Toner News Mobile › Forums › Latest Industry News › *NEWS*INKJET WARS:CHEAP INK VS. EXPENSIVE
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AnonymousInactiveInkjet Wars:Cheap Ink vs.Expensive
Everybody always talks about the price of inkjet cartridges, but nobody ever does anything about it — or do they?
With more and more businesses relying on inkjet printers for their
hard-copy needs, and more and more photos produced using computer
printouts instead of traditional photochemical paper, the high cost of
brand-name ink affects an ever-larger audience.Some people are doing something about the price of ink — but you need to know both the ups and the downs of the alternatives.
Excellent Prints, Widely Varying Prices
Today’s inkjet printers (and competing technologies, such as
dye-sublimation) can deliver excellent quality for almost any business
need. Take the Canon i9900, a $499 printer that uses eight separate ink
cartridges to provide accurate color reproduction. It’s been top-rated
by Wired, PC World, PC Magazine, and other reviewers for everything
from its tabloid-size capability (up to 13 by 19 inches, borderless) to
its fast and impressive 4-by-6-inch snapshot prints.The prices of ink cartridges for this SUV of printers, however, are all
over the map. Here’s what I found in a recent price check for a single
i9900 black ink cartridge (in U.S. dollars, not including shipping or
taxes):• Canon USA Web site: $11.95. The official Canon site sells each i9900
ink cartridge for almost $12. And, remember, the printer requires eight
different cartridges, adding up to more than $95 for a complete set.• Amazon.com (genuine Canon): $8.15. The exact same black ink
cartridge, a genuine Canon product in Canon-logo packaging, is
discounted about one-third by Amazon.• Amazon.com (third-party alternative): $4.00. When I investigated
Amazon’s “New & Used” link, which leads to the e-tailer’s partners,
a vendor named Inkfair was promoting a black i9900 cartridge for
two-thirds off. This, however, is clearly a look-alike cartridge that’s
not manufactured by Canon.I even found numerous offers made by Amazon partners advertising black
cartridges for a mere $0.01 (one cent). These listings, being easily
the lowest price, tended to sort to the top of the page. Most of these
links led to an Amazon-affiliated seller named SkyTechStore, which
wasn’t actually selling cartridges for a penny, considering that the
fine print said “buy 3 get 1 free.”(I guess Amazon doesn’t allow its partners to enter a price of $0.00
for the fourth, “free” cartridge. I never found out why Amazon allows a
price as low as one cent to be entered, though, since it’s hardly
possible to order just one cartridge for that little.)Surprisingly, it was quite difficult for me to find listings of genuine
Canon products when I searched Amazon.com and several other
price-comparison sites. Overwhelmingly, the search results I saw were
stacked with third-party offers prominently pushing the Canon name. In
every case, however, the term “Canon Compatible” appeared somewhere.
Whenever you see the word “compatible,” be aware that you’re not being
offered the brand-name product.How To Choose Between Brand-Name and Third-Party
If there’s no trickery involved, and it’s clear that you’re buying an
alternative to the printer manufacturer’s official ink, my research
indicates that third-party cartridges can truly offer bargains and
deliver high-quality output. Not all third-party cartridges are the
same, unfortunately.Many corporations insist on using brand-name inks from the original printer maker because of the following concerns:
• Will third-party inks damage my printer?
• If the printer will be OK, will third-party inks produce poor color quality?
• Even if the colors match, will third-party inks produce prints that rapidly fade?
• Even if all the above is fine, are the lower prices due to less ink in each cartridge?
In a widely quoted study, third-party inks tended to produce poorer
color fidelity and fade much more quickly than brand-name Canon, Epson,
and HP inks, in a review published by PC World. That finding, however,
came out in September 2003, which is two years ago. A lot has happened
in ink technology since then.With brand-name cartridges listing for at least triple the cost of
third-party alternatives, I can understand why heavy ink users don’t
feel like handing over the manufacturer’s asking price. After all, why
pay the $12 cartridge price at Canon’s site when you could instead use
that money to, say, buy yourself a cup of coffee at Starbucks? -
AuthorSeptember 21, 2005 at 10:56 AM
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