Originally posted by: Koron
I got an i450 last fall. 3rd party ink tanks are cheap (<$2.00). Quality was decent. However, the problem with these Canons is that the ink tank is separate from the head. It is actually superior in my opinion because new tanks do not need to have heads on them, but it has one major caveat. If you don't have sufficient ink in a tank or just plain don't use the printer for a month or two (say a summer break from school), the ink will dry up in the head and the entire printer will be trash.
I went ahead and bought a laser printer after I figured out that my i450 wouldn't be in service for school. It's really up to you.