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Cheap Printers, Expensive Supplies

The quality of ink jet offerings has increased dramatically, even in the past few months. You can buy a good printer for less than $100. But printer vendors aren't resting on their laurels; the evolution of ink jets continues, with longer-lasting inks and even better quality.

Whatever your need, there's an ink jet for you. Major ink jet printer manufacturers who provide a full range of printers from entry level to professional graphics models include Canon, Epson, and Hewlett-Packard. Lexmark offers business and photo ink jets as well.

At the entry level, $100 ink jet printers usually provide good-quality output, but they are relatively slow--about 3 pages per minute--and can handle only letter-size paper. And don't expect incredible color photos from an entry-level printer, although some do a reasonably good job.

Models with higher prices usually print more pages per minute and handle larger paper in greater quantities, as well as smaller media such as postcards. These printers also can feature higher resolutions, better color control, network connectivity, and neat gizmos like memory card readers, which let you print your pictures directly from your digital camera.

So-called photo-quality printers usually use six colors rather than four and feature higher resolutions. If you're willing to spend $400 or more, you'll get even more features, and some units will handle paper as large as 13 by 19 inches.

Ink and Paper Can Raise the Lifetime Cost

Although ink jet printers cost less than color laser printers or high-end dye-sublimation color printers, the cost of consumables--ink and special papers--can make them expensive to operate.

Most ink jet printers have two ink cartridges: one for the various color inks and one for black. That is more economical if you do a lot of black-only printing, such as text. High-end printers usually have separate cartridges for each color.

For printers in which all the colors come in one cartridge, expect to pay $25 to $45 per cartridge. Black ink cartridges cost somewhat less: A few are less than $20. For professional printers using separate high-capacity cartridges for each color, the price per cartridge can be as much as $70 each per color.

Many printers make decent prints on plain paper, but to get the quality these new printer are capable of, you should use coated paper. The coating keeps the ink from saturating the paper and produces a clearer image. Matte coated papers are sufficient for most jobs, but glossy paper produces superior images. You can buy special papers for all kinds of projects.

In the future, ink jets' quality will continue to increase and prices will continue to come down, especially on entry-level models. Many low-end business printers now offer high resolution and six-color cartridges that produce near-photographic results.

One shortcoming of ink jets is that dye-based prints tend to fade in a few years. But newer dyes are capable of lasting several decades. Epson just released a new Archival Ink technology that uses pigmented ink. Epson promises that prints made using these inks, combined with new types of photographic paper, will last 200 years. This breakthrough means heirloom prints--or just your tax returns--can hang on the walls of museums and homes for generations. Expect competitors to introduce archival ink sets to keep pace.

David Farkas writes about printers and imaging products for PCWorld.com.