Computer Hardware Blog

The PIXMA ip1800 is a no-frills, entry-level printer that retails at under £40, yet instead of settling for a humdrum cream casing, Canon has designed a sleek black mirror finish to a case that remains relatively compact (442 x 237 x 152mm) and weighs 3.3kg.

This is a machine that has been stripped down to the absolute bare essentials. There are only two buttons - for on/off and paper feed - and a USB 2.0 port for connecting to your PC. Curiously, there’s not even an out tray (so you’ll have to allow enough desk space for paper ejection), no memory card slots and no PictBridge support.

You are at least given a flip-up page rest and a page sizer which can accommodate everything from 10 x 15cm (4 x 6-inch) borderless photos to A4. Although this is a perfectly serviceable document printer, you’ll undoubtedly reap the best rewards when building up your photo album.

Once the software’s in place you’re ready to rock. There are just two ink cartridges to install, one black and a FINE colour cartridge that combines three colours. This is where you start to be impressed, as the print technology uses Micro-Nozzles to fire ink droplets as small as 2pl onto the page. As the maximum FINE print head resolution is 4,800 x 1,200dpi, the resulting quality is surprisingly good.

As is becoming the norm, the printer is supplied with low capacity cartridges,PG-37,CL-38 and it is economical to replace these with higher yield versions when they run out. The black replacement cartridge PG-40 contains 16ml of ink and the colour CL-41 contains 12ml.
Both of these cartridges are readily available direct from Canon, your local Computer store or from an online discounter like Cartcon.

The black tones on both photo paper and standard sheets are on the grey side of pure black but certainly acceptable for processing normal holiday snaps or multi-colour documentation. Colours are vibrant with a superior degree of clarity and detail and as the cartridges employ Canon’s ChromaLife100 system, your photos are guaranteed a 100 year life span. Not that you’re likely to be around to contest that guarantee, of course.

The PIXMA ip1800 isn’t a slowcoach either, managing to deliver a 6 x 4-inch borderless photograph in just 70 seconds. Quoted print speeds for documents average 20ppm for mono and 16ppm for colour.

The bundled software includes Canon’s excellent Easy-PhotoPrint, which takes the strain out of printing one, or multiple images in a wide range of formats and sizes, as well as Easy-LayoutPrint, which lets you create your own album, calendar and stickers. There’s good news for Windows Vista users too, as you won’t have to download any patches or add-ons to get you started. And it’s Mac compatible too.

Alan Wilson has over 10 years experience in the imaging industry and is currently a director of Cartridge Concept

Recycled ink cartridges are a great way to do your part for the environment and save money on the purchase. So much energy and resource material is used in making technological products. And just think about how often you’ve seen a computer monitor or TV laying on the side of the road waiting to be picked up?

Recycled printer cartridges, then, can be a really practical and inexpensive way to reduce waste and increase efficiency.

Recycle

Let’s say your current ink cartridges run out of ink. This is where you can make the first change. The first way you can help the environment is to recycle your printer cartridges. Nowadays, most cartridges come with a postage-paid envelope in which you can mail the empty cartridge back to the manufacturer. This helps reduce resource consumption and it saves you money. How, you ask?

Buy Recycled

The next time you find yourself running out of ink, don’t just pick up any old cartridge to replace the old one. Instead, buy recycled ink cartridges. They are most often cheaper than the new cartridges and you are helping preserve valuable resources and energy by doing so. Even so, there is still one other way you can be good to the environment and your bank account in regards to printer cartridge purchases.

Refill

Refilling kits are a type of recycling in a sense. You are not purchasing a new cartridge, rather, just the ink that goes inside of it. When you run out of ink, you can order a refill kit, which contains instructions and the ink itself. You’ll simple refill the empty cartridge in your own home. You save money and again, conserve the environment.

Recycled ink cartridges are the way of the immediate future. All you need is the will power to try something different and you’ll be saving money and going green all at the same time! That’s a hard combination to beat, don’t you think?

You can even stop by most office supplies stores these days and drop off your empty cartridges to be recycled in a special bin. Everybody’s on the recycling bandwagon, so why aren’t you?

This article is prepared by Christy Berger who writes for PrintCountry Printer Ink Store. A longer version of this article can be found at Recycled Ink Cartridges. More resources on commercial scrap and recycling are available at www.recycleinme.com.

Prints, ink and other computer peripheral hardware are any everyday part of life at home and work today. With the high quality printers that are available, just about everyone has a printer in their home that is capable of printing photographic quality graphics in full color. When you are doing research to purchase a home or office printer and are trying to choose between printers, ink cartridge replacement cost may be the determining factor. There are many, many affordable printers on the market today, all of which perform wonders at printing beautiful pages of graphics and professional appearing letters. The difference is that some printers’ ink refills are much more expensive than others.

The true cost of owning a printer is not the original purchase price. It is the cost per page for printing over the lifetime of the printer that really tells the tale. If the prints are comparable in price and functionality, the cost per page of black and white and the cost per page of color printing is the factor you need to examine closely.

To determine the cost per page of printing, look at the specifications of the printer and find how many pages the ink cartridge will print. Then, divide the cost of the printer cartridge by the number of pages that cartridge is expected to print. This reveals your cost per page for ongoing ownership of the printer.

You should look at the price of an ink cartridge in both black and color for the printer that is manufactured by the same company as the printer. But do not stop there, because there are after-market brands of printer ink cartridges, many of which work perfectly, and even recycled, reconditioned and refilled ink cartridges. Compare all these prices and determine which offers the best price for use with the printer you choose.

Sometimes you will see slightly used printers, ink not included, for sale at online auctions for incredibly low prices. Some of these printers can be purchased for only a few dollars. The problem is that when you purchase the ink for that printer, it costs a lot more than you expected, even when you find the best price on that cartridge possible. The reason the printer was sold for such a low price is that the previous owner fell into the trap of buying a printer that the cost per page is outrageously high but this fact was only revealed when they went to shop for a replacement ink cartridge. This means that shopping for the right printers, ink cost considered, is more important than ever.

Whenever you find a printer you believe you might want to purchase, immediately price the cost of replacement ink cartridges so that you can compare the overall deal you are buying rather than buying something that sounds great but is expensive to live with. There are plenty of inkjet printers which use ink that is quite affordable, making the cost per page very affordable. It’s a case of buyer beware and consider every aspect of owning the printer, buying ink, and getting an overall great price.

Author Resource:- Mr James has owned The Cartridge
Specialists (Melbourne) since 2004 selling ink,
toner, fax rolls etc & regularly writes articles about his industry