Is Your Printer Ripping You Off?

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Rich Tate

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TrustedReviews decided to answer the age old question about ink cartridge replacements for your printer. Do you really need to avoid 3rd party replacements, or do they stack up just as well?

This is why third-party ink and paper has proved so popular. At a fraction of the price of manufacturer's own products, you can buy look-alike consumables which appear to do exactly the same job as the originals. But there's a nagging doubt in the back of the mind that the quality of the resulting prints won't be up to the original manufacturers’ standard – a doubt which is played upon by all the main printer makers.
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I will say I have been using 3rd party carts for my Epson printers for years with no issues.
 
I haven't had problems with cheap inks or refilling my own toner or inks. The quality of the cheap inks is more of a problem than whether it works or not. I wish it was easier to find a stable source of high quality inks for my Brother MFC420CN similar to the ones in that review.
 
I agree. Had a Epson inkjet printer that used the black ink like crazy. Too bad I didn't know better and bought the $30 ink cartridges. Now I use laser printers all the way!
 
I have had mixed results with 3rd party ones, Epson photo printers don't seem to like them for me.

On a side note, isn't Epson trying to get the import of 3rd party ones outlawed?
 
Ink bleeds my wallet dry. I've tried the 3rd party ink. It's ok, but I'm not sure if I would trust it for anything other than simple documents.

Whenever I need to print a lot (or whenever I can), I use either my work or computer lab to print for free.
 
Just get a laser printer. I'm on my second cartridge and the first one lasted 4 yrs, all the way through college even with all my friends printing on it. That's a value.
 
I have an epson r220 ive replaced the ink in it 6 times Uusaly pay 15$ for all 6 3rd partry cartridges. OEM carts woudl cost about 70$ to replace.


6x15= 90$
6x70= 420$


I could have bought 6 of the same model of printer for 420$

Point is even if the ink reduces the life of the machine its still worth it. Of course if everyone thought like this printers would be a lot more expensive. As the manufactuer wouldnt make up for selling them so cheap by selling ink.
 
I work for a major retailer, and I can say our store (not the company) ran a survey for our own purposes (we sell both brand name and third party ink).
We asked people buying new printers why they were buying a new one to see if it was a replacement for an old broken one, and if so, whether or not they used brand name ink.

It seemed like people who used brandX or refills had printheads dying sooner, but it was a difference of a printer lasting 6 years or 4.5 years. At that point you're probably in the market for a new one anyway.

The manufacturer's make a good point, that when a refiller or brand X uses ink, they use the same ink in all cartridges. And they say (as a good point) what are the chances that ALL ink is the same consistency? If the ink is too thin, it will look like crap, and if it is too thick, it will blow out the print heads. (This is only a problem on refillers and brand X cartridges for printers that have printheads separate form the cartridge, i.e. canon and the new HP 02 and 88 inks).
 
i got a canon pixma ip6000d, and i tried 3rd party inks...and it was such a waste....all of my pictures were wrong..the color tones were all over the map....i had to throw them all out and go get real canon ink...the only thing i trust 3rd party for is black ink....color no
 
My experience with 3rd party inks has been pretty bad.

Refils are messy and only good for 1 or 2 fills max in a lot of cases. The cartridges are just not made to be refilled over and over again. This wouldn't be that big of an issue if the ink refill companies would make this known. Most of them that I have seen make it seem like you will never have to buy new cartridges again.

As others have said the ink isn't the same as the oem stuff and this also causes issues. When I delt with this stuff more(it has been a year or so) epson had like 3 different types of ink for there own inkjets. Think cannon or hp used the same? Nope. I saw this cause issues with leaking and screwing up print heads. Color printing was also a joke in most cases.

The best experience I had with 3rd party cartridges or refils was with toner for laser printers. Most of them seemed to work fine although I had my fair share of ones that leaked.
 
Another alternative to buying expensive ink cartriges is to buy cheap printers (~$20) from Walmart, and donate the old one to Good Will for a tax right off when the ink runs out. When you need ink, buy another $20 printer.

LOL, got to stick it back to the man somehow ;)
 
Did you guys actually read the article? The 3rd party inks produced TERRIBLE prints. They're shit.
 
Just look at the difference in these pictures:
http://www.trustedreviews.com/printers/review/2007/04/21/The-Inkjet-Investigation/p5
Why would anyone buy such a thing?
The printers and their drivers are made with their ink in mind. They dispense a set ammount of each colour for each pixel based on the attributes of THEIR BRAND of ink! If you use an ink that has a different constitution it's going to look BAD! This is similar to printing on photo paper but telling the printer you're printing on stock paper. It looks like shit.
 
