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Epson 2200 Ink Usage
Jim Doty, Jr.

This page has been completely revised and updated. Go here .

The Epson Stylus Photo 2200 is a remarkable printer, not only for the quality of the prints it produces, but also for the estimated life of those prints. It is arguably the best printer in its class under $1000. You can read more about this in my Epson 2200 article.

I have now had my Epson 2200 long enough to make a preliminary estimate of ink usage.

The screen capture above is the warning from the printer's status monitor as I neared the end of the ink in the Light Magenta cartridge. This is the first cartridge I needed to replace. You can see how much ink was left in the other cartridges at the time.

I kept a running tally of all of the prints I made.

Print Size in Inches

Number of Prints

5 x 7

4

7 x 10 1/2

22

12 x 18

6

The 7 x 10 1/2 inch prints were mostly from full frame scans of 35 mm slides and printed on 8 1/2 x 11 inch paper with minimal cropping.

The 12 x 18 inch prints were on Super B (13 x 19 inch) paper. The 5 x 7 inch prints were made on half letter sized paper (5 1/2 x 8 1/2).

Since a 5 x 7 inch print uses about half as much ink as 7 x 10, and since a 12 x 18 print uses about 3 times the ink as a 7 x 10, I printed the equivalent of about 42 prints at 7 x 10 1/2 inches in size before I replaced my first cartridge.

If you look at the "Ink Low" warning at the top of this page, you can see that the printer used about the following amounts of ink:

Black

70%

Light Black

35%

Cyan

20%

Light Cyan

70%

Magenta

40%

Light Magenta

100%

Yellow

55%

 

 

 

 

This is a total of about 4 ink cartridges at $10.00 each to produce 42 prints. The total ink cost comes to about $1.00 per 7 x 10 1/2 inch print, $3.00 per 12 x 18 inch print, and $0.50 per 5 x 7 inch print.

If I buy my paper locally, 8 1/2 x 11 paper is about $0.65 per sheet, and 13 x 19 paper is $2.00 per sheet. A 7 x 10 print on 8 1/2 x 11 paper costs about $1.65 plus some tax. A 12 x 18 inch print on Super B paper is about $5.00 plus some tax. This is pretty reasonable if you compare this to going to your local photofinisher.

If my estimates are correct, 7 full ink cartridges will give you a total of 5340 square inches worth of printed photos.

This page has been completely revised and updated. Go here .

Buy an Epson 2200 printer from Amazon.com with free shipping. Price as of March 24, 2005 is less than $650.

December 30, 2002
Updated MArch 24, 2005

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