If you get the feeling that the cost of replacing the inkcartridges on your inkjet printer is getting out of hand, yourimpression may be more accurate than you realize. Between 2009 andtoday, the rate of inflation has increased by 7 percent. Duringthat same period, the cost per page of some vendors' inks has risenby anywhere from 4 percent to 30 percent. Yes, 30 percent. We review 50 or more printers per year, and we price the cartridgesfor every one of them.
About 8 months ago, I began noticing thatink cartridge prices for some models were going up--sometimessharply. When I dug deeper, I also saw that the price increasesseemed to be selective: Some inks went up; others stayed the same;and one even dipped slightly. The biggest hikes I observed camefrom Lexmark and Kodak, but Epson's color ink costs have beenrising as well. Meanwhile, HP seems to be nudging ink costs upwardin its newer models.
Most vendors declined to comment on my findings. Only Kodak readilyacknowledged the price changes, noting that its inks were stillamong the cheapest available. Lexmark, Kodak Hike Prices the Most Lexmark's printers are getting better, but unfortunately its inkprices are getting higher, too. From 2009 to the present, I trackedprice increases on the company's 100 and 100XL lines of inkcartridges, which are used by the cool-looking Genesis , the consumer-oriented Interact S605 , and the small-office Pinnacle Pro901 and Platinum Pro905.
The basic Black Return Program Ink Cartridge, for instance, cost$16 in 2009 and is $19 now. Since the cartridge's yield didn'tchange, its cost per page jumped from an already exorbitant 9.4cents per page in 2009 to 11.2 cents per page now. To Lexmark's credit, it still sells the 105XL, a $5, 510-page blackink cartridge that is a true bargain at less than a penny per page.Alas, it's compatible only with the Platinum Pro905, the PinnaclePro901, and the Prestige Pro805 (we have not reviewed the latterproduct). Kodak's inks remain among the least-expensive available, but withinthe last year the company has raised prices on all of its supplies.Its 30XL high-yield color cartridge's cost per page went up by just4.8 percent, from 6.2 cents per page to 6.5 cents per page. But allof the others increased by between 11.6 percent and 30 percent.
Thetwo biggest jumps were for black ink: the company's 10B and 30black cartridges rose in cost per page by 29 percent and 30percent, respectively. Epson has raised the prices of inks in its 124, 125, 126, and 127cartridge lines--used by popular Stylus and Workforce models,including the recent Stylus NX430 and Workforce 845 . From late 2010 to now, all of the black inks' prices haveincreased by a reasonable 4 percent to 5 percent. Meanwhile, thecosts per page for colors have shot up by 10 percent to 12.5percent. Contrarily, the price of the company's 124 Moderate-Capacity Blackink cartridge dropped a bit, from $8.54 to $8.49 during the sameperiod.
That small decrease does little to balance out theincreased cost of the color inks for the same product line,unfortunately. HP's ink prices are an interesting case. The prices of its inkcartridges tend to remain steady over time. I noticed, however,that when a new printer model replaced an old one, the new oneoften used a different type of cartridge--and the new cartridgescost a little bit more. In other instances, the new printer model'scartridges cost the same as the older one's cartridges, but theyield changed--sometimes for the worse.
For instance, the standard-size 920 black ink for the HP Officejet 6500A costs the same as the 932 black ink for the Officejet 6500A'ssuccessor, the HP Officejet 6700 Premium . But the 932 cartridge's yield is lower: 400 pages, compared to420 pages for the 920 cartridge. As a result, the newer printer'scost per page for standard-size black is a little higher--5.0 centsper page, versus 4.8 cents per page for its predecessor. There is a brighter side to this particular sequence: Though theOfficejet 6700 Premium's color cartridges cost more than theOfficejet 6500A's, their yields are also higher, so the cost perpage remains essentially unchanged from generation to generation inthis instance.
Some Ink Prices Seem Stable I lacked sufficient data for two vendors: Brother and Dell.Brother's inks are sold by third parties, and their prices can varywidely. Dell's prices seem to be stable for the few printers we'vereviewed; however, their inks tend to be among the priciest in costper page. Is there any safe haven from ink-price inflation? Canon uses thesame ink cartridges across many models of printers and manygenerations of those printers. The company's prices seem to be themost stable overall. Canon's costs per page tend to be aboutaverage, though its lower-priced printers (not surprisingly) havehigher-cost inks.
Regardless of which printer you own, it never hurts to shop aroundfor the lowest-cost source for replacement inks which may not bethe printer vendor's own Web store. If third-party inks start tolook like a better deal, check out our experiences with refilled and remanufactured inks before you go that route. I am a professional writer from General Industrial Equipment, which contains a great deal of information about unbreakable window glass , hydromatic sump pump, welcome to visit!
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