With the introduction of digital picture frames, the whole notion of paper photos may be heading to archival graveyard (with a plot reserved next to carbon paper). A computer has pretty much replaced a photo album, and proud fathers can keep pics of their kids on mobile phones instead of in an accordion-style wallet inserts.

How about those of us who print using our inkjet printers. It is not economically feasible to do that printing on flickr or walmart etc. In that case the inkjet is still very much in the picture. I know that supposedly laserjet is cheaper but given my printer and the amount of pages I can print from one inkjet cartridge and compare that to the cost of laserjet toner the inkjet costs about half as much. I think I will just hold onto my printer for now. I have never printed a photo on it anyway and don't plan on doing so in the near future. I also use the same cartridges you show there with my HP Officejet Pro K550 and it works out just fine.

I use to think that printing at home was saving me money. But had a relative in town and need to make a print quickly. And of course was out of paper. Went to my local Wal Mart and using their scanner made a 4x6 print using their photoshop software to correct color and crop for the huge price of 28 cents. My photo printing days at home have ended.

But I don't see a time in the near future when a person won't need a scanner/printer for confidential documents.

rhomp2002 you need to try a laser printer, your inkjet cartrige does not in any way compare to a laser toner cartrige. I have had my laser printer for 6 years and I am still using the original cartrige. I have also just started my 3rd case (thats 10 packs/case) of paper. If your inkjet can come anywhere near 1 pack per cartrige I would be surprised. Save some money and go laser, better enviromentaly too.

I was a victim of the inkjet racket. I had two HP Deskjet printers - the all-in-one kind. Fax, scan, print. Worked great, except the ink was a total scam. For one thing, if you try to conserve ink, the ink would dry out or expire. Then, buying new ink was so expensive! And HP did a fine job of making it darn near impossible to buy generic cartridges.

The bottom line is, if you print photos, you are better off sending them to Costco, which is what I do. At 17 cents per photo, it's a deal.

No paper or ink worries. So now, I have a laser printer for documents, and if I have to print photos, I send them to Costco and pick them up an hour later.

Color inkjet printers are really a scam. I just can't believe I fell for it!

I was never tempted to get on the inkjet bandwagon. I've been using laser printers since they were close to $2000 (my most recent purchase was about $40, after rebate). Admittedly, I do mostly monochrome, but the prospect of fighting with clogged cartridges and runny prints, and paying a fortune to do so, never caught my interest. Right now, the stable here consists of a Brother monochrome laser for the high-volume stuff, a small Samsung laser for printing checks, and a neat little Canon Selphy dye-sublimation printer ($50 A/R) for making 4x6 photos when I'm in a hurry (about 25 cents each if you shop the supplies, and the dye-sub cartridges never dry out). If I want lots of photos and don't need immediate gratification, I'll put the files on a memory stick and stop by the local drug store; they're about 18 cents there.)

We've got an HP inkjet attached to my wife's PC, but it rarely gets turned on. Why bother, really.

I used to work as a retail employee at a major electronics store (the blue and yellow one). One gripe that I heard CONSTANTLY was that no one could even FIND the ink for an older printer. Granted technology is advancing at a breakneck pace but I had many customers looking for ink for a printer that was 2-3 years old and we simply didn't carry it anymore. Often they would come back and tell me the only place they could find it was online or one of those often-hard-to-find ink catridge stores. Many customers, however, would breakdown and upgrade further tightening the companies control over the resale of their products.

gswilkent

What kind of lazer printer doyou recommend & what was the initial cost.

Thanks in advance.

Polaroid may be returning soon to your home as a solution to this very problem. I just hope they're not too greedy about charging for the paper.

www.zink.com

My commercial printer was printing fine the other week and suddenly "ran out of ink". So rather then replacing the cartridge, i Swaped the stock that had the "chip" counter from the new to used cartridge, and it was back to printing fine again. Hmmm suddenly seems like we are only suppose to be able to print a select quantity of pages now. Quite silly in the consumer world to pay for something that runs out, before the tank empties.