I have always maintained a Color inkjet should be the best technology choice for the average home user, but sadly, as manufactured, almost all inkjet printers end up being the worst choice. For that I blame both ink jet printer makers and their greed, and too many ignorant buyers. But it is possible to refill some select no longer made printers and get stellar below most prosumer lasers consumable costs. Don't tell me it can't be done because I have been doing it for the past six years with my non-chipped Canon ip4000.
But that is exactly the point, at a home office printer user printing a 1000 sheets a month, Zebo, you are anything but an average user. And there is where I agree with corkyg, you should do the bulk of your printing on a B/W laser. You can get a plain Jane laser model for $50.00, or you can get one with all the bells and whistles like copy, scan, fax, with a ADF thrown in also for about $140.00. Then you are in the two penny a page consumable cost area if you use OEM toner cartridges and in the penny a page area if you use third party toner cartridges. Or you can pony up the $400.00 or so for a color Laser with a few bells and whistles that will not do color post cards well as well as a color inkjet. But still half the initial costs of your solid ink Xerox that does not seem consumable costs competitive with a Laser.
But still, if you select a laser as your primary printer, its still leaves you with the dilemma of what color inkjet to add to the team. Problem one is that inkjets, unlike lasers must be used regularly or they clog. Problem two is that inkjets, compared to lasers are very slow. Problem three is that mere four color inkjets do not do well in photoprinting. And while, as Corkyg pointed out, there are a few HP office jet models that are half way competitive with lasers on consumable costs, they are not really good at photoprinting.
But Zebo, if the only thing its takes to mollify the wife is to print X-mas cards once a year, you are far better off hiring it done at places like Walgreen or Walmart. or some other similar copy shop.
But Zebo, if you are interested, if you PM me I can send you some information on what models of used inkjet photprinters you can find and how to get into the dirt cheap refill your own inkjet cartridges for dirt cheap. Nor do you need fancy extra costs network enabled printers to be able to share two or more printers on a small home office network.
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