers (well for the consumer it is), because once a head dies, ya gotta replace it and it usually costs 60$+, and that means you could just as well buy a new one really. As far as I remember, both Canon printers I owned died out of head death, and barely within 2 years of operation IIRC. And if your Canon's an expensive one, then man you are SOL, cuz you either pay for a new head, or you just lost a hefty investment.

Of course, the great advantage also lies in the fixed head method they use. Basically it just costs less because of the ink being the only thing you're paying for, not the head and its circuitry (what would then amount to being called a "cartridge" rather than an ink tank).
So going Canon is a bit of a risk sometimes, however the head rarely dies out these days, and you can just take a replacement warranty if your local store offers one, for very little, for a few years. It usually covers the head.
The Pixma serie is also much more refined in terms of their durability/quality versus the old BJC line.

And that's an excellent choice! I recommend it very often and it kicks ass with its dual sided printing feature as a bonus.
Although it is very expensive there. Here it's about 120$ US.
Yeah you are correct on price for a 4 ink tank printer. It is among the most affordable, and the ink system is usually an economical one, so long as you do not buy all 3 colors each time. (otherwise it costs MUCH more than typical color cartridges from any manu)
You will like it for sure. It's efficient, fast (excellent photo print speeds) and will likely be economical. Just don't leave the printer unused for over a month, otherwise you start getting dry ink problems or worse.

In general all printers manus will have the catridges for their printers sold for at least 10 years after the date of creation, I assume. For example, the BJ-21 ink tanks (the BJC2100's ink) are still widely sold around here. We still carry toners for printers from way back in the 90s.

Usually 3rd party cartridges do well, as long as they come from a reputable brand. At my work, one can buy the Staples' house brand, and they usually do a good job. Same applies for refill kits. If they're not well done or you don't use them properly, you'll mess the whole thing up.
I had used black refill for my BJC2100 many many times, and it worked pretty well actually. And the economy is amazing!

Anyways, although I doubt it was the "counterfeit" brand that was just purposely not well done, (I'd bet more on the head dying or perhaps just a bad ink tank of the bunch, that you bought) you should definitely go on with the purchase of a new one. It's truly worth it IMO. And in your scenario, a Canon makes perfect sense, because it is the most cheapest to own of all the known printer brands, economically speaking, if you use your printer fairly often or for a lot of papers per print session. An HP for example would likely cost you hundreds of dollars more over the years, if you change the black ink often! (not to mention getting less ink per tank in an HP of similar characteristics, usually)

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If I try to follow your country's price hikes on computer and technology accessories, I'd say an average of 15$ PER INK TANK.

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Hehehe, so true. That's why you gotta know what price is the ink of X printer.

For example, HP screws you when you buy the 3845 printer, under 80$. Their cartridges, the 27 and 28, cost about 20$. Well, ironically, for a printer slightly more expensive, you get the 56 and 57 cartridges to use, which feature nearly twice the ink amount, for almost the same price (in many cases, for less)!

Another example is with the Pixma 1500. You pay 50$ for the printer and a mere 8$ for extra black ink, but it gives you about 75 prints, way below higher end printers' ink tanks. So unless you don't print a lot, you will pay roughly the same as a Canon costing 100$, for ink. Still much better than the HP philosophy though.

So here's a bottom line, based on my experience in selling, for the four main inkjet brands:

-HP: Great if you print often (HP's print session does not require the heads to spit out a lot of ink, to clear air and begin printing), although often they will overall cost more to operate. Slow printers for photos, relatively not as economical as Canon for them.
Great printers if you like photo printing onboard features like an LCD screen to view photos on the printer, with modification buttons, for overall quicker photo printing.

