05-14-2004, 11:00 PM
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Executive Editor
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 29,160
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Daniel Gray Rants on Inkjet Cartridges
"It's clear that inkjet printer cartridges are our generations classic example of the "razor-for-the-blades" (RFTB) marketing approach. In RFTB marketing, the expensive razor is given away, in order to sell many more of the even more expensive blades, down the road. With inkjet printer cartridges, it's all too obvious. I could swear (and I often do) that the cost of some inkjet printer cartridges seem to exceed the cost of the printer itself.
Far be it for me to criticize the inkjet printer manufacturers for the practice. I think that inexpensive color inkjet printers are pretty cool ... not perfect by any means ... but pretty cool. The idea that absolutely anyone can afford color prints would have seemed unfathomable in the early days of the desktop publishing revolution. Back then, desktop color printers were insanely expensive, and in the province of the well-heeled. These days, color inkjet printers are everywhere ... if only those darn cartridges weren't so expensive!"
Daniel has a good rant about ink prices and he talks about his experiences with replacement inks. Once, many years ago when I had my first Canon bubblejet printer, I bought a DIY inkjet replacement kit. It was a complete disaster. Since then, and after reading about how badly most third-party inks fade, I've stuck to OEM inks. What about you?
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05-14-2004, 11:04 PM
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Thoughts Media Review Team
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 749
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I also tried DIY inkjet refills for my HP722C a year or so ago. I also found it to be a complete disaster. Ink everywhere, a mess in my printer, smears, etc. and the 'refilled' cartridges seemed to be running out of ink much faster than the new originals.
For my $$ and time, it makes more sense to go to Costco and buy a bulk pack of 2 or 3 cartridges at a time -- black and colour.
__________________
/drt
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05-14-2004, 11:42 PM
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Mystic
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 1,819
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I'd never refill ink. Whats the point of printing if the picture looks like crap because of bad ink? 8O
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05-15-2004, 12:13 AM
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Ponderer
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 103
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I only ever buy Canon inks, it's just not worth risking prints and the printer with the other brand inks. To fully replace the ink on my i9900 (which arrived today, I've only done small prints as I'm out of paper, but the quality is superb so far) would cost me about $80 if I shopped around. But they last a long time, my last printer a Canon i850 used the same ink tanks and it was about a year before I started to run out of ink, although I was only making smaller size prints, it's still quite impressive. I expect the i9900 to last me quite some time, so if I fully replace all the ink every year it's still not a huge expense. If I used "comaptible" inks I could probably refill the printer for $40 a year, to be honest that $40 I'd save just isn't worth the potential problems and poorer quality prints.
We should be thankfull we're past the days of replacing the print head every time the printer ran out of ink - that's what made ink so expensive.
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05-15-2004, 12:21 AM
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Intellectual
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 189
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Same here. Ink everywhere but in the cartridge and the stuff stains your fingers good and proper. (And the carpet, but that's another story...)
In the end, I found it cheaper to buy new printers each time, which really says something and is fairly pathetic when we're trying to encourage recycling.
I gave up and bought a colour laser printer (HP something-or-other) brand new for $400 and haven't even had to buy an ink cartridge since. It even came with full tonor cartridges, a rarity in today's world.
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05-15-2004, 12:28 AM
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Executive Editor
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 29,160
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Heh. Looks like I'm not alone in my opinion. ;-)
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Michael
We should be thankfull we're past the days of replacing the print head every time the printer ran out of ink - that's what made ink so expensive.
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Interesting you should say that - quite a few people still seem to think that's the advantage of HP printers, that it's a good thing that the print heads need to be replaced. I've only recently bought an HP printer, prior to that I was using only Epsons and Canons, and in all that time I never noticed a drop in print quality to do the heads needing replacing. So I'm not sure that it really matters to me - I'm fine with just replacing the ink. ;-)
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05-15-2004, 02:15 AM
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Intellectual
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 137
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Jason,
What HP did you buy? Is it for photos?
I still have my Canon I960. Does a great job.
I use an HP 970 for non-photo color printing. Had it a couple years. Still works great. I have printed some photos on it but the newer models are much better.
dart
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05-15-2004, 04:42 AM
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Executive Editor
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 29,160
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by dartman
What HP did you buy? Is it for photos?
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No, it's a psc 2510 combo fax/scanner/printer deal. I've printed photos on it before, and they look ok, but I prefer my Canon i950.
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05-15-2004, 03:16 PM
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Mystic
Join Date: Sep 2006
Posts: 1,608
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Precisely why I avoid HP printers. Their ink cartridges are very expensive and I print enough on a regular basis that I don't have problems with clogged print heads on my Epson and Canon printers.
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05-15-2004, 04:56 PM
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Intellectual
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 130
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I may be the only person with good experiences using refills, I also use third party inks replacement. Neither my printer nor my photos are mess up.
I started using those inks almost a year ago and I don't see my pictures fading or the quality of my prints degrading. My five years old son saves then on his albums and I save them on my hard disk and cd just in case. My printer cost me a $99.00 "Epson Photo 825" but the prints look like the one from my Olympus 35mm camera. If I have to buy another $99 printer it is fine with me I have saved way more than that.
I'm a novice photographer, but I understand for some of you with very expensive equipment might not make cense but for a lot of us it does. And maybe some printers are like luxury cars that only take premium gas :wink:
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