Printer Ink Cartridges - The Real Story
Over the last few months in the UK we have seen a big change in the tactics of most of the printer ink cartridge manufacturers. Prices of original ink cartridges have risen by 40% in 3 months. We in the trade are informed it is because of the strength of the Euro against the British pound, however all these ink cartridge are imported from either Mexico, China or USA so the USA dollar is the currency involved and although this has gained on the GBP pound not by 40%. However the main change has been in the products themselves. Starting with Dell and Lexmark ink cartridges and toner because these are actually the same products. Lexmark make all so called Dell products, they are simply Lexmark produces that have been rebadged Dell. Well these ink cartridge and toners are now designed to print a preprogrammed number of pages per cartridge. This page life does not count the amount of ink used, just the number of pages. So you could tell your printer to print 200 pages with only a single letter on each, and it would stop at the same number if you had printed a page of pure ink. This is for 2 reasons. 1. Stop remanufacturing of their ink cartridges by third party companies like internet-ink.co.uk and 2. Sell more ink cartridges in the first place. Epson are simply making the production of compatible Epson ink cartridges very hard by changing the configuration of their printer s software so that compatible cartridges won t be recognised. HP & Canon seem to still be playing fair. Both have increased prices lately, but they are not introducing technologies that reduce the choice of consumers. Lets face if, we would all choose an original ink cartridge if money was not an issue, but it is for most people, so a cheaper option that is very nearly as good as the original is always an attractive option. I hope HP & Canon continue this fair minded approach.
About the Author
Alan James has worked in the Printer Ink Cartridge industry for the last 17 years. Now approaching the end of his working career he works at a troubleshooter and development consultant working with many companies including Internet-ink.co.uk and now 123inkjets.
Tell others about
this page:
Comments? Questions? Email Here