Should You Buy Discount Inkjet Cartridges? - Comments Page 3

Bob, thank you for this article. Ink is so expensive and it was getting to the point where I needed to decide how to cut down the expense.

I was given a Canon Pixma printer and it takes 6 inks.
I had been given some thought to the Costco refill option and planned to check this out next week. Now I will check out the LD.

Here's my problem with OEM inks. We purchased an Epson Workforce printer and it ran great with OEM inks. After about a year we ran a firmware update and the printer would no longer recognize our cartridges. Technical support was of no help. Since purchasing new cartridges meant spending almost as much a new printer, we bought a new printer and repurposed our cartridges and refused all request to do a firmware update.

I have boycotted HP ever since they refused warranty on a printer that was received as a Christmas gift. The printer failed in January. Without a receipt there was no warranty. I had registered the printer with HP online on Christmas day but that did not matter to HP. It seems HP will use any excuse to avoid warranty coverage.

Hi Bob, I am using printpal.com for recycled ink cartridges, never had a problem. They carry all cartridges for all printers I ever had.
Thanks for your daily very useful articles!

Bob, your article sounded just like you were working in my home office. Particularly the paragraph regarding the HP firmware upgrade. One day my yellow ran out on my HP OJ Pro 8600. After I replaced it with my LD Products cartridge I was presented with the message 'cartridge appeared to be damaged'. I installed a second yellow with the same result. I called LD support and explained the situation. They immediately knew my problem, asked me what I had in inventory and they would replace all cartridges. I had a new shipment in two days. Because of superior customer support I will buy from no one else.

What about the HP 8000 series inkjet that seem to have a chip and an expiration date to make you buy "fresh" and HP only cartridges. Any override for that?

Like Mike, I too bought refills from Costco for my HP Officejet 6700 premium printer. After about 8 months my printer wouldn't print anything anymore. Found out the printing head was plugged (according to Google/HP research).New printer so I'll stick with HP ink.

I too have been using LD cartridges for all my printers. I also use LD refill kits. Both cartridges and refill kits are excellent. LD uses pigment ink in their cartridges and refill kits. Some remanufactured ink cartridge companies use dye ink, which is not compatible with pigment ink. If an old cartridge isn't properly cleaned before it is refilled, it may have both pigment ink and dye ink mixed together and cause the ink nozzles to become clogged. This is most usually the problem with remanufactured ink cartridges. LD also sells their ink cartridges and supplies through Amazon, which at times is cheaper than what LD sells the same exact thing for.

I have used LD Ink for several years. Outstanding service from them. Recently one new cartridge from them would not work, sent LD an email about it and was sent another one (by Priority Mail) that did work. Will continue to buy from them.

I found the re-manufactured cartridge for my old HP printer worked much better than the brand name. The ink was much more smear proof.

I've been using ink cartridges for my HP inkjet printers refilled at Costco for several years now, with absolutely no problems. The price is right, with a typical refill going for about $10.00, per cartridge, and in the monthly specials booklet, sent to members, earlier this year, the refills were going for about $8.00, compared to the $65.00 to $80.00 price for a set of two black ink cartridges or a set of three color cartridges.

And the refills at Costco are filled completely, effectively making it an equivalent of the HP "X" fully-filled versions, rather than the standard "A" versions that come from the factory only half filled.

Talking with the folks at the Costco refill counter, they say Costco does intensive research with leading ink producers to have an ink formula that is nearly identical in quality and performance to those used by the major printer manufacturers, just as most of the Costco private label Kirkland Supreme products sold in other parts of the store, are as good, if not better, in quality, than a comparable well-known branded product, for much, much less. And Costco guarantees the cartridges to performs as well as the ones for the OEMs.

