In my business, sometimes you need a photo right away, rather than run out to the store. In my business, we wouldn’t be looking for great quality, just adequate. Convenience and speed are more important, and we don’t take a lot of photos.
Personally, I’ve had a few cases where people wanted a photo or 2 printed when visiting. It’s cheaper in that case to just print one or two photos I would think than get in the car and develop and/or pick them up (let alone the time).
I haven’t bought this yet, but it’s tempting, considering I’m probably their target customer (prints mostly at the store, but wishing I had that occasional small print job available).
The ink costs more than the printer so this is a throwaway printer once the ink runs out. $30 at wally world ink costs $20 for one and $15 for the other.
Well, Walmart won’t print certain types of pictures. Like the pictures taken at the clothing-optional beach you visited on your European vacation. So there’s that. Plus I really dislike visiting Walmart.
But with this (or any home photo printer) I believe you can print different sizes and have them instantly to pass out to friends and family. I could see that being handy at times.
Your argument could be made for all printers in general with the existence of Kinkos. But some people find a use for them occasionally. Plus this one is only $20. You would eventually spend that on gas driving back and forth to Walmart.
I beg to differ. The ink carts included with any printer you buy is a started cart which contain a fraction of the ink contained in a retail cart that you would buy from the store.
The ink included might not be worth buying three just for the ink.
I got fed up with trying to find an inkjet printer that didn’t gouge on the price of refills - so I bought a laser printer, surprisingly affordable, and cheaper per page to operate.
If Woot continues to sell inkjets, they ought to give up their “don’t be evil” motto.
I have been looking for a small portable printer & don’t care about printing photos. Does anyone know if this will print more than photos? i.e. can I use this as a regular printer?
Not necessarily. Most of the OEM ink cartridges that come with new printers are deliberately not filled up. They contain 1/2 (or less) the amount of ink in the replacement cartridges. Just enough to get up and running and then get you to buy replacements. So buying several printers just to get the cartridges would not only create a storage problem but you will be getting these less than full cartridges that won’t last.
Yes, you can print regular documents as well. We bought one of these for my mom who only prints occasionally (both photos and documents) and it does a good job on both. No probs so far. I don’t know how “portable” it would be, it is still almost as big as most inkjet printers out there.
Note that they are $15.99 and $20.99 at Canon (who also offer extra large “XL” tanks).
There are various articles on the web claiming that printer ink is The Most Expensive Liquid on Earth. This isn’t actually true (for example, certain rare perfumes cost more), but liquid printer ink costs considerably more than liquid gold!
However, you can fight the great ink rip-off by buying generic ink cartridges. The printer manufacturers do what they can to dissuade you (read: scare you): “You’ll void the warranty! They will clog your inkjets!” Don’t succumb to their fear mongering - I’ve been using knockoffs for almost two decades (in several different printers) without a hitch, and I print a lot more than the average home user in my business.
Wow, that really got my blood (cheaper than ink!) flowing. Fight! Woot! Fight! Woot!
Hear, Hear! I wondered if anyone would point out this simple fact!
There is such competition for print business that it makes no financial or quality print sense to run your own photo printer. It’s so easy to email your photos to Walmart, a chain Drugstore, etc and get pro prints for cheap. You can even edit photos on high quality store machines.
What? Besides the business use exception, these rebuttals are really rationalizations. I find all poor money managers (most Americans today considering the widespread insane use of credit cards and crazy bankruptcy rate) rationalize their uncontrolled spending & never ending quest for more money.
He was just using Walmart as an example. There are many stores (chain drug stores, Office Supply stores, Meijer, Kmart) that offer cheap photo print services. Also, there are quick ways to print your photos, which do not involve waiting --email them in, take your photos on a USB drive and download and edit them yourself on a self serve store system.
Finally, how many people “need” to rush out and print off just a few photos at a time?
I was thinking the exact same thing – and since you looked up the exact same cartridges that ship with the unit (instead of larger cartridges made for Canon printers), your price comparison is spot on! Thanks!