If you're choosing a new printer, remember that the price of the ink it will require should be factored into the cost. If you need ink for Brother printers, for example, you'll want to know what the price will be for your particular model. Brother DCP ink will be priced differently to Brother MFC ink, this provides another good example of how the price for the same manufacturer's ink can vary tremendously between different models.
Consider the Quality
Some users will not need a particularly high-quality printer. If you're only printing for your own purposes and you're not printing anything other than text, you shouldn’t need an expensive printer. Consider that you might not be getting the cheap printer you think you're getting, however.
If you buy a cheap Dell printer along with your computer or, in some cases, take advantage of an offer of a free printer that's included with the purchase, you may think you're getting a great deal. That will usually apply until you actually try to buy Dell printer ink from Dell itself. The price that they charge for printer ink is sometimes almost as much as buying a new printer.
You'll want to investigate whether or not the ink for your printer is available from other sources. This means, for example, seeing if you can find cheap Dell printer ink that allows you to avoid having to purchase from the manufacturer. If it seems like you're going to be locked into purchasing very expensive ink from the manufacturer, you really may not be getting much of a deal on your printer at all, no matter how low the figure on the price tag may be.
Is it Common?
Make sure you can find the ink you need easily. There are some brands out there that are notoriously hard to find. If you have an old printer and you cannot find ink for it any longer, it might be time to consider an upgrade. You should be able to find Dell printer ink for new printers, for example, but their older models—particularly the freebees given away with computers—may be very hard to find ink for. Be sure you take all of this into consideration before you commit to buying any particular printer. The ink you use is a huge factor in the overall convenience of the printer and how practical it will turn out to be.
