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HP printer ink cartridges

AEA

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HP wants a lot of $ for their cartridges, has anyone tried an aftermarket substitute? I never paid much attention to the cost of these things. We needed replacements and I was shocked when I saw price on the Costco receipt. If anybody has had good luck with a cheaper option let's hear about it.
 

shintoooo

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I buy HP compatible replacement toner cartridges for my Laserjet office printers from Amazon. They’re at least half or less than the original HP toners and they work great.
 

mjc

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I did and started getting incompatible error messages, so had to go back to HP ones. It pisses me off that I can't buy whatever I want for my printer.
 

Ziggy

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I buy HP compatible replacement toner cartridges for my Laserjet office printers from Amazon. They’re at least half or less than the original HP toners and they work great.
Me too. Plus I probably have printed another 70-80 pages since it's told me it is low, still going too. I rarely use the color ink jet.
 

DarkHorseRacing

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So if you don’t need photo quality, or aren’t trying to print anything in high fidelity, the color lasers are the way to go.

Printers have two costs. 1. The cost of the printer. 2. The cost of the consumables and their lifespan (pages per cartridge).

Inkjets are cheap printers but the consumables (ink cartridges, and/or print heads etc) are high for the amount of pages you can print with them. You’d be lucky to get through a ream with an inkjet.

Laserjets (black and white, and color ones) cost more to buy, but for the amount of paper you can run through a toner cartridge the costs to print are far lower with a laser. You can stretch that further if you can find a laser that (at least in HP models) take the larger “X” model toners. With an X toner you can practically print a whole box of paper.

The other massive drawback with inkjets is the ink dries up and then you blow half the ink cartridge running cleaning cycles. If you don’t print much this will happen all the time. Lasers are better for infrequent printing.

I need an inkjet to print glossy photos, but if I’m not doing that I have a basic B&W laser that I print everything else on.
 

Cray Paper

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I bought a HP Office Jet Pro (8720) about 6 years ago at the start of a nasty divorce, printed thousands of pages with it and it's still kicking ass. Ink isn't cheap but seems like it lasts for a long time. Just went through the ink buying endeavor a couple of weeks ago, Walmart is cheaper than Costco and Office Depot for color, but Costco is much cheaper than both for Black XL cartridge's. Ink prices seems to have doubled in the last couple of years.

The printer has been rock solid though, just need to feed it paper and ink, it was a great purchase.
 

shunter2005

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I dumped my HP 8720 for that very reason last year and went with an Epson Ecotank. Bottle of black ink is less than $30 and lasts forever.
I was always an HP printer fan, but I won't go back.
 

BabyRay

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I went with HP’s automatic replacement program for my inkjet cartridges. The cartridges hold a LOT more ink, so they last longer. I’m paying $21 per month, based on pages printed. I think it’s saving money vs buying them conventionally, but either way the convenience is worth it to me.
 

callbob

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I bought some hp replacements on Amazon, had good reviews and didn’t get the error message.
 

Angler

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HP wants a lot of $ for their cartridges, has anyone tried an aftermarket substitute? I never paid much attention to the cost of these things. We needed replacements and I was shocked when I saw price on the Costco receipt. If anybody has had good luck with a cheaper option let's hear about it.
If you don't need color, Dump the ink cartridge printer and buy a laser printer. It will save you a lot of money.
 

boatpi

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I went to brother lasers 15 years ago we use black-and-white and color.

I don’t need photo quality and I get inexpensive replacement cartridges on eBay. They’re all from China anyway and they work fabulous.
Just have to clean the machine every three or four months it takes less than five minutes and the cartridges are like $13 apiece. I don’t know anyone that uses ink anymore unless it’s for photo quality or some specialty larger paper size machines, and we have one of those.
 

samsah33

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Printers are priced based on a recurring revenue model, e.g. the sell the printers at a loss and then recover the loss on the back end thru ink sales. Classic recurring revenue model. Shop for the ink before you shop for the printer.

Give'em the lamp, sell'em the oil...
 

boatpi

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Brother mfc -2710 or 2740 Series machines are fabulous you can even get them with double sided printing cost is about $200. I’ve had one for eight years it’s never failed.

We use these models in our office for sales document. Pronounce four years two machines never failed only clean them once a year..
 

Flatsix66

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HP was locking out non-HP branded ink cartridges but thanks to several class-action lawsuits, HP is now required to allow third-party cartridges to work on their printers, and they are no longer allowed to lock out ink cartridges when the “low ink level” warning appears. This lockout is handled via software updates, if you are still locked out try updating the firmware on your printer.
 

Nordie

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It's difficult getting a smaller printer, but still being able.to print 11x17s for work. I have an HP 7000 something. I bought some of the knock off cartridges on Amazon.

The printer prompted me that they're not HP, but there was a use anyway button. Pressed that and they have worked perfectly fine at ½ the price.
 

Maw

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Been using aftermarket cartridges in my HP plotter and Brothers laserjet printer for 7-8 years now with no problems.
 

TimeBandit

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Printer sales use the barbie doll model.

Give the doll away, get 'em on the accessories.

My trusty old HP 3050 laser printer keeps chugging along, I buy toner cartridges on Amazon.

We have no "need" for an inkjet since the kids finished school, I keep one around for the flatbed scanner function, I don't even think it prints anymore.
 

lbhsbz

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I can’t stand HP. I cancelled my subscription for monthly ink, and they de-activated the printer with cartridges I had gotten through the program.

I bought a cheap ($160) brother laser printer a couple years ago when I started the business…I feed it knockoff toner cartridges every 3 or so reems of paper and it’s done me well.
 

jetboatperformance

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Scrapped our printers for Epsons with refillable tanks ............. f*k cartridges
 
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