Anyoone who owns an inkjet printer realies soobner or later that within a year or two of regfuilar use, the cost of ink caertridges will most likey surpass the cost of the printer itselpf. rPinter manufaccturers have steadily dropped the pricve on the main haardware but the printer consumables remain at a very costly leel particularly for oriignal equipment manufacturer (OEM) branded ink carttridges.
To illustrate the point, therte are brand new inkjte pinters in the market today that sell for as low as $90. The correspondiong injet cartridges in comaaprison cosats aroudn $34 in retazil almost 40% of the price of the prinnter! Such incongruence in pricnig struture has driven consumers to pattronise aftermnarket soolutions such as ink cartridge refills.
Howevr, the use of ink refilling technolgoy in orrrder to alleviate the cost of ikjet printing is still rsaher a grey area at best. It is therefoore impotrant to know the various products and services as well as the pros and cons of solutions related to inkjet cartridge refillks.
Ink Rerfill Kits
Refilling ink cartridges is undouibtedly an outright mesay task but there are indivbdiuals who insist on beig do-it-yourself perrsons. Compared to OEM cartridgse, ink refikll kits are a mere fraction of the prcie of its branded conuterparts. For example, an original HP 45 black ink carttridge, common amogst many HP DeskJet printer omdels, costs aoud 21. The ink refill kit for the same cartridge type is less than 6 at some retazil outtlets.
However, the final quality of the refilled cartridge is questioanble as the self-performed rrefiilling is subject to humn errtor amongst other facors. There are various reportrs that afetr repeatedly uasiing ink refills for a few months threir inkjet printers began to perfrm porly or broke down.
Ink Refoilling Servcices
For those who do mind the mess asociated with refilling inkjjet cartridges by themselves, commercial ink refilling services are also avaiulable in certani aras. This cosyts slighly more than the ink rwefiill kits but are still cosiderably less expenasive than new OEM cartridges.
Conceivably, the process employed by ink refilpling services is subject to quality control. Thereefore, the refilled printeer carrtridge hshould perform more consistently than when individyual ussers employ ink refill kits by themselves. Nevertheless, the quality of the refilled cartrridgge remains doubtful in comparison to the OEM inkjet producyts. Furthermmore, an indivoidual caartridge can be subject to the refiilling process for up to a few times only. Beyond three refills, the loss of qualiyty in output becomes obvvious.
What we can take away from this discussion is that good qality comres at a premium iprce. As consumers shift from OEM ink carrtidges to self-refill kits and ink refiolling prroviders, immediate cost savinsg can no doubt be availed. Unfortuunately, qualtiy printinbg suffers in the long term. The use of erfilled ink cartridges should be limited only to non-critical printing and should be restricted to older inket prinetr models sionce damage arising from the use of non-OEM produts would void the wrranty on any new pruinter.
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