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I know that a fixed head inkjet printer

  • Is more precise
  • Doesn't require calibration
  • Replaced only when faulty

While a disposable head inkjet printer

  • Has a cheaper replacement cost

But I don't know if the price or likelihood of problems happening justify to buy one model or the other. Comparing, for example, a disposable head HP Deskjet 3000 ($60) with a fixed head Epson WorkForce 30 ($70), which one will probably be cheaper when it comes to resupplying and maintaining?

I know those printers differ in many more aspects (thermal vs piezo, 20 ppm vs 38 ppm, etc). But in this question I would like to focus in the head type.

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  • Ancient question that got bumped by a new answer. The question contains bad terminology that doesn't really reflect the design differences, and some bad starting assumptions. This would take at least an article-length post to deal with the factors that would go into a decision. Short answers are likely to be opinion-based recommendations. Also, the nature of product offerings, and their quality, features, etc. change over time. What you asked in this question would be useful to properly discuss, but for all these reasons, the question isn't really a good fit for a Q&A site.
    – fixer1234
    May 2, 2019 at 23:23

1 Answer 1

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No doubt you’ve long since purchased a printer, if not more than one. But my vote is for disposable heads. Reason being, ink eventually dries up in the chambers of a printer with fixed heads, and no number of clean print heads commands from the computer will ever get it out. Perhaps you could avoid drying ink if you use the printer constantly. But in that case, you could use a color laser printer, and save a few hundred dollars a year — not only from the bulk savings of toner vs. ink, but from the fact that a laser printer is built to handle a heavy workload, and an inkjet printer is not.

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  • And my vote goes to a laser every time (except for printing expensive photos). Yes, they cost more to buy, but every print saves money, it's way faster, and you never have to purge heads.
    – hdhondt
    May 2, 2019 at 9:53

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