Printers

I guess printers are the most popular piece of computer hardware after the essential components, so choosing one is a big affair. Most people know that for printers, the real cost is in the ink. Printer companies sell printers cheap and recover the cost in the ink - so do shaver and games console companies.

To save on the ink, you can buy 3rd party. This is a booming business and there are many options. The important thing when choosing a printer is looking at the cost of the ink, and if you're intending to buy 3rd party, the ease of using it. To make 3rd party inks harder to use (they say it's to maintain quality), printer companies have tried various means. One popular one is to add a computer chip to the ink cartridge so they can't be copied/replaced. Sneaky companies make the chip count the number of pages you've printed - and stop printing after a certain number, regardless of how much ink you have left!

I've always bought Canon printers, partially because most of their ink cartridges do not make use of these sneaky tactics. HP is particularly fond of doing this.

Disposable or reusable print head?
The print head contains the nozzles that spit out the ink. It's sort of like the fountain pen nib. Some printers use disposable print heads, which are replaced with every ink cartridge, and some print heads are meant to last the life of the printer. In particular, Canon printers used to have permanent print heads and HP used disposable, but the new models are blurring this distinction.

Reusable
Reusable print heads have better quality, since more money can be spent on them. However, once they're clogged up, they're harder to replace (not really physically harder, but harder to buy).

Disposable
On the other hand, disposable print heads are lower quality/more expensive, but there are no worries about them clogging. This is a big issue with 3rd party inks. You don't know how good those inks are, and they may well clog your print head. Another problem is that since the heads come with the ink, it's hard to separate the 2, making cartridges harder to refill.

Personally, I prefer disposable print heads since I use 3rd party inks. However, if reusable print heads were easier to buy, I'd prefer them instead. For my next printer I think I'll try a continuous inking system.