patrick.net

EPSON ET-2850

Patrick says

Proprietary ink costs more than good Champaigne by volume.

That is because it tastes better.

Precise control of the inks is needed for anything remotely resembling color accuracy, so I'd be skeptical of 3rd-party inks. Precise control of the paper is also needed — I'd immediately give up on 2-sided printing.

I'd still like to be independent of commercial services for printing paperback books.

It seems like it could not be that hard to print a quality paperback at home, but I don't know how to do it.

I gave up on inkjet a few years ago. I don't print often, so every time I would, the ink would be mostly empty as it dried out. Pay $80 for new cartridges and then watch the printer sit there for another 9 months before the next print. Repeat.

Replaced it with a Brother color laser printer. Toner doesn't go bad from sitting there like the ink does. Prints fast, double-sided, toner is a bit pricey as there are 4 drums, but they are good for thousands of pages.

Printing color images doesn't look as nice as inkjet does. You don't get that deep, vibrant color like you do with ink. So if that's what you're looking for, I don't think you can find it with laser printers.

Karloff says

Replaced it with a Brother color laser printer. Toner doesn't go bad from sitting there like the ink does. Prints fast, double-sided, toner is a bit pricey as there are 4 drums, but they are good for thousands of pages.

I've had great luck with Brother. Only catch for the OP is that I just do black and white not sure if Patrick was looking for color. For B/W it's a beast and OEM ink is not that insane for the number of pages you can print and does double sided.

Sounds gay but I print out recipes and put them in a binder if I liked them. I don't do electronics for recipes. Might snap a photo of it if I need missing ingredients, but for cooking you have to change the power settings to leave it on and drain the battery. And yes, I know there are outlets. Paper is just easier in my world cooking.

Brother MFC-7860DW. Had about 20 in one real estate office. Workhorse for contract printing and scanning. I don't know if that fits your needs Patrick, but from my research at the time it was one of the cheapest per page printers we could get. I do agree ink is a racket, but you'll need to pay as much up front for a printer versus the cost of ink over a decade. It's a lose lose situation from my experience.

I remember the days of copier salesmen making $100-200k income on sales and leases of the big printers. I'm sure it still exists. Ink is probably more valuable than oil based on quantity. One barrel of ink, if that even exists, is probably worth $2-3k.