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What do you think of Compatible Printrer Ink Cartridges?

by fodigie 16 June 2009 |

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I have seen these advertised at a fraction of the cost of originals eg. Epson, HP, Canon etc.and with greater capacity (19ml instead of 6.5ml).

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Lol posted
Hi Fodigie,
In my personal experience they are quite good, and obviously far better value for money. It does depend on your exact printer make and model though and also what brand of "compatibles" you buy.
Personally I've had good experience with Jet-Tec, one of the more well known compatible brands.
Printer manufacturers will tell you that their ink is specifically developed for optimum use with their printers and own brand of paper. This is probably (technically) true, but in my own experience I have not found the compatible cartridges to provide a significant difference in quality, certainly not enough to warrant paying at least 3x the price for the official branded cartridges.
Do keep in mind though that using non-genuine cartridges can technically invalidate your warranty, so if your printer is very new you might want to consider that.
Keep in mind also that some printer cartridges now have a small electronic chip on them, which is used to communicate to the printer how full they are, so make sure you choose a compatible cartridge which also provides this chip.
There are some that give you instructions on how to remove the chip from your old cartridge and attach to your new compatible cartridge. This will allow you printer to see the cartridge as valid, but the printer will still think the cartridge is empty so it's not ideal as you'll get a warning/error every time you print that printer ink is low/depleted. Avoid this method in my opinion.
Finally, if you want my advice stay away from refill kits. They are usually a bit cheaper even than the compatible cartridges millilitre to millilitre, but the refill process can be tricky, messy and it's not worth the extra agro if you ask me.
Hope this helps.
Best regards,
Ninja
(a member of the lovemoney.com Tech team).
Posted on 16 June 2009 | Love 1 love Report
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peepobaby posted
We use clones for the HP printers. They are brilliant, both black and white and colour, in my opinion no different to original cartridges. We have used Cartridge Express, Cartridge Shop and Cartridge People. The only problems I remember in the switch away from original HP was needing to press a particular button one time on each of the machines to bypass the alignment procedure which has a check in it for a clone. There is advice about this on the net. We're saving about 70% on black and white ink and 55% on colour ink.
Posted on 16 June 2009 | Love 0 loves Report
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effee posted
I've had pretty good luck with them. I've also used refill kits, which is even cheaper, although you have to be careful as it can get very messy--staining skin, clothes etc. Ink jet printer are far from perfect in themselves so I don't see any reason for not trying to save money as the replacement cartridges are hugely expensive. That's where companies like hp make most of their profit, not by selling the printers themselves. Same thing as with with razor blades.
Posted on 28 June 2009 | Love 0 loves Report
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Roker posted
Some printers have the ink jets inside of the machine for example Epson printers, and my HP C5180 multi cartridge printer, this should not effect the quality. If you have catridges with the Ink jets intergral with the cartridge as a lot of printers are, refilling them should be OK, buying other brands the quality can vary due to the jets. I bought a Tesco cartridge with integral jets for my old HP printer, and the text was very course. I usually only bother with refilling the black in any case.
Posted on 29 June 2009 | Love 0 loves Report
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CSummerson posted
Or if you prefer to keep the business in the UK call 0191 2674981 or email chris.summerson@Laser-ex.co.uk !! I can 9/10 beat prices on cartridge monkey and cartridge save also; and most of the other websites!! i don't know about you but i would rather speak to someone personally about my order rather than just clicking on the internet and crossing my fingers. Also if the worst came to the worst try returning something from the internet its a nightmare plus im probably cheaper than the internet anyway.
Posted on 27 February 2013 | Love 0 loves Report

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