It was after midnight, and I was facing a ticking-clock real estate transaction. All I had to do was print 15 pages of black-and-white contract, sign it and fax it back. Only halfway through, my printer ran out of ink—magenta ink! Thus began a chain reaction culminating in my nearly throwing the printer out the window. I ended up at Kinko’s.

We all have a printer story. They run out of ink at the worst possible time, or worse, nag us about running low on ink when there’s plenty left. So how much would you pay for a printer...