Of course: roughly 95% of all the print outs in the world are made with inks. Consider news papers etc.
But in the office as well: HP has been out with press based ink solutions (HP PageWide) for ten years, and it is significantly cheaper to use than toner based devices (less wearing parts, less parts in general, faster speeds, up to 90% less energy consumption etc). In fact, it has been so competitive that Canon, Kyocera and others are coming up with their ink solutions for office in the near future.
Also, looking at large format printing, more than 95% of solutions are ink based, and that is professional usage in its purest form with significant volumes (photos, ads, line drawings, CAD etc). Never minding the packaging business with all the amazon/UPS/DHL/younameit boxes being printed.
Adding 3D printing, which is always a liquid form being printed (though it may be in solid form in the beginning).

Coming back to office printing; If in doubt, take a look at this, it took Canon 10 years to admit that ink is the way to go but now they are doing it: https://asia.canon/en/consumer/new-h...-printers/news

So the fact is that ink is the way in large volumes and professional printing. Dry toners are still useful, but in the future in more specific areas.

I use a Canon inkjet because it also prints colour pics, one thing that lasers can't do.

there are color lasers as well.
but ink does make better photo quality if media is correct.

Alixexpress from China. I got sick and tired of paying ridiculous prices for HP ink cartridges. Had three sent from China Aliexpress - took about 3 weeks to arrive in Europe. Perfectly fine quality both in color, black and white.

Just an example below (not sure of Pprune will let me post it):

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000...archweb201603_

Genuine Brother LC-529-XL (LC529XLBK), at local toner-partner pro shop: 8 USD (incl VAT) for nominal 2400 pages.
The Aliexpress generic replacement of HP 301XL, i.e. 480 nominal pages is listed at 13 USD (original 33 USD).

Still a difference.

I bought an HP Envy 5000 from Argos for under £50 and joined the HP Instant Ink scheme. I pay £1.99 a month to print up to 50 pages a month, plus a rollover from unused pages from previous months. New cartridges arrive whenever the printer senses a replacement is needed and they arrive in good time. So for £24 a year I get a continuous supply of cartridges when needed and I have absolutely no complaints with the HP scheme. It doesn't matter if I print 50 A4 photos a month which are really heavy on ink as the scheme works on pages printed, not ink used.

I have had Canon, HP and Epson ink jets. The latter was a tank model. Unless they are used very frequently the ink dries out in the nozzles. And no amount of cleaning cycles will clear it.

I now have a Brother color laser. Double sided printing and scanning, 2nd tray for legal paper. Prints correctly every time no matter how many days between print jobs. Should have moved years ago.

In reply to NickP,

My 8yr old Epson C1750n laser prints colour pictures very well, an inkjet with photographic paper is better for photographs but perfectly acceptable for Excel charts and the usual homework print-outs; I'd imagine current models have better capability.

I have used the Canon 3411 for the past 8 months-basic home use and homework printing. Am almost halfway on the ink-but still have a full black ink bottle that came with the printer. Prints crisp photos up to A4 size too. Very satisfied with the quality of the printouts.
https://www.canon.com.cy/printers/pixma-g3411/

Thanks, all.
So the story seems to be to buy cheap printer, and pay huge prices for ink, or take out a mortgage for a printer....................

Not necessarily so, Grade A refurbished Epson C1600 printer on the South American river for £149.99, 90 day RTB.

HP Laser 150A new at <£155, you can re-mortgage too if that floats your boat 😁

My Epson 760XL inkjet printer is around 20 years old and still going strong. I only use it occasionally, but often enough to stop the ink from drying up on the heads. Compatible cartridges are available for £3 and work fine - the genuine Epson ones cost around £45.
One thing to be careful of with old printers is it might stop working with an error message stating "certain parts have reached the end of their usable life and that your printer will no longer work until it is serviced.". It implies that you need to have the printer serviced.
Google the message and you will find instructions on resetting the print counter so that you can continue using the printer as before. I think this might be an attempt by Epson to get you to ditch the printer and buy a newer model.

I will go against the majority here, and say that having used HP printers for years, I have always found them very good mechanically, and found that aftermarket cartridges have been more trouble than they are worth, dry up worse than original equipment, and much poorer print quality. The printers are pretty inexpensive (loss-leader), and yes, the inks are expensive, but much better quality (in my opinion)

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....670bc1fe1a.png
This is what you need. external ink tanks. these are DIY Kits and it nearly fit all inkjets. never buy cartridges again. Just Google .. external ink tanks.. there are many many different vendors out there.

I have to agree with Ant T. For general home use the HP printer and cartridges do just fine.

Or rather buy smart, buy Japanese?

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....2e0624a0e2.jpg

​

On a side note: they are all made in far east, no matter what the brand is... China, Malaysia, Philippines, Japan etc. Canon has huge factories in China, HP has factories in Malaysia, Philippines, China etc and nowadays South Korea as HP bought the Samsung printing division so in essence a good chance is that choosing HP you buy Korean. Brother has plants in Taiwan, China, Vietnam etc.

But strictly from IT perspective; if you want something that just works and causes no troubles, then it's HP and OEM cartridges. Remanufactured cartridges are a pain, and no one really wants to spend time and money on refilling anything in business environment.

Me too and I find the HP cartridges not that expensive when I buy from HP Store online.

If you are bothered about the price of ink cartridges then just buy an Epson ink tank printer - then you just pour in either original or compatible ink straight out of the bottle.

Mrs WB627 ran a Beaver Colony for scouts, taught a Sunday school class at church and did a few other voluntary things on top of that that all required a lot of mainly B&W printing. Having gone through a couple of cheap laser printers which didn't last long despite refiling the toners, I bought a top of the range HP2300 DTN with a very low print count (sub 10K), on eBay for £40 with a nearly full toner cartridge. It was the best thing I ever did. We had HP2300's at work and they did 0000's of copies every week and were bulletproof. We've had it for 10 years and I'm only on my second new cartridge; I've only ever paid a maximum of £15 for a replacement (genuine HP toner) on eBay. The cartridge has the drum built into it so every time you put a new one in, you get a new drum.

Ha Ha :hmm: I bought a Kodak printer, good sized cartridges lasted a along time and excellent photo prints, but when it came to replacing the cartridge, it was actually cheaper to buy a new one, so that's what I did.