It’s technically more money upfront, but you’re not just buying the printer itself: you’re also buying the starter ink/toner cartridges that come with the device. The starter toner gives you vastly more pages than the starter ink, and it basically never goes bad. According to Brother, the size of a starter toner cartridge is 1000 A4 pages. According to HP, their Deskjet and Envy starter cartridges print about 150 and 250 pages, respectively.
So that higher upfront cost doesn’t just go into a better, more efficient machine; it also goes into quadruple the starting pages or more. There are people who could seriously never print more than 1000 pages, whereas the starter for a Deskjet is so small that you practically ought to buy a spare cartridge alongside the printer for when it near-immediately runs out.
Basically, if I’m not flat-ass broke, I’m paying another $63 upfront for an XL ink cartridge from HP for one of these printers. And what’s the page yield? 430. I’m still not even near the starter toner cartridge page capacity after spending an extra $63 on ink. To me, the upfront cost of an inkjet printer is pragmatically higher unless I’m so boots-theory-of-economics broke that all I can afford is the printer unit and only print a few pages a month tops.
Unless something about inkjet has improved in the 15 years since I was more inclined to know everything about them, the “goes bad” is what anyone with a brain should be focusing on. The first time you use a cartridge to print, it has a shelf life. It gunks up, prompting cleaning cycles that use dozens of pages worth of ink. If you only print a few pages a month, there’s a good chance you’re getting <40 pages out of that $63 cartridge.
I have a Brother DCP-7065DN, paid $64 for it in Feb 2014 (obviously a very good deal), page counter reads 3626. We’re on toner #3 including the starter, first was replaced in 2019, second in July 2025. Toner was $55 each.
I hope there aren’t people seriously advocating for inkjet printers for black and white anything. The only thing they are good for is photos, and even then you are paying more per print for a worse photo vs local print or online order options. That holds true even if you get good deals and somehow actually use the entire cartridge set without waste, I did the math a few times over the years. The only use cases are printing shit you’re too embarrassed to risk printer shop seeing, or is illegal/copyright, or you just like giving money to these garbage companies.
Maybe projects like this will change the math. I think if they targeted commercial print specifications it would be quite interesting. The jump to larger format printers is so expensive.
I bought a toner printer in 2020 and I’m still on the first replacement cart. I have over 2000 pages printed.
Considering I spent $80, plus $40 on the new two pack of toner, I consider it money well spent.
I do wish I had bought a laser printer though… There are things I would like to begin printing that will be several thousand pages after it’s all finished. Mostly reference materials. DISREGRD THIS I DUM
I’m confused, toner = laser. Toner is the media, it’s fine powder, applied to the paper via the drum and flash fused via a laser.
Inkjet, liquid ink is the media, sprayed through a nozzle while moving back and forth.
It’s technically more money upfront, but you’re not just buying the printer itself: you’re also buying the starter ink/toner cartridges that come with the device. The starter toner gives you vastly more pages than the starter ink, and it basically never goes bad. According to Brother, the size of a starter toner cartridge is 1000 A4 pages. According to HP, their Deskjet and Envy starter cartridges print about 150 and 250 pages, respectively.
So that higher upfront cost doesn’t just go into a better, more efficient machine; it also goes into quadruple the starting pages or more. There are people who could seriously never print more than 1000 pages, whereas the starter for a Deskjet is so small that you practically ought to buy a spare cartridge alongside the printer for when it near-immediately runs out.
Basically, if I’m not flat-ass broke, I’m paying another $63 upfront for an XL ink cartridge from HP for one of these printers. And what’s the page yield? 430. I’m still not even near the starter toner cartridge page capacity after spending an extra $63 on ink. To me, the upfront cost of an inkjet printer is pragmatically higher unless I’m so boots-theory-of-economics broke that all I can afford is the printer unit and only print a few pages a month tops.
Unless something about inkjet has improved in the 15 years since I was more inclined to know everything about them, the “goes bad” is what anyone with a brain should be focusing on. The first time you use a cartridge to print, it has a shelf life. It gunks up, prompting cleaning cycles that use dozens of pages worth of ink. If you only print a few pages a month, there’s a good chance you’re getting <40 pages out of that $63 cartridge.
I have a Brother DCP-7065DN, paid $64 for it in Feb 2014 (obviously a very good deal), page counter reads 3626. We’re on toner #3 including the starter, first was replaced in 2019, second in July 2025. Toner was $55 each.
I hope there aren’t people seriously advocating for inkjet printers for black and white anything. The only thing they are good for is photos, and even then you are paying more per print for a worse photo vs local print or online order options. That holds true even if you get good deals and somehow actually use the entire cartridge set without waste, I did the math a few times over the years. The only use cases are printing shit you’re too embarrassed to risk printer shop seeing, or is illegal/copyright, or you just like giving money to these garbage companies.
Maybe projects like this will change the math. I think if they targeted commercial print specifications it would be quite interesting. The jump to larger format printers is so expensive.
I bought a toner printer in 2020 and I’m still on the first replacement cart. I have over 2000 pages printed.
Considering I spent $80, plus $40 on the new two pack of toner, I consider it money well spent.
I do wish I had bought a laser printer though… There are things I would like to begin printing that will be several thousand pages after it’s all finished. Mostly reference materials.DISREGRD THIS I DUMI’m confused, toner = laser. Toner is the media, it’s fine powder, applied to the paper via the drum and flash fused via a laser. Inkjet, liquid ink is the media, sprayed through a nozzle while moving back and forth.
reads manual
You’re only confused because I’m dumb! For some reason I was thinking toner and laser were separate types.