-Canon: Arguably the most economical. Low ink prices all around, often offering more quantity per ink tank usually, against similar competition's ink tanks/cartridges.
Disadvantage of head dying, but a rare issue nowadays. Using a Canon for one paper or so, every day, will prove disadvantageous because of the print session spitting. You will find even a high quantity ink tank run out if you do such kinds of printing, based on what my friend has told me.
If you print frequently every day, (with print sessions not far in hours from each other), the Canons will bring you significant savings (as seen on THG's tests too).
Excellent printers for photo printing (the i and Pixma serie anyways) due to extrememly speedy prints, most notably the 8"x11.5" prints, and VERY economical at that too.
Great photo quality too, but their prints will usually use a lighter tonality overall, so they are less "close to the reality", but often look nicer, because of the human mind's tendency to brighten memories' images over time.

Epson: Bar none, if you buy the higher end photo printers, the best in photo quality.
Quite economical too, though not as much as Canon. VERY high amount of spitting at the beginning of a print session, so watch out, you better use it a lot when you start printing or they'll cost you a lot over time.
Speedy printers for photo, but again, not as much as Canon.
Basically for the photo enthusiast, you cannot go wrong with either the R300 or the R800. (prolly one of the best photo quality ever)

Lexmark: No doubt the ones that are the least recommended. Fairly decent pricing, but cartridges are even more expensive than HP and are not THAT durable. Technology not so remarkable, with the new low end Z816 being badly rated by THG for weak economy and bad merging of ink technologies (dry and wet I believe) which give rather bad photos.
Simply put, steer away from Lexmark if you can. Expensive and far from giving the best output. Although they are good at one thing, build quality. Them things can take wear and tear pretty well from what I've seen.

Hope this helps some in future purchases.


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The <b><A HREF="http://snipurl.com/blsb" target="_new"><font color=red>THGC Photo Album</font color=red></A></b>, send in your pics, get your own webpage and view other members' sites.<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Eden on 04/01/05 10:49 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

Heheh, one remark about that. Often low end printers generate little profit, if not losses for the company. They bank on the ink for profits, because they cost so little to manufacture and bring so much more profit. So buy wisely!

Just like the X-Box, it's the games that generate the bulk of Microsoft's console gaming revenues, not the console.

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I was using BC-20 (black only) cartrige, which has built-in head. The ink tanks of 2-tank color cartridge was not very expensive, but they printed so few pages before running out (especially the black one) I never bought one after the bundled cartridge was finished. Though I mostly print monochrome text, sometimes the inablity to print color in necessity was frustrating.

No, the cool thing is that it's equal to US price, $11 for black, and $8.4 for each color. I think I will be able to afford buying original cartriges, if the black cartridge runs close to it's rated 650 pages/cartridge. And since I won't print color much, color price is proably not going to be a problem.

In fact low end products are not really overpriced here, most cases they're priced almost equal to US price. Midrange products are extremely overpriced (sometimes upto 2x, current price of 128 MB Radeon 9600 Pro is $190) and high end products are moderately overpriced (usually not more than 25-30%). I can't buy high end stuff and don't want low end products either, so I'm in the most uncomfortable position.

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Eden, i am looking for a A3 7 tank Epson or cannon photo quality printer.

what are the prices of these like where you are?

they cost about $1000 NZD, but the ink is really cheap per tank.

Alltaken

<A HREF="http://www.mudpuddle.co.nz" target="_new">http://www.mudpuddle.co.nz</A> its where its all going on, oh and its also all going on HERE <A HREF="http://doug.mudpuddle.co.nz/gallery/" target="_new">http://doug.mudpuddle.co.nz/gallery/</A><P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Alltaken on 04/02/05 09:58 AM.</EM></FONT></P>

7 tank?

You mean black, CMY and what else? LC,LM and LB? R, G or B?

I'm not familiar with the A3 format though, what size is that in inches?

In general, like I said, if you want the most accurate colors possible (closest to original), go Epson. Canon for overall economy, and speed, but definitely not image quality. Check THG's recent test of high end printers. Makes you wanna drool over the R800's blue water reproduction!!!

Yer average high end inkjet printer (not wide) costs about 400-500$ CDN I'd say. Anything higher and you might actually be better off buying a color laser printer. (ok, perhaps it's exaggerating it a bit) Them things are now 600$ CDN, so around 700$ AUS I guess.
I dunno how your NZD dollar is versus the AUS and CDN ones, as well as the US.

