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With apologies to Consumers Reports, here is an exercept of their test
results:
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May 2004
Off-brand printer inks: False economy
It's easy to feel like a chump when you pay top dollar for brand-name
printer-ink cartridges. That's especially true when you see off-brand
cartridges selling for enticingly low prices at office-supply superstores
and dozens of Internet sites. But don't be fooled. Our tests show that
brand-name cartridges are the better choice.
Page for page, off-brand inks yield little savings, despite their selling
prices. What's more, we found that off-brand inks have shortcomings that
their brand-name counterparts do not: They are likely to yield lower-quality
color photos and graphics, and they might clog the nozzles in the printhead.
When less is less
There are dozens of off-brand cartridges. To narrow the field, we informally
polled a small group of subscribers to ConsumerReports.org about their
ink-buying habits and the brands of printers they often used. Based on their
responses, we focused on inks for Canon, Epson, and HP printers, buying
cartridges as our subscribers do. We chose brands that are readily available
online and from office-supply and computer stores.
Some companies shipped us no-name, generic cartridges; others provided
"remanufactured" (recycled) cartridges. We didn't include do-it-yourself
refill kits because our informal poll indicated little interest in them.
Here's what we found:
No guarantee of a saving in use. Off-brand cartridges are undeniably
inexpensive. Some examples: 411inkjets charges $4 for a black cartridge for
Canon printers that costs $10 from Canon. An HP color cartridge costs $49,
but a compatible version from Staples costs $27.
But when we put brand-name and off-brand cartridges through our regular
printer tests to judge quality, fading, and cost per page, a different
picture emerged.
To determine costs, we factor the cost of paper and ink cartridges with the
number of photos or text pages we can print until the cartridges run out of
ink. Comparing off-brand and brand-name cartridges, we found that the
per-page costs of color photos hardly varied. With Canon and HP printers,
photos cost about 80 cents each; photos from the Epson printer we used cost
about $1 apiece. In two instances, as the Ratings show, photos were more
expensive when made with off-brand inks. On the other hand, black text
printing was usually--but not always--cheaper per page with off-brand ink
cartridges.
Problems with quality. Nearly all the off-brand inks faded more than the
brand-name inks on brand-name glossy photo paper. We exposed samples of each
print to a little more than six weeks of round-the-clock fluorescent
lighting that simulates daylight.
We also found that many off-brand inks didn't reproduce colors as accurately
as the brand-name inks did. Some of the lower-quality photos and graphics
suffered from ink that bled, filled solid areas poorly, or didn't blend well
with other colors. However, most off-brand inks matched or at least came
close to the brand-name inks for printing black text.
Maintenance headaches. Various off-brand inks gave us more maintenance
problems than the brand-name cartridges did; the off-brand cartridges tended
to clog the printhead, requiring us to run the printer's head-cleaning
routine more often than normal. Some off-brand inks for Canon printers were
messier to install.
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And so one. You get the picture though, but hey, test for yourself! All
you are gambling is your time, and perhaps your printer. Your mileage may
vary, of course...
--
"Stay calm. Be brave. Wait for the signs."
regards,
Frank Johansen
Aurora, Ontario
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