Being a tech who has worked Dell, HP and Lexmark laser printer repairs for the past 4 years, I absolutely love it when I see a repair job for a print quality issue, or "squeaking noises" and find repopped toner carts in use. Nine times out of ten, it's the cart.....and my job is done quickly....pay me! :rolleyes:
 
Black refills have always worked perfectly. Hell, I stopped even doing that because you could get $3 Chinese cartridges off eBay that worked perfectly fine. Let's face it, ink is a scam. The markup is like 1500%.

As for Color... of course the colors are going to be off, you changed the ink. That's like changing brands of paint then complaining that they don't look the same. Every printer I've ever owned had options for adjusting the color settings, I've never had a problem duplicating the original look.

AIW Guru said:
Just look at the difference in these pictures:
http://www.trustedreviews.com/printers/review/2007/04/21/The-Inkjet-Investigation/p5
Why would anyone buy such a thing?
The printers and their drivers are made with their ink in mind. They dispense a set ammount of each colour for each pixel based on the attributes of THEIR BRAND of ink! If you use an ink that has a different constitution it's going to look BAD! This is similar to printing on photo paper but telling the printer you're printing on stock paper. It looks like shit.
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They compared their worst case examples in over 200 tests and you're trying to use that as evidence? Look at the results on your own link. It blatantly shows the refills outperforming the originals in most categories. The original cartridges only won in 12 of 52 (23.1%) combinations, whereas the first refills won 19 out of 52 (36.5%) and the second won 10 of 39 (25.6%). If anything your link demonstrates that some refills are equal or superior to originals.
 
I have always used refill companies locally,and they have always sold me good quality ink.My real problem is getting HP to support printers that came out a year or tow ago with Vista drivers. :mad:

They just want us to buy new printers every year,no matter if the color inkjet you bought last year for 99$ is perfectly good.

Last year my Dad bought me a card,that entitles me to 20 free refills on any cartridge
for a ONE time charge of 89.95 $ from this local business/chain

It has no limit on time,I know someone who bought a pass card for 79$ 6 years ago from this place,and still has 7 refills she can use... :)
 
AIW Guru said:
Just look at the difference in these pictures:
http://www.trustedreviews.com/printers/review/2007/04/21/The-Inkjet-Investigation/p5
Why would anyone buy such a thing?
The printers and their drivers are made with their ink in mind. They dispense a set ammount of each colour for each pixel based on the attributes of THEIR BRAND of ink! If you use an ink that has a different constitution it's going to look BAD! This is similar to printing on photo paper but telling the printer you're printing on stock paper. It looks like shit.
Click to expand...

I would think the paper would also have an effect on the ink as well. I think the testing needs to be redone on the same brand of paper, in order to rule out the paper quality as a variable. But that's just me.
 
[=][=]Defiant One;1030946635 said:
Being a tech who has worked Dell, HP and Lexmark laser printer repairs for the past 4 years, I absolutely love it when I see a repair job for a print quality issue, or "squeaking noises" and find repopped toner carts in use. Nine times out of ten, it's the cart.....and my job is done quickly....pay me! :rolleyes:
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I've noticed the same. I'm not a printer tech, but I work for a major retailer and I'd also say 9 times out of 10 someone has a printhead issue it's due to 3rd party cartridges. All of the respectable magazines such as Consumer Reports and Popular Photography are always wary of most 3rd party ink, and can end up costing you just as much in the long run.

Personally I just use a laser printer for black and white and 1st party ink for photos. I rarely print my own photos, but when I do I want the best quality possible. I can say it's almost a certainty that the 3rd party ink will fade extremely fast.
 
Speedyrulz said:
I've noticed the same. I'm not a printer tech, but I work for a major retailer and I'd also say 9 times out of 10 someone has a printhead issue it's due to 3rd party cartridges. All of the respectable magazines such as Consumer Reports and Popular Photography are always wary of most 3rd party ink, and can end up costing you just as much in the long run.

Personally I just use a laser printer for black and white and 1st party ink for photos. I rarely print my own photos, but when I do I want the best quality possible. I can say it's almost a certainty that the 3rd party ink will fade extremely fast.
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You can easily pick up a printer for less then the price of a single cartridge. Unless you go and buy the first printer you see off the shelf at Worst Buy generic ink isn't going to cost you anywhere you close to the absurd prices of the name brands.
 
Nobody remembers the lawsuit filed aganist Epson when they sold the 'timed' cartridges?
http://www.epsonsettlement.com/

I got my $45 check in the mail for a settlement.. lol.

I ended up just getting a cheap $250 color laser printer, and I couldn't be happier. No BS ink blots, no cartridges running out in a week, no slow b/w prints, etc. (using a Konica Minolta Magicolor 2400W)
 
Generic cartridges probably aren't too bad these days. I had quality issues with refill kits however (ink colors not matching up to the originals) and some printers are really picky about off-brand cartridges what with the days of chipped cartridges now. I used to "maintain" (which means throwing them out when they broke and replacing them) a fleet of Epson Stylus Color 740 printers. They went through ink like crazy, and if you didn't follow an exact procedure when putting in an off-brand cartridge, the printer wouldn't recognize it and your new off-brand cartridge would be ruined too (on some Epsons, you cannot remove the cartridge without ruining it).

