PC World has a review of the Lexmark P450, which is a compact photo printer. Although Lexmark isn’t really known for their photo printers and previous reviewers haven’t been so kind to this model, the author of this article had a pretty favorable opinion of the P450. That might be due to the fact that he tends to focus more on the setup and operation of the printer rather than the actual quality of the photos that it produces.

The P450 is the first snapshot printer to include a CD burner, which helps with storage since you can’t hook it up to your computer like a regular printer. The idea is that you transfer your pictures over from your camera’s memory card, and then you can save them on a CD. The P450 also comes with a TV output so you can view slideshows on the big screen.

While PC World appreciated the ease of installing the P450 single inkjet cartridge, that may be one of the negatives of this machine. Because the P450 only has a color cartridge, it has to make black from a combination of colors. In the old days, this meant that “black” was actually just a really dark green that was noticeably off upon inspection. This probably isn’t the case with this printer, but that cartridge is going to run out faster because it has to combine more ink than usual to make a true black. That is just one factor to consider, since it might cause the cost of each individual print to rise.

The Print Shop: Snapshot Printer Features CD Burner [PC World]

Buy this printer Buy Lexmark P450 cartridges

Circuit City has the HP Photosmart 7450 on sale for $45. This is just a regular sale, so there’s no mail-in rebate or anything. The normal price for this printer is $80, so this is a pretty big savings. The one downside to this printer is that at 12 ppm it is not the fastest in the world, but you aren’t going to find a lot of photo printers for $45, so the speed issue isn’t crucial.

If you order online from Circuit City, make sure you do not get the gold-plated USB cable that they recommend. Gold does not make things go faster, so a $30 USB cable will work exactly the same as a $7 one.

If you do buy this printer, or if you already own it, you can find Photosmart 7450 cartridges on our site.

Lyra Research put out a press release about the cost of replacing toner cartridges for “affordable” color laser printers. In looking at color laser printers that are under $500, they found that with two of them, the cost of a new set of cartridges exceeds the original cost of the printer itself. For the Brother HL-2700CN and the Lexmark C510, new sets of toner cartridges cost 19% and 10% more than the printer, respectively.

The rest of the printers they looked at all had toner cartridge costs of at 75% of the original printer price.

Typically Brother usually has pretty low costs for their toner cartridges, so it is surprising to see them as the most expensive for this type of printer. For their low-cost monochrome printers, their cartridges typically cost about $10 less but yield 1,000 more pages than similar ones from HP. Lexmark machines are always expensive to operate, so it is not surprising to see two of their machines on this list.

Based on these numbers, Lyra speculated that people will alter their printing habits based on the shock they receive from the cost of replacement toner cartridges. We have seen in the past that people who use color laser printers are pretty disgusted with the cost of replacing them, so they either don’t use them at all or else they only use them for only the most special jobs.

Pricey Brother and Lexmark Cartridges Dampen Affordable Color Laser Fanfare, Says Lyra [Press Release]

This article from the Chicago Tribune discusses all the options available to combat the high price of printer ink. The idea is that there is going to be some trade-off if you do not buy the manufacturer’s ink, but in some cases it will be worth it. We agree with this to some extent, such as the trade-off you get with refill kits; you will save a ton of money, but you will have to set aside some time to actually do the refilling. But this article basically says that non-manufacturer brand ink isn’t so good, but not everything you print needs to be perfect.

You can certainly find a lot of questionable ink cartridge companies online that will sell you a product that isn’t equal to what you will get from the manufacturer. But, you will also find companies who set quality standards equal to the manufacturer and who can save you money without forcing you to accept a lesser product. Unfortunately, it’s the first type of companies that get most of the publicity.

“Cheap ink” does not have to be a negative term. It is possible to find ink that is equal to HP, Canon, etc. but that is not totally overpriced.

Otherwise, this article does do a good job of running down all the options you have when it comes to saving money on ink, so it is worth a read.

Printer ink options can save money [Chicago Tribune]