Russell,
Your first mistake: not doing enough research.  How can I tell? Because
these questions are asked daily on the various inkjet groups.  Don't feel
bad though; the printer companies have 'guided' you down this path.

1. Do printer manufacturers make money selling ink? Doh!  In the US, you
can find low end printers that sell from $40 to $70 with various rebates.
Buyer takes one home and the carts run dry seemingly very quickly.  Buyer
goes back to the store to find that a color cart and a black cart together
cost around $60 -$70.  Hmmm.... low end carts contain often as little as
1/2 ounce of usable ink.  $30/(half ounce) = $7680.00 per gallon for the
ink.  Does ink really cost this much??? Doh!

2. Buyer now shops around and finds aftermarket brand of ink for $10 total
for color/black. Cool! Buyer runs some prints and notices banding, head
clogs, off colors, low saturation, metamerism, etc.  Buyer scratches head.
Are some aftermarket brands ok? Yes.  Which ones? Hmmm...

3. Longevity of prints.  Search the web and draw your own conclusions.  I'm
pretty well entrenched in the Epson camp right now and although they have
been the leader here in the past, others are catching up.  One surprising
factoid: exposure to UV appears to be secondary to exposure to ozone as far
as a fading cause is concerned.

4. What to do?  If you don't print much, stick with oem carts. If you print
a bit more search the net for brands of ink that appear both compatible and
less expensive.  If you go through maybe five sets of carts a year, look
into continuous inking systems - 'cis'.  Your ink costs will drop to less
than a tenth of oem carts; ink at this point is essentially free.

With a cis, you never run dry during a print.  Your ink costs are way down.
 You need to order ink maybe once a year.  I like mine.

5. For a while, join some discussion groups for inkjet printers.  See what
others are doing and what they have to say about HP, Canon, Epson and so
on.  Find out about different types of ink, what papers work well, what
papers don't work well, how to clean print heads, yada yada yada.

HTH,
Tom

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