Credit to everyone who is trying to recycle their ink cartridges, but I still have concerns about these printers and their consumables. Ink jet printers are just plain hard on the budget and the environment, and the cartridges can't be refilled indefinitely, many only once and very few more than two or three times. Many applications don't really need an ink jet, I see lots of these printers being used in places where a laser or dot matrix would be much better suited to the job. Often people buy them because the initial printer cost is very low, frequently because it's heavily subsided by the expensive cartridges, sometimes the printer is sold for less than a full set of cartridges. However, when you consider the price of ink and special paper, it's multiple times cheaper to take your digital photographs or images to a shop and have them use their state of the art printer worth thousands to print them for you. No need to clutter up your house with another printer, no need to change cartridges or anything. Best of all it's not more work, you can either go out to the store to buy cartridges or you can go to the store to have your pictures printed. The only major difference is price and quality, both of which are better. Some places do it mail order or over the internet now, so you could have your prints sent to you. Of course some people do need a colour printer at home or in their office, there are genuine needs, but then it's fair to point out that the price of colour laser printers has dropped a lot now, and they're much better suited to high volume applications, but also don't dry up if not used for a while. They also work out much cheaper in the long term. Anyone who can justify their need for a high quality colour printer, for example a high volume of prints being made, can probably justify the initial expense of a colour laser as it will save them so much money in the long term.

I always used HP inkjets but this time I went with a Brother laser that is both black and color, it is fantastic and it is a multi function does it all, scan, copy fax print and so much more, I got it when it went on sale at office max for a little over $300. But with what I will save on not buying the expensive ink it will be worth it. I would really suggest looking at this same one it would be perfect for a small office. My husbands company uses these Brother lasers and they rarely ever have any problems other than changing the toner occasionally. Brother MFC-9120CN Digital Color All-in-One Printer OH MY GOSH it is on sale for $299 man I would jump on that deal asap! that is less than I paid for it, but their sales do not last long. They do fast delivery too. I am not kidding this thing will do stuff I will never need to do but for an office it would be great. I checked on several sites for reviews and this model had a lot of positive reviews.

Gee, I sorry if I was feeling "too good" about my purchase. But, I say if you haven't put your hands on one your experience with his machine is less than mine. At least you have spared me from someone buying one of these because "Jerry said" is worth $400. My reference to that number is what I recall reading in the add, recalling how much these machines costs just a couple of years ago. This machine came without any reference to Windows 8, has the good old fashioned glossy documentation makes me think it was "designed for" sale in a higher priced market.. If one has a home network and want to share a printer, they might be happier (at an additional cost of at least $50) if the printer is accessed off of Ethernet or WiFi. On the W8, I moved forward first on my W8 notebook to access that printer. With the great help from this site I used the information to set the printer as "shared" on the XP host computer. I then followed the directions to use the W8 Control Panel to open the network (hey, this was all looking familiar) and bingo there I found my XP machine and thus the Printer. I doubled clicked the Canon printer and W8 started to look for a driver.... I'll estimate 3 or 4 minutes later I got a failure to find a driver. The next step upon this type failure indicated to try to install the printer in W8 (W7 really specified) and that failed too. I went to the Canon web site and downloaded a driver for W8. Now ready I went back to the W8 Control Panel and opened the network and this time I couldn't find even the XP machine, never mind the printer. It was after 11 PM by that time so I decided to try again in the morning -yet to be accomplished. But, before bed I decided to look at the DVD that came with the printer. it has no indication of what OS systems it supported, but I put it in the W8 and loaded both the driver and the software to operate the scanner (which by the way is a low resolution color scanner.. low resolution for B&W too, not a picture quality scanner which is the case for all home machines I have owned). I'm yet to try again to gain access from the W8 and W7 computers. Now on my second cup of coffee, and will try to access the XP machine when I get energetic enough to go to the other room and turn it on.

Well, this tightwad (me) had her cartridges go empty maybe a year ago. I bought a refill kit on Ebay, and filled both the black and the color. The color was an off color, so I just quit using it (color)altogether, and choose to print most all things in black quick print, thus saving ink with that too. Needless to say, I'm not doing photos, or anything that has to have the color to make it worthwhile. I suppose if I ever do, I'll just have a friend print it for me, or get it at the library, for a few cents per copy. Now, does that put me in the running for resident tightwad? I get my Epson cartridges on eBay;they're a generic type & work just fine. Even w/shipping, I end up paying about $1.14 for the black ones. To stretch that dollar even further, I take the empties to Staples where I get a $3.00 credit;my copy paper ends up costing me $.99 a ream. I'll take a bow, now, for being the resident tightwad. Is that right? $1.14 for a black cartridge? Wow...what a bargain! After 4.5 years, it still spits out the pages without problems. The new Canon brand refill cartriges are about $12. Other brands are cheaper. Sounds like a terrific printer and very resonable replacement cartidges. Hmmmm, when I am forced to buy new cartridges (can no longer fill these), I may be in the market for a newer printer, which is cheaper to 'run'. Sue