Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Is Your Printer Ripping You Off?

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the or-only-its-maker dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Are original inkjet cartridges really worth the high cost? Do third party refill inks do as good a job? This article looks at printers from Epson, HP, Canon and Lexmark, with a combination of original inks and the top selling third-party options, using a whole host of different papers. A panel of printer users judged the output in a blind test — the printer manufacturers may not be happy with the results!"

6 of 362 comments (clear)

  1. Reliability by MagPulse · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The worry with third-party ink is mainly that it will clog up your printer, not that the first few pages won't look good.

    1. Re:Reliability by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Yeah, but when the printer costs $50, and a new manufacturer ink cartridge costs $45, I'm willing to go with the $20 third-party cartridge and risk having to buy a new printer. That said, the 30 or so third-party cartridges I've used with my HP printer have never clogged it.

    2. Re:Reliability by omeomi · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Yeah, but when the printer costs $50, and a new manufacturer ink cartridge costs $45

      That's why I gave up on ink-jet printers and went with a laser. It's only b/w, but I've bought toner exactly once over the past three years. When I need a color print, I send it to Kinkos. It's not the most convenient thing in the world, but I print in color so infrequently that it really doesn't make any difference to me. If I needed to print in color frequently, I'd probably buy a color laser. Ink jet is just a huge ripoff as far as I'm concerned.

      --
      ZuluPad, the wiki notepad on crack
    3. Re:Reliability by paeanblack · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Yeah, but when the printer costs $50, and a new manufacturer ink cartridge costs $45

      Officemax/Staples/CompUSA/etc sometimes have inkjets for $30 w/ a $30 mail-in rebate. Just buy a new printer, and when the initial cartridge runs out, toss the printer and get a new one.

      The whole industry pricing structure is insane.

    4. Re:Reliability by Godji · · Score: 4, Insightful

      "when the initial cartridge runs out, toss the printer and get a new one." So much for being friendly to the environment...

  2. Don't wanna turn it into another DRM discussion... by Opportunist · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...but I simply can't resist.

    One should get the idea why ink is so expensive when you see the price tag on the printers. Did you see any modern printers recently that sell for more than 30 bucks? The material used alone costs many times more than that.

    The ink actually pays for the printers.

    And that kind of marketing is quite lucrative. It's a bit like the consoles that are paid for by the games rather than by the money you spend for the PS3 or X360 itself.

    And thus ink manufacturers come up with newer and better "copy protection" with every batch of their printers. That's, btw, also why they are actually patenting a nose on some cartridge or why there is a chip on them. For the customer, this only means that it gets even MORE expensive.

    Do I want to be part of that? Seriously, no. If a printer is not allowing me to use the ink I want to use by default, without me first trying to "patch" my printer, I don't want the printer. There's a copyshop around the corner that can print in really good quality for a fairly acceptable price. Keep your overpriced liquids.

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.