Printer Ink Refills for Small Offices

2010-06-03

If you are running a small home office, cutting expenses wherever possible can be vital to survival. Office printer ink can prove to be a major expense, so printer ink refills can be a viable option for saving money. However, do they really save your company or home office more in the long run?

First of all, OEM (original equipment manufacturer) printer cartridges have proven to be more reliable than refill cartridges. OEM printer cartridges have proven to fail in fewer tests than refills, which have proven to have a higher percentage of cartridges that either have an early end of life of arrive DOA (dead on arrival). Early end of life generally means the cartridge produces less than 75% of the mean page yield of an original OEM cartridge. This needs to be taken into consideration when cost is a concern, because the money you are saving can be lost in lack of production.

Printer refills are not completely emptied before they are refilled, so as to avoid overfilling and subsequent spillage. Therefore, it is very probable that a refill cartridge will not contain as much ink as an OEM printer cartridge, and therefore will not yield as many pages.

There are, however, some benefits to using printer ink refills. For one, they are more environmentally friendly, so as to not waste as much plastic in the disposing of old cartridges. Also, they are a much cheaper option, and can save your home or business money. Refills can cut costs by 50-75%. However, as previously stated, since there is possibly less ink and page yield in a refill cartridge, the cost difference may in fact be lost in a lack of efficient production. If the cartridge prints fewer pages or is DOA, it cuts into your savings.

The difference in print quality is also an issue. When printing with only black ink, it seems that the two types of cartridge are comparable in quality. However, when it comes to printing graphics and charts that require color ink, the quality of OEM printer cartridges exceed that of printer ink refills, so that many people would recommend not using refills if you consistently print photos or graphics.

Another option can be to refill the cartridges yourself if you are using an inkjet printer, but this can prove to be messy and time consuming, especially for a small office with multiple printers.

Therefore, though printer ink refills can save considerable money, they can also disappoint in regards to production and reliability. This should be taken into consideration if are looking to cut costs in regards to your office printer ink.