Buying a new inkjet printer

Although inkjet printer have come down in price in the least few years, it is still important to do research before making an uninformed purchase. The most important thing to consider being buying an inkjet printer is; what are you going to use the printer for? Web printing, printing photos, do you need a photo coping facility? It is important to ask yourself these questions as not all printers can perform all of these tasks and you may end up buying something that is not capable of doing what you require of it. Another common mistake people make is not researching into what ink cartridges a printer uses before buying it. Not all printer ink cartridges are the same, they vary in way they put ink onto the paper, in physical size and the amount of ink they hold. The two types of inkjet cartridge design are; print head cartridges and non print head cartridges (ink tanks). While the two different designs produce similar print results, one difference is that ink tank cartridges are available in non branded versions at greatly reduced cost but print head cartridges tend to be a little bit more expensive in comparison. Epson are the only printers that use ink tank cartridges exclusively, Canon printers use a mixed of both, HP and Lexmark use print head cartridges with an exception of a few HP printers which use ink tanks. Basically, one of the most important things to do before you buy a printer is to find out the cost of the ink and weather compatible, the capacity of the cartridges and whether they are available in cheaper compatible form. Many people have bought printers without researching these facts and found that when it comes to replacing the ink cartridges it costs them more than the original cost of the printer. A full set of genuine Epson inks for an Epson Stylus SX405 cost around £30 while a set of compatible Epson SX405 inks cost around £15. These prices are common for a mid range printer, specialist photo printers which use more ink cartridges will cost more in both original and compatible versions.