Thursday, June 15

I thought of starting this post by saying, 'I'm not mean but ...', but that's not really true. Then I thought, 'I don't like to whinge but ...., and that's not really true either, so I'll just jump straight in.

My printer ran out of ink and it's only been a few weeks since I bought the last cartridge. I noticed the new one has ~190 written on the packet and assume that's how many copies I can expect to get before I have to buy a new one. I'm not naive enough to accept that figure as accurate but using it as a base, each print from my $30 cartridge will cost me at least 16c. That seems a lot.

Conventional wisdom tells me that a laser printer will be cheaper in the long run, so I set out to do some research to see whether I should bite the bullet. I don't print much but I'm fed up with handing over $30 to Woolworths or Officeworks, every few weeks.

Officeworks has a little mono laser printer for $79, so I identify the replacement cartridge number and check the price and anticipated number of copies: $104 and 1000, around 10c per copy. So, in rough terms, it would take me 1300 copies before I recouped the cost of the new printer.

It's hardly worth the bother.