I bought a used HP Laserjet 5M for myself cheaply from a university surplus store, and pulled from that store's trash a Laserjet 6P which I rebuilt for my wife. Cheap generic toner cartridges are roughly $30 from Databazaar.com with free shipping, and last forever. No need to give the printer folks my hard-earned money.
 
Oh, and one more thing (not being able to edit my posts)...it's cheaper to have my digital camera pictures done at Sam's Club for 15 cents a print than it is to have an inkjet photo printer. Like Shutterfly.com and some others, you can even upload the prints online, and with Sam's Club, you can pick them up from the store you select once you have. It's photolab quality too, which is better than I can say for some photo inkjet printers, and on photo paper, which would otherwise be expensive as a home purchase.
 
Nemesis999 said:
You can easily pick up a printer for less then the price of a single cartridge. Unless you go and buy the first printer you see off the shelf at Worst Buy generic ink isn't going to cost you anywhere you close to the absurd prices of the name brands.
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Yeah, but my overall point is the quality, not necessarily the price. A printer that cheap isn't going to give me great photo quality output, which is pretty much all I use inkjet for. Laser is really the way to go for regular printing, and generic toner is rarely a problem.
 
He messed up. He used some papers on some inks and not others. He should have used all the papers on all the inks. He used HP paper on some and not others. Same with some other papers.

I have used 3rd party inks for years with no issues at all. The paper makes a difference however. I have bought many brands and found some to be crap.
 
I've been using Epson printers for about the last 10 year. Specifically for photos, I've experimented with 3rd party paper and ink combos, I've *always* been disappointed. I've found that some 3rd party inks never seem to dry all the way, so the surface of the printed photo remains "tacky". I've found that for the hassle of hit-n-miss quality of 3rd party stuff, it's worth the money for me to stick with Epson branded ink and paper.
 
AIW Guru said:
Did you guys actually read the article? The 3rd party inks produced TERRIBLE prints. They're shit.
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learn to read :)

http://www.trustedreviews.com/printers/review/2007/04/21/The-Inkjet-Investigation/p4
page 4 of the review said:
There are several conclusions that can be drawn from these figures, but the key one is: Our panel preferred prints produced with third-party inks over those produced with manufacturer’s own products.
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anyways, i use third party inks too... but then again i don't do anything mission critical.... these are just for personal use like printing pictures for friends and family
 
XorCist said:
i got a canon pixma ip6000d, and i tried 3rd party inks...and it was such a waste....all of my pictures were wrong..the color tones were all over the map....i had to throw them all out and go get real canon ink...the only thing i trust 3rd party for is black ink....color no
Click to expand...

http://www.bulkinkjetcarts.com/i960.html

i compared 2 photos i printed. well it was actually 4 different photos on one 8 1/2 by 11 sheet of photopaper. i did one on the original ink and when i tried the oem ink, i did the same photos. i couldn't tell a difference at all. side by side, both looked great.

one time i did think i was dumb for buying oem ink. my colors were coming out all skewed, it was horrible. then i realized i forgot to pull the plastic wrap off the back of the cartridge. that was a n00b move on my part ;) :D. so after cleaning out the print head with hot water, and lots of 91% rubbing alcohol, i found out it was just some plastic throwing off the prints. prints back to normal after that lil debacle.

maybe your just buying cheap ink from the wrong people :). i got 36 cartridges for $56 shipped. thats 6 refills for my canon i960. can't beat that :)
 
Ive used the DIY refills a few times, with varied results. The main problems is when it comes to printing pictures, on an inkjet. The colors always seemed a bit off, though I was using cheap refill kits from the internet.

Now have an old laser printer (Laserjet 4ML), $38.00 for a new toner cartridge... cant beat that.
 
I've really gotten to love laser printers. The initial cost for the printer and toner is higher, but the print quality is amazing and the toner lasts damn near forever.
 
I had used Epson printers for many years but back then, I always stuck to first party cartridges at like $30 a pop. The color prices were so bad that I just only ever printed black after I ran out of the freebie color cartridge that came with one of my printers. Luckily, the black cartridges for my second Epson printer dropped to around $20/cartridge, but yet I was getting nothing near the print estimates (on economy ink mode).

I got sick of that, spent $50 for a Samsung laser printer, and I'm all laser now. :cool:
 
No rip-off here. I don't have a printer. :eek:


I used my university library's printers during school. Graduated last year, and for this year they started limiting (and thus counting) each student's pages printed. After 400, I think, you have to start paying per sheet. Glad I missed that. English majors should have a higher limit though. I had to make copies of my screenplays weekly.

Here at work we order Office Depot branded ink and toner for machines that aren't part of our Ikon contract. They work absolutely fine.
 
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