View PDF | Print View | Html Version
by: Tom
Total views: 4
Word Count: 580

Printer manufacturers often advise that you use their original brand of ink cartridges when ink runs out, but is this the best course of action. Some printer producers even go so far as to suggest that customers might suffer problems if they don’t use own brand printer ink cartridges.

Printers were very expensive items a few years ago, but now they are so cheap they are often given away in bundles with new PCs. The dramatic price falls of printers have however not been matched by price falls in printer ink. The price of a number of printer ink cartridges has actually risen when you look at the price per millilitre. Many of the big producers of printers have seen profits on printers fall, whilst the overall profits on ink cartridges have gone up dramatically.

As prices of printer ink have gone up, it has become a much more difficult for the makers of compatible ink cartridges to produce appropriate products. Many printer makers have added electronic chips to their printer ink cartridges so that the cartridges can stop printing when they are low on ink. The manufacturers say that this stops poor quality prints from being made when cartridges start to run out. This makes it much more difficult for makers of compatible cartridges to compete, and therefore printer manufacturers can charge more for their own brand ink. Another downside for consumers is that many cartridges stop working before they have totally run out, reducing the amount of pages that can be produced.

A lot of people are under the impression that the compatible ink market is quite small, with poor quality manufacturers trying to compete with the big boys. It is true that the businesses of compatible ink cartridge producers are nowhere near on the same scale as the printer manufactures, however there are often quite large firms in the market. One such example is UK compatible cartridge producer Jet Tec, that manufactures its products from a large purpose-built factory with more than three hundred employees.

Many of the producers of compatible ink cartridges have looked at new methods of improving on the delivery of printer ink. One such example is the extra life system created for use with Epson Ink cartridges. The electronic cartridge chips used on many of Epson’s printer ink cartridges are designed to stop the ink cartridge from printing when the printer believes it has run out of ink, whether this is correct or not. It is often the case that the ink cartridge stops working before the ink has run out, often with as much as thirty percent of the printer ink left. The extra life technology fitted to some compatible cartridges lets users choose to override these settings and carry on to print until the ink cartridge is really fully used.

The problem with the compatible cartridge industry, is that not all makers of compatible ink cartridges make high quality products. To reduce the risk when buying compatibles, look for known high quality ink sellers with good feedback from buyers. There are lots of sites on the internet to look at where buyers talk about their experiences of compatible inks. Also a number of popular computer magazines have carried out extensive reviews of the compatibles on offer. Of course with compatibles often being considerably less costly than the original printer ink alternatives, it is often not a costly risk to take, and if it works out it could save you a lot of money in the future.

About the Author

Tom is a writer with an interest in Printer Ink and Epson T038 ink

Add Comment