Are you really getting ripped off on printer ink?

[DainBramaged]

It's no secret that selling a printer—like razors or video game consoles—is a money losing proposition. Instead, it's the accessories—the blades, the games, and in this case, the inkjet cartridges—where manufacturers make most of their money.

Imagine one person's surprise, then, to discover that HP has apparently been selling its customers printer cartridges with less ink than previous models. In a post on an HP Printer Cartridges blog, user "adminsky" opened two of the same HP inkjet cartridges from different manufacturing years—one dated January 2010, and the second 2012. What he discovered was a smaller piece of hydrophobic foam inside the newer cartridge, a supposed sign that cartridges were being manufactured with less ink than what people had paid for in the past. Just to be sure, he also opened a third, different cartridge, also manufactured this year, and found an even smaller piece of foam.

To get a better sense of why this matters, we first need to examine how a typical inkjet print cartridge works. The inside of an inkjet cartridge contains a foam-filled reservoir that is mostly saturated with ink. A patent filing from Lexmark, an HP competitor, says this is typically "unfelted polyurethane open cell foam," or what we refer to as hydrophobic foam



If you look closely at the images posted on the HP Ink Cartridge blog, you'll see that the foam is only partially saturated. "Ambient pressure is applied to ink in the foam-filled ink reservoir through the dry foam material," reads Lexmark's patent filing, and capillary action ensures that there is always fresh ink at the bottom of the reservoir. Admisnky's logic is that a smaller piece of hydrophobic foam holds "less ink for your money." However, if you look again at the cartridge teardown, it appears that the smaller foam pieces are saturated with just as much ink, if not more, when compared to the larger piece of foam, where the ink is dispersed over a wider area.

http://arstechnica.com/business/2012/05/are-you-really-getting-ripped-off-on-printer-ink/

[NYC_SKP]

1. If the US had a decent consumer affairs office, the actual contents would be labeled.

I'll assume from this article that they presently are not labeled with the ink contents by weight or volume.

How fucked up!

[leveymg]

2. In this town, bartenders that "water the whiskey" get their corks shot out.

Sure looks like that's gonna be the case at the HP Saloon, partner.

Class action suit, anyone?

[Fumesucker]

3. Most of the inkjet cartridges will only print so many dots even if there is still ink left..

They've basically made it so that you can't refill the cartridges on a lot of the inkjets now, or at least it doesn't do any good to refill them because they won't emit more ink even if they are full. The cartridge has a chip that counts the number of times it "squirts" ink and will only do so many squirts and then it's disabled.

Which is why I use an old HP Deskjet that has the old style cartridges, much bigger and you can refill them, plus the print head is part of the cartridge so if it clogs up a new cartridge fixes the print head too.

My old Deskjet is a lot slower than some of the newer inkjets but it's built like a tank, the images are good enough for my purposes and the printing costs are much lower per page.

[countryjake]

8. Ah, thanks for this info...

You've explained to me why my printer still would not print, even tho the cartridges had just been refilled!

What a racket!

[Fla Dem]

4. This is not just a ploy used in ink jet cartridges.

Half gallons of ice cream, are no longer 1/2 gallon, although the container is the same size as it used to be. Cereal, coffee, and other dry goods all still come in the same size box/container as years ago, but the contents are less. Companies think the American consumers are stupid and don't notice, so they shave an ounce here and an ounce there. When they are prouducing millions of a partcular item, that means millions of ounces they are saving. Oh, and they raise the price as well. Not surpised HP and probably all other printer companies are doing the same thing.

[Phentex]

6. Exactly...

so many products are being trimmed here and there and the companies hope consumers will not notice. It's maddening.

The fact that printers themselves are disposable these days should make everybody angry.

[marked50]

7. Kleenex too

Seems to me that the size of Kleenex tissues has "shrunk" too- or my snot has gotten more voluminous....

Regarding ink refills that are thwarted by the microchip, you can buy chip reset devices with your refill ink kits.

[qb]

5. I've found the dirt cheap knock-offs work just as well. I also ignore the "empty" warnings.

Thanks for posting this expose.