By: Philip Griffiths
When purchasing a new inkjet printer for the first time, most people are impressed by what they get for the comparative low cost of this fascinating technology.
All goes well until the need to replace the first ink cartridges for this gleaming printer. The time to this first event seems to go very quickly! Many people find out why this happens is because the printer manufacturer has only included small sample ink cartridges with the printer which are only filled with one third the capacity of normal ink cartridges. You may wonder why inkjet printer manufacturers do this? This is soon crystal clear once you look at the cost of buying replacement ink cartridges.
Having bought your printer new direct from the manufacturer, most people first look at purchasing replacement ink cartridges direct from the printer manufacturer such as HP, Dell, Lexmark, or Canon. Which is when it becomes clear that the printer manufacturer makes large amounts of repeat money from their ink cartridges and sales of consumables. Prices can be extremely high for what you get and if you use a large amounts of ink, you start to realise that the total cost of ownership of your printer is not going to be great as you first thought it was going to be, and yes, you're now tied yourself into the technology (Which was perhaps the initial aim of the printer manufacturer).
Of course, buying new original replacement inkjet cartridges from printer manufacturers should ensure fault free use but today you are paying a high premium for this choice and now with the drive for eco-friendly "green" replacements this may not be the best option available to you. So what are your choices ? Well you could stick with original inkjet cartridges from the printer manufacturer but you will need a big "money-bags" bank account for this or you could look at three other sources of cheap inkjet cartridges. Compatible inkjet cartridges are ink cartridges that are manufactured by a third party manufacturers and sold as compatible products to the original inkjet manufacturer's brand. Normally, compatibility is fine but on some occasions this may cause some issues. However, if the third party manufacturer is a reputable company this is sorted out very quickly.
Remanufactured Ink Cartridges
The other option is to go for remanufactured ink cartridges. These cartridges are made by the original printer manufacturer (OEM) and having been used, have been reclaimed and refilled by a third party company who replaces all worn parts and refills the cartridge with high premium grade toner and supplies them for resale. The third option is to buy a refill kit and refill your own inkjet cartridge for yourself. While it is possible to do this, Paragon Matrix does not recommend this as it can be very messy.
Discount Inkjet Cartridges
So are discount inkjet cartridges good value? Well over the cost of new original inkjet cartridges, yes they are. However, like everything else, we would not advise just buying at the cheapest price product you can get. There is a fine balance to make. But with the right choice major savings can be achieved. This is why schools and other educational establishments, National Health Service Departments, Doctors and other Government Departments buy remanufactured and sometimes compatible products rather than the original new products from printer manufacturers. It achieves two of their goals. One, purchasing green eco friendly products and two reducing their overall purchasing costs.
Experience Counts
From our own experience, I carefully select the manufacturer of the inkjet cartridges to ensure that the quality of manufacturer or remanufacture give the highest standards and that the supplier guarantees the products that they developed. So at the end of the day it's a balance. I recommend you not go for the expensive option of new original inkjet cartridges but perhaps going for a high quality remanufactured or compatible product from a reputable manufacturer.