I'm curious about Epson's thoughts on the use of aftermarket ink sold in refill bottles, for it's recently introduced "Eco-Tank" series of printers, introduced in 2016, which don't require individual cartridges, but rather have refillable larger capacity tanks. It seems it would be difficult, if not impossible to identify third party ink, since there doesn't appear to be any computer chips attached to the holding tanks of the Epson printers that could identify aftermarket inks, which could send out warning messages, or booby-trap the operation of such printers.

I used an alternative to the official Epson refill to save money (a bit over half price). The first 2 pages came out beautifully, the third was a bit poorer and the fourth etc pages were virtually blank. Went back to the Epson cartridges until I later scrapped the inkjet for a colour laser printer, which has worked well for many years. My next printer will also be a laser, not an inkjet, though probably just black and white as I rarely use the colours.

I went crazy with Epson printer not recognizing cartridges. It would take a half hour of fussing to replace a cartridge. Then I asked myself how frequently I needed color printouts. Scrapped the Epson and bought a Brother B&W Laser printer for about what it cost to replace the Epson cartridges. I will never buy or recommend Epson for anything. The laser printer is wonderful. Prints clearly and so fast it is scary.

Hi Bob
A very well written article and past due. I've
been using HP printers for some years and have
found it cheaper to purchase a new printer rather than buy new cartridges. I basically do the same as Robert A. and get my cartridges filled at Costco. They do a super job, everything has a warranty if required and no arguments. HP is
constantly trying to stop my printing without
success.

I have been using Inkfarm.com cartridges in five or six HP printers for as far back as I can remember and have never had a problem! When printers died, Inkfarm bought back unused cartridges I had on hand. Their week-long sales for every holiday you can imagine usually feature a 20% price reduction and free shipping.

Hi Bob:

I'm a bit surprised that you failed to mention discount laser cartridges which are widely available - including from LD. I have been using LD B&W laser cartridges for about 4 years, with excellent results and and savings of about 50%. I would never go back to using troublesome inkjet printers for B&W work - laser printers are faster, not subject to clogging with occasional use, and produce superior results!

I've used online vendors(inkjet superstore and 499inks) for both my color inkjet and monochrome HP printers for the past 12 years and have never had any problems. The inkjet cartridges are about $8 each; the monochrome laser cartridge was $19 and they all work fine. I might be hesitant about color laser cartridges. At my former workplace we found that HP color cartridges (which were very expensive) worked much better than OEM cartridges.

I have been using individual colored cartridges since Canon first put them on the market back in the late 1990's. I believe it was the Canon BJC3000 Inkjet Printer that had 4 individual ink cartridges. I loved it and never went back to having my ink cartridges any other way!

Finally, my Canon stopped working and I got me a Brother MFC 240C an individual ink cartridge printer. I loved that one, because I could also sent a stand alone fax from that machine. I started using re-manufactured ink cartridges when I got my Canon. I have used several different companies. Right now, I am using Mertline's ink cartridges. They are the cheapest for my Brother MFC J4510. I can get a set of 1-Black, 1-Cyan, 1-Magenta and 1-Yellow for $14.99. I don't care if the color is vibrant or not - I use my printer for personal, not business usage. To be honest - Using Brother's brand the color isn't vibrant either. }:O)

I have used Ink Barn(yes Barn), GotInk4U, 123Ink and now Meritline which has been the cheapest over all and the same re-manufactured ink cartridge company.

Today you can get a Black Laser Printer for about the same price as an Inkjet Printer. The Colored Lasers are still a bit more expensive but they have come down significantly. The next printer I will buy - It will be a laser one. Right now, my currant printer is good to go. }:O)

For text,I'm convinced on saving with refilled or 3rd party cartridges. However, no one mentioned high-qality photoprinters specifically. I use a Canon Pixma 9000 for photoprints. What are the comments specifically about the use of third party refills for ink-jet qality photopapers?

It's been several years but I had an Epson and replaced with ink from a remanufacturer that is still in business and is pretty reputable. I got maybe 10 pages before I had to replace the printer as it wouldn't even work with OEM cartridges anymore. I have never tried it again but maybe they are better now.