Stick With The Brand Name Printer Ink

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By By Herb Weisbaum

Summary

PC World found that some third-party inks produced poor-quality prints and clogged up printheads.

Story Published: Jul 26, 2004 at 6:07 AM PDT

Story Updated: Aug 31, 2006 at 1:32 AM PDT

Stick With The Brand Name Printer Ink
SEATTLE - Does this happen to you? You have a nice brand name printer, but when it's time for ink you find yourself tempted to buy one of those third-party ink jet cartridges. What do you do? Do you go with the generic and save a bundle or with a brand name you trust?

For its May 2004 issue, Consumer Reports decided to answer that question. After testing a dozen off-brand inks, the magazine concluded: “Page for page, off-brand inks yield little savings, despite their selling prices.”

The editors found that these no-name inks are not on par with their brand name counterparts. “They are likely to yield lower-quality color photos and graphics, and they might clog the nozzles in the printhead,” Consumer Reports said.

Similar testing was done last year by PC World magazine and the results were the same. While some of the generic inks produced prints that were equal in quality to the name brand inks, the magazine "also encountered third-party inks that produced poor-quality prints and clogged up printheads."

And consider this: The PC World’s tests found that none of the third-party inks "came close to matching the permanence of brand-name inks." So, if you frequently print photographs, you should stick with the brand-name ink.

The bottom line: if you care about print quality and durability, the editors of both Consumer Reports and PC World magazines recommend the same thing-- play it safe, and stick with the name brand inks, even though it will cost you more.

For More Information:

www.pcworld.com