Best deal for printing color in small office

[Zebo]

I'm getting a little tired of spending about $200-$300 a month on toner cartridges for a Lexmark color laser we have. Some only last a month like Cyan which costs $179 ea. Printer was cheap like $500 but I've spent thousands in toner. With lexmark they have a chip on board so not even refill is possible.

Are there cheaper options?

I'm thinking something like this
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboD...t=Combo.348399

They call it "solid ink" but it's only like $75 ea and lasts 15000 pages easily paying for increased cost in printer over time???

Thoughts?

 

[VirtualLarry]

That solid-ink printer sounds like a good solution to me. Lexmark definately plays the ink/toner game.

Brother is the only inkjet printer than I use, because they don't chip their ink, and you can get third-party inks really cheap. Plus, their printers seem pretty decently reliable. This is all from the inkjet world. I really have no idea about brother laser printers, but I think that they are fairly cheap too.

http://askville.amazon.com/inkjet-p...-copy-laser/AnswerViewer.do?requestId=1379827
Seems to indicate that third-party toner is available for at least one model of Brother laser printer.

http://www.brother-usa.com/Printer/Color_Laser_Printers/
No mention of nominal duty cycle for their printers though.

 

[RebateMonger]

So how many prints do you make a month and what kind of toner coverage on those?

 

[Zebo]

I have no idea REBATE on coverage I don't know what the girls do.... 192.168.1.16 shows 113K pages and printer is ~ 3 yrs old.

 

[Zebo]

Nice to see ya VL🙂 Brother definitely seems the best deal toner wise, $44 for their 4000 page cyan vs. $179! Thanks! Especially beneficial is they have a MFC....

 

[Zap]

192.168.1.16 shows 113K pages and printer is ~ 3 yrs old.

Maybe add a B&W printer to the mix and make it the default printer?

 

[Zebo]

Maybe add a B&W printer to the mix and make it the default printer?

My wife and administrative assistant like printing in color and I aim to please just would like to do it cheaper pp. Brother seems to be the best bang for the buck so far?


Ideally - Id like easily refillable toner cartridges with no chip....but I'm not sure printer companies allow that anymore.🙁 From my web reading it seems they sell printers at or near a loss and make billions in ink.

 

[GoodRevrnd]

I hate my Brother laser. It's not a fancy one or anything, just a 4040CN, but it doesn't actually track toner usage. It just tells you you need a new cartridge after X number of clicks regardless of what's in there.