I’m hanging with That Girl, and the other day we were out on the town together, shopping for a variety of techno-things for our office. One of those items was a printer. We spent time at OfficeMax looking at a variety of options, and finally settled on a competent-looking Epson for seventy bucks. I was struck by couple of observations as we lifted the black beauty from it’s packaging and set to work hooking it up:
- The cable to connect the printer to the computer is not included. This is mentioned in small print. Oddly, It is not possible to tell from the outside of the box what cable is required. You must get home, unwrap the printer to find no cable, then make a separate trip. Thanks, Epson. (Thanks also to the almost overly-helpful people at OfficeMax, who probably should have known about this.)
- The cost of a printer, including a full complement of ink cartridges: $70. The cost of a full complement of ink cartridges: $80. It is cheaper to buy a second printer and throw it away than to buy a backup set of cartridges. Wow. Just… wow.
We had an Epson for years and loved it. It recently pooped out. We said, “Epson rocked us for a good long while, we’ll go Epson again.” Then came the research to decide exactly which Epson (BTW all this concerns ink jet, not laser). Lots of consumer feedback on cnet.com and Amazon, plus one incensed colleague has steered us completely away. Just about all of the feedback concerned the tiny number of pages per ink cartridge you get. My colleague printed off ten, only ten, pages before it ran out. He took the printer back and made Office MAx accept it. They went HP. I think HP cartidges are expensive too, but last longer. Granted, printers often come with “introductory” cartridges that don’t last as long as regular replacements, but another scary thing from consumer comments was that several could not get Epson brand replacements to work. Only the originals worked in the printer. I went with a well rated (Consumer Reports) HP D2460, but have not yet hooked it up… so can’t give you a personal recommend, just a general recommend.
The cartridges a printer comes with are not fully filled. Just like when you buy a car, there is only enough fuel in the tank to enable you to drive to the next station. That’s why this “Wow” works for them.
A magazine once has calculated that this ink is the most expensive liquid on earth – more costly per unit than the most expensive perfume.