This past weekend, I bought an Epson R200 printer.  It's a color printer that has the ability to print directly onto a "printable" CD-R, so I can buy that type of CD-R instead of buying label sheets and printing those and sticking them on, etc.  (I burn about 4 CDs a week of our church's worship service.)

This is the "plain jane" version.  The next step up is the R300 that support USB memory sticks as well as other memory devices from cameras.  And there's an R320 that has a little LCD screen for previewing the picture you're going to print.  On those models, you don't even need to have it connected to a computer.  But since I *did* want to print from the computer, I opted for the low-end model after being assured by the salesguys that they were essentially the same printer otherwise.

I've never owned a color printer before, and one of my concerns was with the ink cartridges and their prices.  This printer needs a black cartridge plus five color cartridges - Cyan, Light Cyan, Magenta, Light Magenta, and Yellow.  I scribbled down the part number for them all, and then located them in the store.  The black cartridge (TO481) was $17.99 and each of the color cartridges (TO482 - TO486) were $12.99 each.  So it costs $83 to replace all the cartridges.

I know the guys that make printers make their money on cartridges, not printers.  So, I was sort of expecting to find half-full cartridges installed in my printer, or some kind of "spare tire" type cartridges that would be good for a few sheets before you'd have to plonk down the bucks for new ink.  So I was surprised when I opened the box and the cartridges were all there - brand new, with the same part numbers I'd written down.

So here's the thing.  The printer itself costs $69.99, and I get a $20 rebate, making it cost only $50 if I actually get the rebate check.  And included inside were $83 worth of cartridges.  Hmmmm.

I think back to the church's garage sale that we hold every June.  I've been in charge of checking out computer equipment for the past few years.  Each year, we get more and more stuff, and as time goes by, we also get better and better stuff - the leftovers from upgraded computers, monitors, etc.  Sometimes someone will donate something with a notation "Please erase everything on the hard drive before selling" so I go to work.  Over the last couple of years, a large number of color printers have been donated, many looking brand new.  In my testing, I'll usually find one or sometimes two of the color cartridges empty.  Suddenly it all makes sense.

And we wonder why there is so much computer equipment in landfills.