| p>Printer ink for some inkjet printers really does | | | | which almost all manufactures supply. This could |
| cost the equivalent of £14,000 per gallon. It is | | | | reduce your expenditure by as much as a half. |
| unlikely that you have purchased any other liquid | | | | Obviously you need to be able to tell the low yield |
| that cost nearly as much and, worse still, chances | | | | and high yield ink cartridges from each other and, |
| are it will not last very long. | | | | generally speaking, this is not difficult to do. Many |
| It is true that the price of ink cartridges has | | | | cartridges in the HP and Lexmark have the suffix |
| always been high but this is being made even | | | | XL to identify the higher yield models. You can |
| worse now because manufacturers include smaller | | | | find out how much ink is in HP and Canon |
| quantities of ink in new models. | | | | cartridges by looking at the packaging. This used |
| One instance of this is the HP inkjet cartridges. | | | | to be possible with Epson as well but they have |
| Some of the older colour ones used to have at | | | | now stopped including this information. |
| least 18ml of ink split equally between the three | | | | Unfortunately Lexmark have never said how |
| colours whereas now they have as little as 5ml in | | | | much ink is in their cartridges, not even on their |
| total. | | | | website, and one can only surmise why. |
| I'm sure it will come as no surprise that HP are | | | | Running costs can be further reduced. In many |
| not the only culprits as Epson, Lexmark and | | | | instances it is possible to buy compatible ink |
| others are all doing the same thing. A good | | | | cartridges which are much cheaper, in other |
| example of this is the old BCI3 Canon ink | | | | words ones not made by the printer |
| cartridges which had 13ml of ink while the newer | | | | manufacturer. Printer manufacturers will try to |
| CLI521s only contain 9ml. | | | | scare you off from using them by saying they |
| The reason for this is easy to explain as | | | | are inferior and will damage your printer but if you |
| manufacturers profits are far greater from ink | | | | are careful about which compatibles you use you |
| cartridges than from printers. Fortunately it is | | | | will have no problems. |
| possible to dramatically reduce your running costs. | | | | If you are in the market for a new printer it is |
| When you buy a new printer it comes with low | | | | very difficult to compare running costs between |
| capacity cartridges supplied which will not last | | | | brands but it is safe to say that if you are not |
| very long. Do not replace them with the same | | | | careful you could end up spending a lot of money. |
| cartridges, instead look for higher yield alternatives | | | | Fortunately there are ways of reducing this. |