Hiya all. I need ink for my epson printer and was wondering what ink to buy? Is there any difference between genuine epson ink and other brands?
normally down to cost but depends what you print if you do lots of pics stay with Epson if you printing text go cheep. what model of printer ?
I have a Epson, I never use compatible inks I find the ink isn't as good and clogs up the printer tbh Epson inks isn't that expensive really I get mine on ebay.
I have the RX585 mine are around £45 a set I wouldn't call that expensive compared to some other makes. I've had the printer about 8 years and it works as good as new, no smudges or blockages
Not an all in one that prints high quality photos, prints DVD's etc. I suppose if you have a cheap printer almost a disposable then any old ink will do
£34 and pennies was the best I could find for the 'Cheetah' [standard capacity], there are also the 'Rhino' and 'Giraffe' high-capacity ones but iirc the physical cartridges are bigger and they only fit in certain models so i'd double check before buying the Rhino/Girraffe ones... Personally i'd avoid Epson compatibles or refills or whatever they choose to call them, the cheap ones tend to be rubbish and the decent ones aren't much cheaper than proper epson ones...
While I have read people having issues with either reliability or quality with 3rd party ink, it doesn't seem to be toooo common with most brands if you shop around for a 3rd party brand that reasonably well reviewed. The price difference is so huge throughout the life of the printer that unless you are very quality orientated or the actual printer was very expensive I think it is, generally it is at least, worth the small risk of trying 3rd party ink to see if you are happy with the results. I actually factor in the price and reviews of third party ink when buying a printer in the first place. My Brother all-in-one has cartridges that sit stationary in the side of the printer and the printer sucks the ink out of them. This makes the cartridges very simple and thus easy to refill/re-manufacture, which makes them very cheap and should mean there is little to go wrong (fingers crossed ) The quality is acceptable for me and they are so cheap (about £5 for a full set of XL!) that you just don't really have to worry about the cost of ink at all, which is nice.
It depends on the compatibles/printer... compatibles for *Canon* printer's I've found to be be pretty good... compatibles for *Epson* printers were utterly useless... and the cheapest compatibles for the last HP printer I had were more expensive [and had less ink in] than the HP ones...
Yes, but most new printers come with only partially filled cartages, which is why they're so cheep. Apparently, "Ink costs more than human blood." It costs a friend more than £35 per cartridge - his A1 plotter takes standard CMYK. Local UNI A0+ are more like £60 each, and it's a seven ink plotter... yes, over £700 in ink!
When I was at college it had a large format printer, and iirc it was, even with education discount in the region of £180 per ink tank [but they were *huge*]... x4 [Standard CMYK]... ... and because the Dept head was a penny-pinching tight-arse who refused to pay the money for the proper ones, he completely ruined the printer by trying to refil one of the tanks with el-cheapo ink refil kits £800 for ink vs £2.5k [iirc] to replace the printer... EDIT: IIRC it was these that the printer took
I use compatible ink in my Espon, its cheap, and does the job, I buy 5 sets of cartridges a time for about £15. Have done plenty of photo prints and I am more than happy with the quality. I buy from this guy here and repeat buy because as yet it has been hassle free.
In Germany they call inkjets : inkpissers as they leave paper wet and can not reach anywhere near the stated resolution due to this. If you print a lot, like for a home office, nothing beats Laser. Yes toner seems more expensive but that is because the amount you can print per refill is much higher. You can now get a B/W laser printer for under £50 so it really isn't that expensive any more. I got one while at UNI way back when and it saved me and my friends so much money compared to printing on campus.
I never use cheapies, have tried and they blocked the print head. if you are doing a lot of printing, you might get away with using them, but if you want to print photo quality prints use the genuine ones
if you are printing a lot in colour - buy CIS, if not, as MSHunter said, buy a laser printer. Inkjets are only good for waisting your money, especialy if you are printing in b/w.
I'm another one for avoiding cheapy 3rd party inks - I had an Epson where the print heads got clogged by cheapo ink and I ended up having to dump the printer...
I always use 3rd party ink, but then I only own a cheap Epson which is only used for general printing duties. I have a mono laser for printing off bulk mono docs which cost me £20, a toner costs £10 and lasts roughly 8 months. Any photos I get printed online, I find the prints much more consistent and I don't have to worry about ink etc.
