mike utech dot com

What is the ink life of your printer?
When my wife started grad school two years ago we laid down some cash (from a student loan) for a new MacBook and took advantage of a free printer (after rebate) promo that Apple had at the time.
We are the proud owners of an HP Photosmart C3180 All-In-One. When we first got the printer we got the HP ink cartridges, but once I had to get more ink I quickly switched over to the recycled ink cartridges (prefilled, I got one of those refill kits ONCE… never again! - unless you like black, blue, red and yellow fingers for a week). However about a month or two ago I noticed that the less expensive recycled cartridges were really cheap, so I bought the last three that they had. Guess what. They don’t make the recycled cartridges for my printer anymore. I visited the HP site and now they suggest two other printers as the C3180 is no longer for sale. I like our printer, it has done a fine job and as long as I remember to set the print quality to fast draft everytime, untill the ink gets almost out, I far exceed the 220 pages that HP says you get from the ink cartridge. I know printers and computers are now dispossable  (meaning that when you are done with them it is cheaper to throw them away and replace than to get them fixed). But shouldn’t my printer break or stop working before I need to replace it? I did get ink this weekend, once again having to buy the HP brand cartridges at about twice the cost of the recycled ones, I may be frugal when it comes to ink but I am not buying a refill kit ever again.