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Printer Recommendations By Ink Refill R Us Ink Refills

October 29, 2001

Although we don't sell printers, many times people ask us what printers we recommend. While we can't claim to represent a thorough testing service, we do get some idea of inkjet performance from customer calls. Plus, we have a strong knowledge of which cartridges are easy to refill, and which are not. So, we give you our suggestions -- but be sure to make your own decisions.

A Few General Comments:

• Canon graphical performance on earlier machines was poorer than the other leading manufacturers. This has improved with the S-series. They generally seem to make an easy to refill, reliable inkjet these days. We like these new Canon printers.

• The HP Deskjet 900 family offers an excellent mix of print quality and reliability. Refilling of black cartridges is a breeze. However, color refilling can be trickier and thus these printers should only be used if you print lots of black with only a spot or two of color per page for highlighting. The refilled color cartridges (C1823, C6578, #25) will not print large photos well. The Business Inkjet 2200 family is much better for photos.

  Much the same comments apply to the HP Photosmart line of printers. Although they have excellent photo quality printing when new, the design of the color cartridge makes good photo reproduction difficult with refilled cartridges.

• Epson printers give excellent print quality, but are more difficult to refill than the others. Avoid the C-series and 777 printers in particular if you want to refill. Look at the cartridges: if you see a chip on the cartridge which an Epson inkjet uses, the cartridge will be difficult to refill.

• Lexmark has a good line of low-cost printers in their Z series. They can all be refilled easily, and are an excellent choice if your budget is limited.

• Apollo printers are essentially low-end HP printers and are fine if your printing needs are low.

• For high-end sign making, consider the Encad and Roland lines of products.

• Avoid Xerox low-end refill. They have very high cartridge replacement costs and utilize a dual toner/developer which is difficult to refill yourself. However, their inkjet products are much better to work with.

• Tektronix toner products are easily supported.

• As near as we can tell, Lexmark has designed the inkjet cartridges for Compaq, Xerox, and Sharp.

Best Print Quality -- Photo Quality

• Epson 2000P This is your best bet if graphical print quality is your key requirement, but is a bit tricky to refill. Plus, the inks are pigmented, which means that they don't fade quickly. We prefer the older Epson 3000, but these are now hard to find.

• Canon S800 family is the runner up. Much easier to refill, but the inks aren't as fade resistent.

• The HP Photosmart printers are great also, but do not perform well printing large photos when refilled.

Best Overall Print Quality

• Canon S400 and S600. The graphics are excellent. The text quality is very crisp and sharp. If you mix graphics and text, these units probably provide the best overall print quality mix. Another advantage is that these units are easy to refill. The S600 is faster than the S400.

• HP 900 Series printers are excellent if you print heavy black and just a little color. We like the Deskjet 970Cse for our invoice printing and cover letters.

Best Cheap Printer

• Anything in the Lexmark Z-series lineup. These printers are easy to refill, and can be found for $50 or less. The refilling is easy for a beginner. In addition, the black ink is a pigmented black ink, which means that it is relatively water resistent. But these printers are almost disposable. Don't buy the low-end if you print thousands of pages per month -- look to the Canon and HP printers mentioned next.

Easiest to Refill, Maintain, and Great Reliability

• HP 2200 -- This unit is wonderful if you need a workhorse inkjet. When the earlier generation HP 2000 was tested by our chemist, it ran over 11,000 pages without a page jam. Plus, the Type 10 and 11 cartridges are very large and easy to refill. Most printers are rated at 3,000 pages per month, but this one rates at 10,000 pages per month. This is the best inkjet to use if you are printing substantial color or photo pieces, since the large individual color cartridges allow you to run, run, run the inkjet. We really like this one. But the price tag is a bit high if your printing needs are not heavy -- around $500.

• Canon S400 or S600 -- This unit is simplicity itself. And that translates into lower operating costs with our refill ink. However, the volume printing ability is nowhere near the performance of the HP units mentioned above.

• For laser printers, nothing beats the HP Laserjet family of printers. Select the one with the right price/speed for you. All are simple to refill, too.

Colorfast Prints

• The only truly colorfast inkjet inkjet available to ordinary mortals is the Canon 7000 family of products (BC-60 cartridges). There are other disadvantages to this inkjet, so check out our refilling instructions for this one first.

• The HP Laserjet 4550 is a superb low-cost color laser and is easy to refill. We have customers who print entire books for sale with this product.

Multi-function Machines and Faxes

• Low-speed -- Look at the Lexmark products. These are easy to refill and support for a beginner. The color cartridge is also easy to refill. Be aware, though, that the cartridges can not be refilled as many times as the HP cartridges used on the current Officejet and PSC family products. Brother products that use the LC02 and LC04 cartridges are fine and easy to refill, but have small cartridges.

• High-speed -- We like the HP Officejet V40. It scans, prints, faxes, and is easy to refill the black cartridge. It even faxes in color if you have a color fax receiving! But it lacks a flat bed for book copying.

Low-End Copiers

• Avoid low-end Xerox refill, since they use a Sharp-designed dual toner/developer system which is difficult to refill yourself. Brother and Canon are much easier to use.
• Ricoh products have little support in the after-market.
• Brother and Canon products are easy to refill and work just fine.

As always, take these brief comments as guides. And remember that the models that are being demonstrated on the showroom floor are heavily used. We suggest bringing your own paper to test. Where possible, you might even want to bring your own pages to print out.