Definitely spot on about the ink value though, Epson or Canon all the way for that.

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The <b><A HREF="http://snipurl.com/blsb" target="_new"><font color=red>THGC Photo Album</font color=red></A></b>, send in your pics, get your own webpage and view other members' sites.

Heheheh LMAO, you actually thought I was criticizing you?

D00d I was drooling if anything! Freakin' hell, an 8500, that thing's pretty expensive!

But oh so damn nice. Isn't that the one capable of doing an 8.5x11 in under a minute thirty?! AW GAWD! [/Wingy]

Although I can't even begin to understand how you pay 5$ for cartridges only. What the heck?

And yeah you beat my printer in photo quality, that's for sure. My HP Photosmart 7260 is way too weak at photo printing relatively speaking. But it's cute and nice for documents and occasional images on regular paper. (quite fast at it)

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CD and DVD? Well that one slipped by me, didn't know it did that.

Was under the impression its main difference was speed.

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A3 = 11.69" x 16.54"

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Just to let you know that there is a $70 rebate on the IP3000.

Hey I just found the printer at<A HREF="http://" target="_new"> NewEgg for $70</A>....
Waite .....yea I think my math is correct $70 minus $70= FREE .....

<A HREF="http://consumer.usa.canon.com/ir/controller?act=ModelDetailAct&fcategoryid=117&modelid=10238" target="_new">http://consumer.usa.canon.com/ir/controller?act=ModelDetailAct&fcategoryid=117&modelid=10238</A>

<font color=red>!#&$</font color=red> ---<font color=blue><i><b>There's the facts</font color=blue> ....<font color=green> the twisted facts </font color=green>... the distorted facts</font color=blue>,...<font color=red>THEN THERE'S JOURNALISM!</font color=red></i></b><P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Russell on 04/03/05 12:59 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

Yeah, I wish there were too...

<font color=blue>"I never comment on referees and I'm not going to break the habit of a lifetime for that prat." - Ron Atkinson</font color=blue>

Thanks for the info on i560. Now I shouldn't have any hesitations.

So, basically IP3000 = i560 - problems + extra features ?

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Although each one's experience with one printer varies, from what I've seen, I believe we had used two of them for our work's merchandise room printing (we usually print in draft too to accelerate printing process, of mail-in rebates for customers, for example), and each simply was like a monster waiting to eat the paper.

I still think anyone buying a new printer should head straight towards the Pixma serie, even though not many yet utilize the i960's amount of ink tanks for better photo quality, and skip the i serie, which is discontinued anyways.

BTW I kept asking yall where did you see the CD printing function. I don't think I've ever read about it, and no you confirm that. So now I guess it's up to Spitty to tell us.
All I can say is that Epson is the only company I know that offers CD printing printers with a special cassette.

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I think the European and Asian versions of IP3000 can print on CD/DVD. Our local Canon dealer also confirmed that their IP3000 can print on CD/DVD

<A HREF="http://www4.canon-asia.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=bubblejet&prod_type=ip3000" target="_new">http://www4.canon-asia.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=bubblejet&prod_type=ip3000</A>

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I guess that this is only for the Asian/European market and here, in N.A, only the IP4000 and up have this feature.

<font color=red>Sig space for rent. make your offer.</font color=red>

yeah the quality is fantastic.

imagine a photo quality print on a CD, the printable CD's have a blank surface like most imation CD's (but no writing)

its a silvery slightly reflective surface, and withe the printing on it, it looks amazing. i had a close look at a cd they had printed with it and it looked better than many audio cd labels.

the only difference is on a proper CD they often have a thick printing layer, that you can tell is a print (using a press, rather than an inkjet)

but other than that they are great.

Alltaken

<A HREF="http://www.mudpuddle.co.nz" target="_new">http://www.mudpuddle.co.nz</A> its where its all going on, oh and its also all going on HERE <A HREF="http://doug.mudpuddle.co.nz/gallery/" target="_new">http://doug.mudpuddle.co.nz/gallery/</A>

So basically it's better to stick with inkjet printable discs using inkjet printing?

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