Ink-tank printers

What are they?

All inkjet printer ink used to be supplied in cartridges. They were small, expensive and didn’t hold much. In the last few years, some manufacturers, including Epson and Canon, have replaced cartridges with ink tanks on many of their recent models. These make running costs much cheaper, working out at around 0.2p per mono page, or 0.4p for colour. Standard inkjet printers will typically cost at least 2p per mono page and 5p for colour.

How do they work?

Ink tanks hold significantly more ink than cartridges. The ink is supplied in large plastic bottles, which are cheap and easily recycled. Ink-tank printers typically use four colours (black, cyan, magenta and yellow) and come with sufficient ink to print thousands of pages. To fill the tanks you simply open the lid of the printer, attach the ink bottle to the nozzle on the tank, and allow the ink to empty into it. We’ve had ink-tank printers that went for years without needing a refill.

What are the specs?

Printers in Canon’s ink-tank series have ‘G’ in their name, such as the Canon Pixma G5050 (£170 from Argos, www.snipca.com/41944, pictured). Epson’s range is called Ecotank and contains the code ‘ET’ in its name, such as the Epson Ecotank

ET-1810 (£170 from

Amazon, www.snipca. com/41945). Check the number of inks used by any model you’re planning to buy, because both manufacturers have mono models that only use black ink, and six-colour printers that are ideal for printing photos.

Can I change it later?

No, once you’ve bought a printer you can’t change the way it takes ink.