Depending on your requirements, you can get inkjet printers, from "major makers" for as little as about $60 (US) in my area. The really cheap ones may have quite limited flexibility, and typically will eventually cost quite a bit more in ink than some of the more sophisticated ones. The absolute cheapest ones my only print "snapshot" size photos, and you can probably find one of those for less than $50 if you shop around.

While it's probably a convenience to the occasional users, the multi-color cartridges are a real p.i.a., since once you use up one of the colors you throw the whole thing out. Most printers in retail shops assume that you'll print an occassional few snapshots, and larger cartridges might dry out in the printer in this usage, so it's not too bad a deal for the use that's assumed.

My "good" printer was an HP CP1700, about a $400 unit. Four-color, with separate (39 ml each) cartridges for each color, feeds up to 13 x 19 inch sheets and prints full 11 x 17 printable area. It unfortunately succumbed to a "design fault" that rips the carriage ribbon cable up, and the only sevice available involves shipping back to "authorized service facilities" at a minimum fee that's only about 5% less than the cost of a new printer.

One "disadvantage" of the separate color cartridges is that the print heads are NOT built into the cartridge, so start up requires 4 print heads at about $40 each, plus 4 ink cartridges at $40 each, or about $320 total. (About the price of the printer.) The first set of print heads outlasted about 80 ink cartridges though, and were still in good shape when the ribbon came unglued.

The only "direct replacement" available locally was an HP Deskjet 9650. It feeds the same 13 x 19 inch sheets, but uses a black cartridge (13 ml) and a tri-color (13 ml total) for 4-color printing. Since the one 4 ml color that gets used the most will always run out almost as fast as you can load them, the cheaper (about $18 US) cartridges don't save much.

The 9650 does allow you to replace the black cartridge with a second "photo tri-color" to get 6-color printing, but a fresh set of two (about $42, since the "photo" ink is little more expensive) tri-color cartridges would be unlikely to give you more than about 5 or 6 11 x 17 "photos" (you'd probably print actual 11 x 14 or so) before at least one color is used up.

Either of the above two will run about $300 - $400 US, depending on where you get them. Both are "good" printers, but I'd really like my CP1700 back.

A small "personal" inkjet printer for "her," which we intend to use as the "camp printer," is an HP 1315xi, and has a built in scanner. It was a little less than $90, and was selected specifically because it uses the same ink cartridges as the 9650. (It can also use alternate "small" ink cartridges - hardly worth installing.) The scanner offers ZERO in terms of flexibility. You lay something on it, press the button, and take what comes out. Unlike the 9650, which can be run "black only" the 1315 requires you to have both cartridges in or it won't print at all. The option of being able to print with a single (black) cartridge might be important if looking for a printer for general office use.

If you don't need color, or do a lot of b/w printing, the cheaper "consumables" make it stupid not to have a laser printer. While some inkjets offer more economical b/w printing than the ones I've got, there's just no comparison in print costs between inkjet and laser. We currently use an HP 1200, but there are newer ones less expensive. Even though a toner cartridge is about $70, a toner cartridge will run "almost forever" in a home office, while you'll be putting ink in the inkjet at least monthly - or worse - if you print 30 pages a week.

You shouldn't consider an inkjet printer a "permanent" machine either. In occasional to moderate use, they're usually designed to about 2 year "wearout." A moderately priced laserjet will usually run for 10 years or more. (Our previous one went about 14 years, in moderately heavy use.)

John