[Beatkat]

But it DRAMATICALLY....what with each printer?????

[TechGirl50]

Dont let the printer company fool you. Using a refilled cartridge will NOT void your warranty. Check out the Magnusson-Moss Warranty Federal Trade Commission Improvement Act. They tried that with me but when I mentioned that act, they quickly changed their tune and fixed my printer. Let's be real. Staples returns their cartridges to the OEM. They are not asking for these cartridges for no reason at all. They are using them and they have the nerve to charge us outrageous prices. For one of my printers, my cartridges used to cost more than the printer. NOT AN MORE. I have saved so much money.

[Adama]

I don't know... I would hate to try some off-the-wall ink cartridge only to find out that it messes up my printer. Or worse yet, that voids my HP warranty.

[SPIKEMAN]

Have been following your colums for some time and have agreed most of the time, however, I must put in My 2 cents worth about the bulk ink.
I have been using bulk ink for several years and have great results with it. Photos come out as well or better than professional services! Also, I have never seen any kind of ink that makes bands on the paper! This is the heads! Suggest a proper working printer prior to any test You are publishing.
I use an Epson stylus PHOTO r300 with a CISS unit. 8 oz bottles of individual inks, Have printed thousands of prints and never had any serious problem.

[narrowdoor]

Really? That's why you deleted my first comment......?

After that, I think everyone understands, WHO really paid for this. HP's new big advertising on this page looks great.

Your tests are worthless if they are paid for, direct or indirect, by HP. Do you guys really think, people are that naiv?

...........it's discusting

[LindaA]

Why I EVER got not just one, but TWO HP printers, I'll never know. Don't get me wrong, they're great printers, but the ink cartridges for them are OUTRAGEOUSLY expensive! That's because with HPs, the printing mechanism is in the cartridge instead of the printer which adds to the cartridge's cost. For the past few years, though, I've been using a Canon i350 printer (it's slow as the proverbial molasses, but it prints well), and getting my ink cartridges from Printpal.com. What a difference in price from HP! Now, instead of paying about $30.00 each, retail, for cartridges, I've been paying just $4.00 ($3.99) each for black cartridges, and $5.00 ($4.99) each for color; shipping and handling is FREE, and the ink is very good quality.

[ejtoll]

Recently, Consumer Reports magazine published a similar study on the OEM vs aftermarket inks. Their results are very different than reported here. CR found that none of the aftermarket inks were as cost effective as the OEMs. I have the HP 5180 and buy my HP inks at Costco (also on Costco.com). The last purchase I made a couple of months back was a blister pack with one each of the color and two high capacity black cartridges for $40. At the time, Costco also had a coupon for $20 off when buying two blister packs. One caution, though, with HP inks, there are two different sets (at least for the 5180). One is a "photo" set which has a higher quality ink and some "free" photo paper. The other is the "standard" inks only. There is approximately twice the ink in the latter set.

[coastie65]

Hey cj, I have a C5180 as well and I somehow missed that fact about the two different cartridges. Guess I don't read the stuff that HP puts out as closely as I should, as I have been using the photo ink and it does tend to go away in a hurry when printing photos. coastie65

[advoc8]

Ahhhhh, cummmon! This article was half informative, BUT, it missed the mark. It misleads on one side. Too many to test? Science left up to chance of choice? Yes. Does this article (maybe inadvertently???) cater to printer manufacturers? Yes. Ask PCW readers which inks to test, and there's an institute which tests and rates third party inks. Maybe another article comparing those inks? That may anger OEMs?

I tested inks for photos with my Canon MP530. Some were bad, some were OK, one was a standout in both LIGHT FASTNESS and PERFECT COLOR MATCH (Calidad - refills or cartridges). Did I miss finding the best ink that was a tiny bit better? Probably. I was limited too. Calidad and one other ink (cheapest ones I found on eBay) were the two best inks I tested. Most, including a specialty UV ink off the internet, sucked in UV exposure tests. Canon OEM ink also rated excellent in my tests. It's not worth the rip off price - period. I want to print with great quality, and LOTS.

[advoc8]

narrowdoor - YOU SAID IT PERFECTLY - that's the bottom line. The tests were not conclusive, though appearing scientific, violated a big principal of scientific analysis. THEY DID NOT TEST (or eliminated?) the really best performing replacement ink brands. Chance at best?

[MarkSullivan]

narrowdoor:
As much as you (and Art Bell) might like to believe it, no one is trying to censor your radical and so-spot-on-they're-dangerous ideas. The only way to get a message deleted here is to call me (PCW Editor Mark Sullivan) or someone else an ahole, or otherwise violate our forum rules. I enjoy your posts -- please keep writing. -M

[MarkSullivan]

to post #69 (advoc8):

Our tests didn't just appear scientific, they WERE scientific, meticulous and fair. I know how fun corruption/collusion/conspiracy theories are to chew on, but, again, we made no attempt to make the OEMs look good when we picked which third party inks we tested (I will tell you that HP is not too happy about this story, for example). We simply picked the third-party inks that we felt were most widely available for the specific printers in which we tested the inks. That's it. If you read the end of the article (did you?) you will see that we are very sympathetic to the third party ink suppliers in their struggle to stay in the game against the OEMs.

Keep posting . . .

Mark Sullivan (editor of ink feature)

[Bartylby]

'Calidad and one other ink (cheapest ones I found on eBay) were the two best inks I tested.'


