Nowadays, printers are becoming increasingly
cheaper to buy. It was only back a few years ago when the simplest printer, by
today's standard would cost many hundreds of dollars. How times have changed.
Today printers are much cheaper and it isn't uncommon to find a good quality
printer for ~$50. Generally speaking these printers are more than capable of
providing all the features a home user could ever ask for. So why are
manufacturers doing this? There is more money in ink!
You may now be thinking to yourself "How
can they make more money from a $15 ink cartridge than a $300 printer?"
Let's look at an example. You buy your printer ($300) and the manufacturer puts
5% margin ($15) in his pocket. Now you do a little bit of printing at home, so
let's say you print 60 pages per week. Now your cartridge has a life of 2000
pages meaning every 33 weeks or just over 7 months you will need new ink
cartridges. So you go down to your local shop and pick up 5 ink cartridges,
because your printer takes 5 cartridges at a time, which costs you $75. The
same manufacturer makes a 40% markup on his ink cartridges. So he makes $30
every 7 months from you. Now over the life of the printer 3.5 years he can
expect to make about $150 from you.
The aim of this article is to give you, the
consumer, a balanced commentary on both sides of the story and the facts about
generic ink cartridges. So let's start with what we know about generic ink
cartridges. Generic ink cartridges came on the scene just over five years ago.
These early adopters would take a basic ink cartridge nozzle and design an ink
tank that would fit the printer by making a simple plastic mould from the
original ink cartridge. The print quality was average at best but it opened
consumers eyes to how much a cartridge could be built for, with discounts of
80% of the original amount.
Today, generic cartridges have come a long way.
Although many suppliers still stock extremely dodgy Indian and Chinese
manufactured ink cartridges many claim similar printing results from their
generic ink cartridge. Of course, you do need to shop around to find to best
generic ink cartridge supplier for your printer.
Another method of reducing the cost of ink
cartridges is to refill them. There are two ways of refilling your ink
cartridges. The fist is to modify your printer and fit larger ink tanks. You
then connect these larger tanks outside of your printer with the smaller ones
inside. These larger ink cartridges can be filled at home with a generic ink.
The other method is to get your ink cartridges refilled at a shop. It seems
these shops are popping up on the corner of every business district. You bring
in your ink cartridge and after a short wait your cartridge has been refilled.
Although most will only refill your cartridge twice but more on that later.
So which one is better? I thought you would ask
that so let's examine some pros and cons of each.
Refilling Ink Cartridges
Refilling is, in my opinion, the worst way to
save money on ink cartridges. The most important thing to remember is that
companies that offer refill ink use the same ink for every cartridge. So it
doesn't matter if your ink cartridge is from Canon or from HP they will use the
same ink to fill both. What's wrong with that? Well, each manufacturer uses a
different nozzle size for spraying ink. These nozzles are highly sensitive and
require the correct consistency of ink or they produce blockages, blotches and
all sorts of other nasties. Another issue is most refillers won't refill
generic cartridges. This is because they don't know the quality of the
cartridge and don't want to know if the cartridges stop working. This means
that even though you get you cartridge refilled you will still need to buy an
original ink cartridge after two refills.
Generic Ink Cartridges.
Generic ink cartridges are a better option than
refills because the actual ink quality is generally better matched to the
printer and they can tailor an ink to the model of the printer. However, in my
experience these ink cartridges can be hit and miss and you have to be prepared
for more blockages and problems than you would experience with the original
manufacturers ink cartridges. Although some people swear by generic ink
cartridges, I would only recommend them for black and white printing where
quality isn't as important. I wouldn't recommend them for important documents
such as your resume.
Genuine ink cartridges
Genuine ink cartridges made by the printer
manufacturer as still the only way to go when quality is important such as
digital photos etc. But perhaps the most important issue is with warrantee
claims. If your printer is under warrantee you should not use anything except
genuine ink cartridges. All printer manufacturers will rip up your warrantee in
your face if they can prove you have been using non genuine ink cartridges.
Many manufacturers are now including "chips" in the back of ink
cartridges so the printer will only work with original ink cartridges, while
others have software that can detect non genuine parts. In my opinion that is
anti competitive but that is for the courts to decide.
So in conclusion I think there is a time and a
place for all 3 kinds of ink cartridges. Although with manufacturers lowing
costs almost daily to compete with non genuine ink cartridges the major selling
point of the non genuine ink cartridges (the price) may soon become irrelevant.
Perhaps the best way to end this article is with the old adage you get what you
pay for...and that is most true with ink cartridges!