Which Type Of Ink Cartridge Is Best?
There is a significant amount of debate surrounding the question of whether or not it is better to buy your ink cartridge from the original equipment manufacturer (OEM), namely the big brand that made your printer, or if going the economical route and purchasing either a refill kit or a remanufactured cartridge is a better idea. For a number of years the major brands have tightly controlled prices and availability of ink cartridges on the market after they realized that the printing consumables are actually more valuable than the printers themselves, but in recent years their dominance has been challenged by independent companies offering generic variants of patented products for significantly less money.
As you can imagine, this threat was not taken lightly by the OEMs, and they responded by voiding the warranties of printers caught using third party cartridges while launching a public relations campaign decrying these independent cartridges as unsafe and offering lower print quality. In reality this was true for a number of companies in the early days of the debate, but over the years the companies shaped up and professionalized, and now you can expect to get the same quality or better from a remanufactured ink cartridge as from a top shelf brand name cartridge, only for much less.
As it stands these days purchasing brand new “virgin” ink cartridges from the OEMs is a very expensive investment that wastes a large number of resources when compared to the cost saving and environmental benefits of refill kits and compatible cartridges that are made from recycled materials. These may be slightly more “do it yourself”, but they offer the most economical and environmentally friendly options on the market.