Lexmark did a survey to find out people’s behavior when it comes to the websites that they print. Probably one of the most common things people print at home is directions from the web. If you aren’t using your printer for homework assignments or for printing photos, then other than receipts and records, what’s left besides printing directions? In their survey, they found that 79% of men have no problem printing out directions from the web vs. the 19% who said they would rather stop for them. Who the heck would rather stop for directions….?

They found out that people don’t like printing stuff off websites because of ads, pictures and things being cut off. They also found out that people would still rather read newspapers than print out the stories from the websites and that George Clooney is the “most printable” actor. We can all sleep at night now that we know that.

File, Print, Frustration: Lexmark survey says Web has great info but it’s a pain to get it ‘to go’ [Press Release]

The Samsung ML-2010 is available for $50 after mail-in rebate from Buy.com. The regular price of the printer is $100 and then there is a $50 mail-in rebate.

The ML-2010 is a popular personal laser printer. It is fast but it doesn’t have a whole lot of extra features. So, it is meant for someone who prints a lot of documents and doesn’t really use their printer for much else. At $50 you aren’t going to find a better machine, so if you are sick of having to use your inkjet printer for large jobs, this would be a good upgrade.

You can find Samsung ML-2010 toner cartridges on our site.

Epson was able to shut down a local ink manufacturer in Taiwan after a court agreed with them that this company was infringing on their patents. This is another victory for Epson in their never-ending series of worldwide lawsuits. Earlier this year they sued 24 ink companies in the U.S. while they were also suing a company in England that they said infringed on one of their patents. In 2005, they sued a company in France and one in Hong Kong under similar circumstances.

What makes this case interesting is that the company they are suing, U-Bar, makes a product that you won’t really find here in the U.S. They sell continuous ink supply systems, which are popular in countries like the Philippines but are really only used here for commercial machines. They look something like this:

Now you can probably see why Epson would want to shut down someone who makes this and also why you won’t really find anything like this in the U.S. If people could just have their own systems where cartridges were obsolete and they could just use by the bottle, then there really wouldn’t be much money to be made for Epson or any other printer manufacturer out there. Refilling your own cartridge using bottles of ink is a good alternative, but a lot of people here still haven’t accepted that as their own solution to high ink prices.

Epson hits Taiwanese ink system maker [PC Advisor]

When you think about hidden fees, certain things like credit cards and cell phones come to mind. Usually you skip over the fine print and never realize what the hidden fees are until they hit you. But what not enough people realize is that printer ink is one of the most expensive hidden costs there is. This Boston Globe article notes:

…how many people realize, when they walk out of CompUSA, a nice $99 inkjet model tucked under their arm, that it’s likely they’ve just committed themselves to spending nearly $1,500 on ink cartridges over the next four years? (In fact, only about 3 percent realize it, according to Stanford economist Robert E. Hall.)

Now $1500 might seem a little high, but it’s not too farfetched. If an average manufacturer brand cartridge is $25, then it would be the equivalent of buying 15 cartridges per year. It might be a little high (which is maybe why only 3% of people knew the amount) but it would be easy for someone to spend that much if they printed photos regularly or used their printer for work.

One set of economists argued that it was ok to not be upfront about your pricing because there are always going to be people who just don’t realize it/don’t care or people who examine the prices and know the way to get the best bargain. Another economist, Barry Nalebuff, argues against deceptive pricing and has this to say:

“In the end, you don’t fool the customers with the hidden price,” he says. They know they’ve paid it even if they didn’t know they were going to pay it.” And if they feel ripped off, they won’t come back.”

This could definitely apply to what we have heard about some customers when they go to buy their first set of inkjet cartridges. They get so angry with the company that sold them the printer that they vow to never use them again. Of course, since all printer manufactuers are basically the same, you aren’t going to find a whole lot of savings from switching to any one brand of manufacturer’s ink. This is where refilling your cartridges and buying remanufactured or compatible cartridges can help. You can save yourself from those long-term “hidden fees” and show printer manufacturers that it is not alright to not be upfront about the true cost of owning their machines.

The hidden economy [Boston.com]

You can get the Canon PIXMA iP6210 for $36 from Amazon after their sale and a mail-in rebate. It is currently on sale for $66 at Amazon, then there is a $30 rebate if you purchase it before June 30th.

