Expensive but reliable (HP 54)

Member Name: xcorlett

Product:	HP 54
Date:	03/03/09 (26 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Higher capacity than other cartridges. Genuine high quality.

Disadvantages: Terribly over-priced.

HP genuine ink cartridges are expensive. But if you, like me, have looked high and low for non-genuine cartridges that actually work well, then you'll soon find that the non-genuine market ain't that great at all. They are plagued by faulty cartridges, short ink life and rubbish print quality. Please let me know if you have found a good source, because I love to spend less money and get the same results.

As for the HP54, it's a great product. Same high quality that you'd expect from any genuine cartridge, but with a higher capacity (approx 600 full black pages). This is much more that the HP21 which only gets 190 pages and only for a few more pounds. So, that means less waste through less packaging.

I do wonder about the price points in general for genuine ink. The printers themselves are priced low - very low, often below manufacturers cost. This is so that they can sell a bunch of their over-priced ink to you. For example, I have a HP all in one F4180, and it cost me $29.99, so about 20 pounds. The printer is of incredibly high quality and has printed thousands of pages without once having a feed or printing error. Yet each ink cartridge costs me more that the printer does. I spend $33.99 for 600 pages, which is approx. 5c per page. Although if you print mostly on draft quality the price drops to 2-3c as you can print more pages. I feel that printer companies are working together to ensure that we are screwed on buying ink. Cartridges are too small & too hard to refill. There MUST be some good non-genuine inks out there, like I say - please enlighten me!

Summary: Dependable but over-priced.

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