Recession drives people towards printer ink refills

Stop. This is the grammar police.

"more expensive per millimetre than vintage champagne." You mean per millilitre, surely?

By phantombudgie on 9 Dec 2009

It's a fair cop

Apologies. Error corrected.

Barry Collins
Online Editor

By Barry_Collins on 9 Dec 2009

Has PC Pro done an investigation into whether refills or other non-official cartridges can do just as good a job as official ones? I know the arguments about them potentially reducing the life of the printer and photo prints, but printers are very cheap compared with just a few sets of official consumables and not everyone prints photos for display.

By halsteadk on 9 Dec 2009

I really hate the way it seems to be cheaper to throw out a printer which has run dry and buy a whole new one...

wasteful?
environmentally friendly?

By garykearley on 9 Dec 2009

Read reviews before you buy

@halsteadk: In my honest opinion, I wouldn't pay £100+ for a printer then put cheap refilled cartridges inside it. It just doesn't make financial sense, and you won't get the intended photo quality or fade-resistance. However, for a cheapie printer I'll freely admit I've seen text looking just as good. It's pot luck really, as is the chance of it clogging your print head.

The bigger issue is that so many people look at the running costs of a printer solely in terms of the price of its ink. What you should be looking at is the cost per page/photo. Just because a cartridge costs £20 doesn't make it bad value - it may print ten times as many pages as a cheaper cartridge. The unfortunate kneejerk reaction of most consumers, though, is to run out of ink after six months, then conveniently forget just how long their last £20 one lasted and moan at the cost.

The lesson is to always read a review before you buy - a good one will quote cost per page to give you an idea of the longer-term cost.

David Bayon
Deputy Reviews Editor

By DavidBayon on 9 Dec 2009

Ink Refills

I have been using ink refills in my Pixma IP4300 for over a year now(you know the Syring type).No problems provided your carefull with the syring as it can make a mess if you dont fill the cartridges correctly.Print quality is not quite as good.However tweeking the profiles in the driver can bring the colour balance back into line.Usage is the same as original cartridges.3 colours x 2 refills each = £8.or pay aprox 6 x £12 =£72 for the equivelent Canon OEM's.Photo output is about 90% of Cannon Quality for roughly 10% cost.No contest really unless you have money to burn.

By Jaberwocky on 10 Dec 2009