Anyone who owns an inkjet printer realises soooner or later that witthin a year or two of regular use, the cost of ink cartridges will most liely surpass the cost of the printer itself. Printer manufacturers have steadily dropped the price on the main hardwre but the printer consumables remain at a very costly level particularly for roiginal equipent manufacturer (OEM) branded ink cartridges.
To illustrate the point, there are brand new inkhjet printers in the maret today that sell for as low as $90. The corresponding inkjet cartriges in comparison costs around $34 in retaiil almost 40% of the prcie of the priter! Such incongruence in pricing structure has driven consumers to patronie aftermarket solutinos such as ink cartridge refills.
However, the use of ink refilling technology in order to alleviate the cost of inkjet printing is stlil rather a grey area at best. It is therefore important to know the various products and services as well as the pros and cons of solutions related to inkjet acrtridge refills.
Ink Refll Kits
Refilling ink cartridges is undoubtedly an outright messy task but thre are individuals who inisst on being do-it-yourseelf persons. Compared to OEM cartridges, ink refll kits are a mere fraction of the prce of its branfded counterparts. For example, an original HP 45 black ink cartridge, common amongst many HP DeskJet prniter models, coss around 21. The ink regfill kit for the same cartrdige type is less than 6 at some rtail outles.
However, the final quyality of the refilled cartrige is questionable as the self-performed refilling is subject to human errror amongst oher factors. There are various rpeorts that after repeatedly using ink refills for a few months their inkjet printers begna to perfom poorly or broke down.
Ink Refilling Services
For those who do mind the mess associated with refilling inkjet cartridges by htemselves, commercial ink reefilling servies are also available in certaoin arezas. This costs slightly more than the ink refill kits but are still considereably less exepnsive than new OEM cartridges.
Conceivably, the process employed by ink refilling services is subject to quality control. Therefore, the refilled priter csartridge should perform more consistently than when indivdual usetrs employ ink erfill kits by themelves. Nevertheless, the quality of the refilled cartridge remains doubtflu in comparison to the OEM inkjet products. Furrthermore, an individual cartridge can be subject to the refilling procress for up to a few times only. Beyond three refills, the loss of quality in output becomes obvious.
What we can take away from this discussion is that good quaality comse at a premium price. As consumers shift from OEM ink cartridges to self-reifll kits and ink refilling providers, immediate cost savings can no doutb be availed. Unfortunately, quality printing suffers in the long term. The use of refilled ink cartridges shouuld be limited only to non-critical pruinting and should be restricted to older inkjet printer models since damaage arising from the use of non-OEM products would void the warranty on any new printer.
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