Do you remember buying your printer?
If you're anything like me.. you just wanted one that was basic.. did everything you needed it to do.. (no I don't mean do your work for you.. but if only).. whether photocopying or just printing... that printer runs on ink. Aah ink. Most the time we are buying printers cheap and then realising the printer ink is milking our money.

After i'd already owned a few previous printers.. when buying my latest one.. (HP 4280) I made sure it was one that would not cost me too much in terms of ink.

Behold, HP 300 Cartridges.. they're great.. especially compared to other HP cartridges that cost more in total.. for the same amount of ink.

The cartridges print 200 pages for the standard sized ones.. and the black ink only costs me £10-12. Which is a lot less than others. I don't use the colour ink as much though.. that obviously costs more than the black.. and if you had to buy both cartridges daily then that's probably why we all grumble about the cost of them. Unfortunatly it has to be done.

The packaging has changed since the above picture and they are now sold in a black and white box. Inside it contains the cartridge, alongside some hp information sheet. To install the cartridge you just peel off the sticky tape ontop of the cartridge and slot it in your machine. Easy.

Places like tesco and boots also recycle your old cartridge for £1 as well.
Both the black and the colour cartridge seem ok in turns of ink and price. However I do print quite often and I easily go through quite a few cartridges which can be annoying. I've now started buying a few at once and keeping some in stock in advance.

In terms of quality, I found the ink to come out quite sharply and it sits on the paper quite well. I've used a range of papers all different thicknesses and i've never had a problem with the ink or thought the quality wasn't good. The packaging also states it's fast drying and i'd agree with that.. i've never had ink on my fingers afterwards but I still always give it a few seconds before highlighting etc over text. I know some people have complained about their inks.. saying that they had not used their printer in a while and the cartridges dried out. I've never experienced that as a problem with these cartridges.

So overall I do think these cartridges are a good buy over other makes and are cheaper than the other brands available such as Epson. They are a necessity with every printer and so something we will be buying frequently.. therefore i'm glad I don't have much of a problem with them... if only we didn't have to buy them so often :P

This review can also be found written by me on ciao.