Two Rules For Buying A New Printer

We often have questions from customers asking what kind of printer to get when buying a new printer.  Here are two rules to follow that will ensure you can use compatible cartridges and save on your ongoing costs.   Remember a cheap printer to buy, can be very expensive to run.

  • Rule 1: Never buy an HP printer.
  • Rule 2: Buy a new printer that uses multiple ink cartridges, unless you print very little.

We have good reasons for this advice which we will outline here.

Rule 1: Never buy an HP printer.

We could go on for days on this one but to keep it simple here are a few reasons to avoid HP.  Many HP printers use two ink cartridges, one black and one tri-colour. If one colour in the tri-colour cartridge runs out, you need to replace the whole unit before you can continue printing. This means you’re almost guaranteed to throw away some of that precious ink you paid so much for.

HP cartridges are among the most expensive genuine cartridges available and HP goes to great lengths to stop consumers using non-genuine products. HP make the cartridges difficult to replicate by using complicated electronic chips and changing this technology frequently. This drives the price of both genuine and compatible HP cartridges up, as well as creating more areas where things can go wrong.   If this is not enough HP printers bought overseas will not work in NZ, with tight regionalization built in. HP printers will also show many warnings if a non-genuine cartridge is detected.  The latest trick is to send updates to the printer to improve the printing performance, but all it does is render compatible cartridges without the very latest chips unuseable.   For all of these reasons HP cartridges will always be more expensive than other cartridges. When buying a new printer do not buy HP.

Canon are the most reliable printers closely followed by Brother and then Epson according to Consumer NZ Surveys

Rule 2: Buy a new printer that uses multiple ink cartridges

Look for a printer that takes four, five or even six cartridges when buying a new printer.  These cartridges are much simpler to make as each cartridge only contains one colour and consequently they are cheaper to buy.

Using individual cartridges for each colour is a much more economical way to print, allowing you to replace cartridges only as needed meaning you do not throw away any ink. This also makes it easy to identify or replace any faulty cartridges if you happen to get one.

If you print very little it can pay to ignore this second rule.  Inkjet printers do not like doing nothing as the ink in the printhead dries up.  If you have a two cartridge printer, every time you replace the cartridge you replace the printhead.  This dramatically extends the life of the printer.  These printers are cheap to buy as most of the technology is contained in the cartridge itself.  They may not be the most efficient or cheapest to run but if you only print occasionally these are a good choice.

Check out our latest post on the best printer to buy in 2023.