I would never buy a HP printer just because the cartridges are so expensive. I use a Cannon Pixma mp560 and still have the original cartridges in it (I refill them). Very unusual to get this much life out (probably 3 years now)of a set of carts. Normally after a few refills they clog up.

But as a side note - I don't print pictures on it so am not terribly worried about quality. I only use the scanner to make photocopies since I don't think it is a CCD scanner. The Epson V100 does all of my chip scans.