Can you let us in on which inks / who you tested from eBay? It is hard for customers to find good inks sometimes and I think we'd all like to know. Maybe others would be interested in trying them out too.

Thanks.



P.S. Hey Beatkat...what company do you work for...HP, Lexmark, Canon....? You obviously have some interest somewhere to propogate all this false information. Go do your homework about carbon footprint, e waste, and the fact that OEMs markup their inks to over $4000.00 a gallon. Don't believe me...do the math.
Message was edited by: Bartylby

[narrowdoor]

So may I ask why you deleted my original message? I know I was hard on HP (but honest;-), but I did not call anybody names. Not my style.

Did HP gave you guys a statement about this article? What made them "unhappy"? Would you be willing to share HP's comment with us?

[narrowdoor]

.......hmmm........that was scary. Just did your math. My HP 02 color cartridges hold 7 to 8ml of ink. The retail price is around $10.00.

That's over $5.000!!! for a gallon of ink! For ONE COLOR!!

......found this in an international Technology Forum:
h2. >>US: HP finds formula to turn ink to gold
At up to US$8,000 per gallon, the ink inside Hewlett-Packard printer cartridges could be some of the most expensive liquid on the planet. It is also the key source of profits for the US computer and printer maker. <<

[coastie65]

OUCH! I too use the 02's. Man, I don't think I needed to hear that. :D Sure popped my bubble. coastie65

[narrowdoor]

"Trade secret"......that was a good one.......who do you work for?

This is the U.S. of A.!! We still have some consumer rights. You already heard about the Magnussen Moss Act.......

Canon cartridges don't clog, because their ink is a big secret. Plain simple, they clog because they use a very cheap ink. Lexmark/Dell and Canon use the cheapest stuff that's on the market. Which, according to my local Cartridge World store, makes them very tough to refill. They recommend HP printers and as an alternative, Brother. HP and Epson use higher quality ink, but third partys in the U.S. have no access to their suppliers. They don't develop their own ink. Those inks are available to third partys in other countries, like the EU, but in the U.S. HP is powerful enough to prevent these manufacturers to sell to other partys. Monopols like this are against the law in most free countries. While in the rest of the world the aftermarket for ink and toner is booming and more cartridges are recycled everyday, the U.S. market will be robbed of this consumer choice to do the smart and environmentally responsible right thing, if HP gets its way.......

They scr the american public for years..........and now they have all the funds in the world to make sure they keep it that way!!

[narrowdoor]

Just searched for the real price for a gallon of ink for that cartridge. No such luck in the U.S. I guess HP has all the locks down tight. In Europe, a gallon of high quality ink (made in Germany), for HP 02's retails for around 45 Euros!! So wholesale is probably around 25.

Just in case you wonder how much HP makes ;-)

Refill ink is NOT CHEAP! Just a much better and fairer deal then OEM's......

[coastie65]

As someone who has worked in the printing industry, if they are using German ink, that is some good quality stuff. It would take a lot of these 02's to fill a gallon bucket at $9.95 ea. ( for the color, the black is considerably more for some reason). Incidently, we bought our ink in 5 gal. buckets. I think 45 euros is about $55 to $60 U.S. Big profit margin. Oh well, it seems as though everybody and his brother is profiteering these days anyway. coastie

[Beatkat]

I beg to differ, and I work for myself, actually. The inks that Canon uses ARE a trade secret, or another way to put that is made specifically to Canon's spec's for the design of the print nozzles and related technologies...and contain several components besides ink, like solvents, driers, and other agents. I have NEVER had a Canon cartridge clog, simply because they can't, at least on my ip4200 or ip4300, because the print heads are separate...the ink cartridges are just tanks full of ink. After market inks, that are used in refilled or off brand cartridges, are just a good guess at the proprietary ink used by the manufacturer....or something that another aftermarket ink manufacturer rates as "just as good". But I personaly had a printhead ruined by aftermarket inks, so I've been there. An anlogy I can think of is Transmission fluid...Manufacturers call for exact transmission fluids in thier transmissions, all made directly for the manufacturer to their spec, but if you don't run that exact transmission fluid in your transmission, it will cause it to fail. Well, you can say..I'm gonna run Brand X transmission fluid intsted of the manufacturers spec to save a few bucks, but it will blow your tranny...and if you do that within the warranty period,...you're up the creek without a paddle. You can't go buy the manufacturers tranny fluid from another manufacturer, it's not available to you,...you can buy many other tranny fluids...but they are not the same exact formulation, and will NOT give you the exact same, manufacturer spec'd protection or service life. Magnussen Moss will not protect you from this either...read it carefully, I'll post this again....



from the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Improvement Act:
"except that the prohibition of this subsection be waived by the commission if:
1)
The warrantor satisfies the Commission that the warranted product will
function properly only if the article or service so identified is used
in connection with the warranted product, "


This means, that if Canon says that only Canon brand ink cartridges
with genuine Canon ink in them will work properly in a Canon printer,
and if one tries to use other inks and/or cartridges, and ruins the
printer (print head), Canon is not liable.....and therefore will not
warranty the printer.....if you do this AFTER the warranty has expired...then it's a moot issue anyway, except you'll need to repalce the printhead or buy a new printer prematurely.

Same thing would happen with a transmission...if Ford says you must use Techron II in their transmissions to make them work properly and not void the warranty, and you use Porsche transmission fluid in your Ford Transmission, because you got a good deal on it, and in YOUR, or uncle louey's opinion, it was just the same, Ford is not responsible for ANY damages you do, YOU are.