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Are cheap inkjet cartridges a good deal?

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You might be right, Leo; I had always been leary of "Compatible" replacement ink cartridges. But my girlfriend had been using them for quite some time in her Epson printer without any apparent problems. So after doing a little research I decided to purchase a Canon Pixma IP1500 for $50, because the compatible replacement cartridges could be purchased for $1.50 a piece for the color/b&w, respectively, when purchsed in groups of 10. That translates to $30.00 for TEN PAIRS of color/b&w, or THREE BUCKS to replace the entire set, compared to around $22.00 for the Canon OEMs. I figured the worst I could be set back if the whole thing went south was $80.00. So far, I've replaced the color and b&w cartridges once each, without any degradation whatsoever in print quality. If anything changes, I'll repost. But so far, so good.

Posted by: skay at September 13, 2005 5:59 AM

My wife happens to work for a company that produces recycled cartridges and sells them at about 20-50% of the original manufacturer’s retail prices. I won't mention the company's names so you know this isnt just a self promotion, but the cartriges are great! print quality is wonderful and they seem to last much longer. We buy our own cartridges there and while we have gotten 2 or 3 bad cartridges over the years the company has always been happy to replace them.

But the market is big and not all of the companies care about quality in fact some can be very shady about how they handle business and customers I suppose this is why so many people have bad experiences.

Posted by: Jamel at September 19, 2005 4:24 PM

Just remember the following:

Companies like HP and others put billions of dollars and effort in their printing technologies including the inks and how they drop.
This voids your warranty, and can damage the internals of the printer, so if you buy a 300 dollar photo printer, yea it is a little more expensive but just think of how you would feel if you had to replace the printer because a bad non oem ink cartridge didnt work as intended. Maybe it only makes sense to me

Posted by: Shon at September 20, 2005 7:33 PM

I have an HP 940c Deskjet good Printer Expensive
OEM ink, tried a few companies
but now I get
Remanufactured Cartridges from "Ink Cycle " of Lincoln, they`re cheap & ((send a prepaid bag)) with an order, to post your old cart`s back to them, I`ve had no bad stuff from them ( yet) ---they will replace any faulty cart`s tho
been using them for 2 years , cheers from ezz

Posted by: ezzbish at September 24, 2005 9:08 AM

I have been using Inkjet cartridges from China and taiwan for some time now and all of them are not original, anyway I use them because I always assure every Inkjet I use if not original at least can offer some level of quality specially ISO-9001 and other International standards.

This is a very nice blog and very active also I like to visit and read thru this frequently, I also read this ink website, this has helped me to save some big bucks!

click here NOW

Ryan

Posted by: Ryan at November 24, 2005 7:19 PM

the site is: http://cheap-inkjet-cartridges.ws

Posted by: Ryan at November 24, 2005 7:20 PM

I seem to have trouble using compatible ink cartridges with the Canon BJC 2100 inkjet printer.
Always complains when I put one of the "compatible" cartridges in. Like it "knows" it isn't really a Canon. Anyone else have this same problem?

Leslee

Posted by: Leslee at December 8, 2005 11:58 PM

I’ve used HP940c and Cannon 330 compatible replacement cartridges.
The Cannon compatibles seemed to have much less ink in them, printing far fewer pictures
The HP compatibles work fine for the first 6 or so from one supplier and 3 from another. After that every one received from both suppliers did not work at all or ran out of one or more colors after a few prints. Both suppliers sent replacement cartridges. They didn’t work either.
I also tried refilling the OEM cartridges. The HP color refills never worked properly and the Cannon refills started leaking.
I went back to using OEM cartridges again and have had no problems.

Posted by: Ted at December 29, 2005 7:34 AM

At my blog sight, stirlingbunnellblogspot.com, I describe how to refill any 3 color bubble jet type of printer cartridge for less than 5 cents per refill. To make a long story short, you use food coloring. Buy it in the economy 1 quart size at restaurant supply houses for about $2.75 per quart bottle. Get one each of the colors blue, red, and yellow totaling about $8.50. This provides an equal or better replacement for the normally available ink refill kits and provides hundreds of refills. My blog sight's purpose is to expose many discoveries , inventions, inovations, tec that I am responsible for creating.
Thanks,
Stirling Bunnell

Posted by: Stirling Bunnell at February 9, 2006 9:57 PM

CANON TELL US THAT THIER ORIGINAL INK CARTRIDGES ARE FAR SUPERIOR TO COMPATIBLES, WHAT THEY DONT TELL YOU IS THEY ARE MADE IN FAR EASTERN SWEAT SHOPS MOSTLY BY CHILDREN.

Posted by: A ANDERSON at February 13, 2006 12:02 PM
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