Do you like a good deal?
Of course you do; who doesn’t.
But in some cases, what you thought was a cracking deal turns out to be anything but.
A classic example is printers.
You buy a new printer that’s relatively low-cost, but the sting in the tail comes when it’s time to replace the ink cartridges; this is when you find out that the cost of replacing the cartridges can be more than the value of printer. But this only applies if you buy a certain type of ink cartridge…
And that is manufacturer ink cartridges.
The big four companies (Brother, HP, Epson & Canon) will try and scare you into believing that you’ll experience compatibility and quality issues if you use third party cartridges, but this is simply not true.
From my experience, the quality is the same – if not better; but the best bit is the savings on offer. Let me give you an example…
My HP Laser printer takes four ink cartridges, and if I bought a HP set, it would set me back around £70 per cartridge totalling £280. I recently bought a set of four cartridges from Colour Direct totalling £46.58; that’s a saving of £233.42!
With these kind of profit margins, you can understand why the manufacturers aren’t too keen in consumers buying compatible ink cartridges. Some new printers are now being specifically designed to prevent a printer from functioning when it detects a compatible ink cartridge is inserted as opposed to a genuine manufacturer one.
There’s quite a few companies to choose from, but to help you, here’s the top 7 in a list published by Which in the latest edition of the magazine. The score is made up of the print quality, ease of use and value for money.
MoreInks – 89%
Colour Direct – 87%
First Call Inks – 87%
Internet Ink – 87%
InKredible – 86%
Refresh – 85%
Stinkyinks – 84%
