The cost of compatible ink cartridges
With the price of branded printer ink cartridges going through the roof these days it’s high time to look at trying some cheaper alternatives. There are two types of ink cartridges – print head and ink tanks. Print head cartridges have the print head fix on the cartridge which means every time you change the cartridge you are changing the print head also. Brands such as HP and Lexmark use these type of ink cartridges ink their printers and while compatible ink for them can be cheaper than the branded inks they are a little bit more expensive than compatible ink tanks.
The reason for this is that the print head is very expensive to manufacture and requires very specialist machinery which third party manufactures can’t afford and therefore they simply recycle empty branded cartridges and sell them as compatibles. Inks tank cartridges are used in such printer as Epson, Brother and Canon printers and they have no print head attached to them instead it is fixed on the printer and the ink tanks sits on top. As a result ink tank cartridges are easy to make and therefore a lot cheaper in compatible form. As an example; compatible Epson SX405 ink cartridges cost £12 a set and a set of compatible inks for an HP Photosmart C3180 cost £19. But when you consider that the branded inks cost £30 and £27 respectively both offer great savings even though the Epson compatible inks offer cost less and offer a bigger saving.
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