Here’s a question that came in today:

Marshall,

I had an experience today that I thought you might be a good source for information. I have done some searching on the web, but haven’t had any success. That’s why I am asking you.

During lunch today, I bought an Epson printer from Circuit City. The salesman tried to get me to buy some extra ink cartridges at the same time. He explained that the extra cartridges were necessary because the cartridges included with the printer had a limited capacity. Have you heard of anything like this? Or do you think he was just trying to get me to spend extra money?

Thanks

Well… all ink jet cartridges have “limited capacity”, as you will soon discover. In my experience, a cartridge might print 100 pages? Maybe 200. If you are doing nice color photos, a color cartridge might only print 40 or 50 sheets. And if you have kids… yikes! They can burn through a cartidge in an hour or two if you aren’t paying attention. It depends on the printer, the cartridge and what you are printing, but it really is not that many pages.

If we give the sales guy the benefit of a doubt, he was trying to save you a trip back to the store. But really, if you are going to do a lot of printing with an ink jet printer, you will need to find a source of cheap cartridges. Look online, or try Sams/Costco/BJs (where you can buy multiple cartridges in one package at a discount).

Or if you print mostly black, think about a laser printer. The laser cartridges are expensive ($80 or so), but they typically print thousands of pages.