Ink Refills

In my local town, ink refills were the hottest thing since sliced bread for awhile. There's a franchise in town that sells refilled ink cartridges at slight discounts vs OEM cartridges. There are a few caveats though:

One, the quality may not be as good as OEM cartridges. I bought a toner cartridge for a laser printer from them (MUCH easier to get right than an ink cartridge) and the print quality with their refilled toner is atrocious.

Two, they may void your printer's warranty. Regardless of any claims made by retailers selling them, most printer warranties are very clear that they don't cover damage caused by 3rd party and refilled cartridges. Note that they are most likely to cause damage in printers where the ink tank and print head are separate like Canon and Epson.

Third, and by far the most serious, data from Wilhelm Imaging Research shows that 3rd party inks fade quickly. This problem is so serious because you won't know until it's too late. Your prints may look great, and then years later you go to show your (now infant) child her baby scrapbook at her wedding, and your pictures are a faded, yellow, ugly, mess. Note that paper also makes a big difference in this. Manufacturer's ink and paper combos are usually tested to work very well together and produce long lasting prints. However, in Wilhelm's testing, 3rd party inks never last as long as OEM inks on any paper.

Why risk it? Saving a few dollars just isn't worth it. Go somewhere like OfficeMax and get OEM inks and papers. The few dollars extra is well worth it:



And guess what? If you want photo printing, check out Costco. Their print quality is great, and they're *real, traditional chemical photos* - all for far less than home printing and none of the hassle. Upload, pickup, go. No cleaning and maintaining printers, loading paper, messing with print head alignment, etc.