The iP6210 is a new printer so there currently are not a whole lot of reviews out there for it. Canon notes that this model uses their Full-photolithography Inkjet Nozzle Engineering (FINE) technology, which can produce ink drops as small as two picoliters (a picoliter is one trillionth of a liter). Other than that, it has pretty standard features like a 4800 x 1200 dpi resolution and the ability to produce a 4 x 6 print in about a minute, which seems to be more and more common these days.

The rebate is not listed on Amazon, but here is a PDF of it.

If you already own this model, you can find Canon PIXMA iP6210 cartridges on our site.

HP claims that the ink being used in the new printer refilling stations in OfficeMax and Walgreen’s is too close to the formula for HP ink. They say that the ink infringes on their patents and therefore the stores need to stop using it. According to HP, the formulas represent “decades of research and development” which is true since we all fondly remember those HP inkjet printers from the 60’s.

Walgreens says that they aren’t violating any patents and OfficeMax didn’t really have anything to say. Obviously HP had to do something like this since they make so much money from ink. Even if it is fruitless, it sends the message out that they aren’t very keen on competition and they are willing to go after even the biggest companies out there.

HP warns Walgreens, OfficeMax on ink sales [Chicago Tribune]

Amazon has the PIXMA MP150 on sale for $60. The list price for this machine is $90, so it’s a pretty good deal. There are no mail-in rebates either as it is just a regular sale. This also means that the price could go back up at any time.

The PIXMA MP150 is a compact photo printer that came on the market at the beginning of the year. Since it is a compact photo printer, all it does is print 4 x 6 pictures, which Canon says you can print in under a minute. The MP150 comes with all the usual stuff that Canon printers have these days like PictBridge so you can print directly from your Canon digital camera.

This model is a little different from some of the other compact photo printers you will find on the market in that it uses standard Canon ink cartridges. Some compact printers require one special cartridge that contains all the colors that you wouldn’t be able to use in any other inkjet and which might be hard to find in the stores. With this printer, you won’t have to worry about trying to hunt down any special inks.

Here is a brief review and some feedback on the MP150.

Here is a follow up to the reviews of compact printers that we recently posted. This is more of an explanation of what snapshot/compact photo printers are and how they are different from standard inkjet printers. The main benefit of these machines seems to be speed, as the quality of the prints is basically on par with photo printers. There is also obviously the convenience factor, due to the size of the machine and the fact that you don’t have to mess around with settings and different paper sizes.

They recommend the HP Photosmart 335, the Canon Selphy CP710 and the Epson PictureMate Express. Previously, the PictureMate Deluxe was also recommended, so it seems like the compact photo printers that Epson makes are usually pretty good.

Snapshot printers built for size, speed [Telegram.com]

Do it.

Once people find the printer they want and start using it, what are the most important things? Usually, other than print quality, the two most important things are how fast the printer is and how often you have to change the ink cartridges. Printing in draft mode can help with both those issues. Unless you are using your printer for business, a lot of the stuff we print these days just ends up in the recycling bin (not the trash hopefully). Directions from Yahoo! maps, stories from online news sites - these are things we print all the time that usually are used/read once and then discarded. They don’t need to look good. There are things you are going to save that don’t need to look that great either, like order confirmation pages. It’s important you have them, but not important how rich the text looks on it.

Printing in draft mode is also a good way to preview photos you want to print. Instead of waiting two minutes for the photo to start creeping out of your printer so you can see how it looks, you can print it in draft mode first to see what it looks like.

Obviously there are some things you want to print in regular mode like homework assignments, resumés etc. But with today’s printers, you might be surprised at how decent documents come out when they are printed in draft mode. The old days of draft mode meant faded pages you could barely see, but those days are gone.

Lastly, some manufacturers call draft mode different things, like Fast Draft. Whatever it’s called, it’s the first one in the list of print quality when you select Properties from the print box that appears.

Amazon has the popular Brother MFC-7820N on sale for $242 after a $50 mail-in rebate. The MFC-7820N is a network-ready laser multifunction that includes a fax machine which you can use directly from your computer. This machine combines the benefits of having a laser printer with some solid all-in-one features. If you want an all-in-one printer but plan on only using it for business, then a machine like this would be a good choice over the standard inkjet all-in-ones.

The rebate expires 6/20.

You can find Brother MFC-7820N toner cartridges on our site.