At $225 or so, it cost doubble what a generic ink jet costs, but it was worth it...

And there is the root of the problems/complaints that people have about ink jet printers.

Since the cost of the consumables over a period of time is enormously greater than the cost of the printer itself, then the original purchase price should not be a significant consideration.

When you buy that $149 "generic" ink jet, or the $225 low-end name-brand printer, you are just throwing your money away. Spend the $600 or $800 or whatever it costs and buy the top of the line printer, and you will get excellent reliability and print quality for a long time.

Just remember -- when you are printing ink-jet color on special paper, regardless of what you paid for the printer originally, you are spending a buck or so every time you click the "Print" icon on your computer, and that's where the expense comes in.

On the topic of black and white printers -- here is one of the best-kept secrets in the industry: Kyocera.

[unabashed proselytizing]
A typical HP or Lexmark or other name-brand laser printer operates at a cost of about 2.3 cents per page for consumables (toner, developer, drum-life and fuser-life) excluding paper. The Kyocera operates at about 4/10 of a cent per page, maybe a bit less than that for the high-end (28 ppm or higher) models.

Big deal -- you save something over a penney a page, right? Well, my Kyocera here at work (purchased used on ebay for under $400) cranks out about 25,000 pages a month. That translates into savings approaching $6,000 per year over the life of the printer. The printer is about as reliable as your typical anvil, by the way -- maybe one paper jam every 20,000 pages or so due to improper loading of paper into the paper trays which have a total capacity of 2,000 sheets. On the down side, Kyocera was optimistic about the print speed -- they claim 28 ppm, but the best I ever get out of it is maybe 27 ppm.
[/unabashed proselytizing]

tanstaafl.