Prints, ink and other computer peripheral hardware are any everyday part of life at home and work today. With the high quality printers that are available, just about everyone has a printer in their home that is capable of printing photographic quality graphics in full color. When you are doing research to purchase a home or office printer and are trying to choose between printers, ink cartridge replacement cost may be the determining factor. There are many, many affordable printers on the market today, all of which perform wonders at printing beautiful pages of graphics and professional appearing letters. The difference is that some printers' ink refills are much more expensive than others.

The true cost of owning a printer is not the original purchase price. It is the cost per page for printing over the lifetime of the printer that really tells the tale. If the prints are comparable in price and functionality, the cost per page of black and white and the cost per page of color printing is the factor you need to examine closely.

To determine the cost per page of printing, look at the specifications of the printer and find how many pages the ink cartridge will print. Then, divide the cost of the printer cartridge by the number of pages that cartridge is expected to print. This reveals your cost per page for ongoing ownership of the printer.

You should look at the price of an ink cartridge in both black and color for the printer that is manufactured by the same company as the printer. But do not stop there, because there are after-market brands of printer ink cartridges, many of which work perfectly, and even recycled, reconditioned and refilled ink cartridges. Compare all these prices and determine which offers the best price for use with the printer you choose.

Sometimes you will see slightly used printers, ink not included, for sale at online auctions for incredibly low prices. Some of these printers can be purchased for only a few dollars. The problem is that when you purchase the ink for that printer, it costs a lot more than you expected, even when you find the best price on that cartridge possible. The reason the printer was sold for such a low price is that the previous owner fell into the trap of buying a printer that the cost per page is outrageously high but this fact was only revealed when they went to shop for a replacement ink cartridge. This means that shopping for the right printers, ink cost considered, is more important than ever.

Whenever you find a printer you believe you might want to purchase, immediately price the cost of replacement ink cartridges so that you can compare the overall deal you are buying rather than buying something that sounds great but is expensive to live with. There are plenty of inkjet printers which use ink that is quite affordable, making the cost per page very affordable. It's a case of buyer beware and consider every aspect of owning the printer, buying ink, and getting an overall great price.

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Mr James has owned The Cartridge Specialists (Melbourne) since 2004 selling ink, toner, fax rolls etc & regularly writes articles about his industry