What is the most economical printers

Tweet

Printers are sold at an extraordinary low price this days. I bought my printer, a Canon Pixma 1200, for only Php2,000.00, Philippine Peso (at USD $1= Php34). But what buyers/consumers do not know is the reasonableness of the cost of its ink cartridges, which he (the user) have to buy from time to time to use the printer. The Black ink cartridge of IP1200 cost about Php900, and the individual colored ink are usually sold at Php500-Php600, each. I was thinking then of just disposing the whole printer after all its ink has been consumed because buying new ink cartridges cost almost the same as the brand new printer. The same is true with my Brother (MFC-210C) printer. I bought my "all-in-one" Brother printer for about Php10,000.00, Philippine Peso several years back. I don't usually print so many materials/documents but in less than one month, all of the ink cartridges are going empty due to the printer's constant automatic printer head cleaning. The black ink cartridge of my Brother printer cost Php1,100.00, more or less, while the individual colored inks cost Php800-900. To add to this complications, the printer will not run if one of the four ink cartridges is low on ink, making the purchase of their (Brother) products inevitable and unavoidable. My printing activities merely involves documents, therefore I usually consumed/used only black ink. However, I have to purchase the other colored inks, as often as the black inks, as it is also mysteriously being drained by constant cleaning of the printer head. Talk about highway robbery. So, after three months of using the said printer, I decided to put it in my storage room and not to use it anymore (to prevent bankruptcy from ink cost). I didn't encounter these problems with my first (primitive and antique) printer, an Hp printer. My old HP printer, like my Pixma, can print even if it has only black ink. That is why I bought my Pixma which is intended to replace my Brother printer. However, pixma 1200 ink is also quite expensive. I heard of this CIS or Continuous Ink System which might lower the cost of my ink usage. But the problem is, I don't usually print tons of materials, pictures, etc. Therefore I don't need such device. Now, I wanted to know (1) which brand of printer in the market is the most economical. (2) Do I have to revert back to my old, reliable but noisy dot matrix printer considering I only print few contracts/papers? Or should I go for laser printers? Is toner more economical? Thank you