How much ?

1) When domestic and small office inkjet printers started gaining huge popularity in the 1990’s, you could buy a replacement black cartridge that would contain 42ml of ink.  You’d pay your £18 or so then, stick it in the machine and forget about it for 6 or 9 months, until it needed replacing again. 

2) The big printer manufacturers like HP, Epson and Lexmark realised there was a brand new gigantic market to be exploited.  Ching ching!!  The whole world and his brother were buying digital cameras  to print their own photo’s, kids started printing homework, then even the most humble mobile phone became a camera….. everybody’s suddenly in need of ink cartridges! (show numerous ink cart’s) 

3) So how were they going to make even bigger piles of cash from this new market? Simple – put a lot less ink in the cartridges, then the hapless end-user has to buy them far more frequently, and then sell the printers for next-to-nothing (showing a basic printer model if poss) to rope them in…. Ching ching! 

4) So back in the 1990’s your typical black cartridge contained maybe 30ml to 42ml 

The biggest selling HP black cartridge in the UK today sells for about £15 and contains…. (showing HP21) a teaspoonful of ink.  5ml.   Less than one eighth.  If you decide to buy the “high yield” version – they call them “XL” (showing a HP21XL) – it’s about £23 and contains a paltry 12.5ml of ink – still less than a third of what you used to get.  And it’s a little unfair to pinpoint HP models – Epson and Lexmark are particularly good at generating income from “allegedly” poor value ink cartridges too.  And it’s just as bad for colour cartridges.  Less ink.  More cash.

5) So poor old Joe Punter saw the shiny new printer in his local supermarket at £25 and snapped it up, then found out it would cost him £50 for a couple of ink cartridges to keep it going!

6) It’s not all bad news though…  As long as you’re very careful and get some independent advice before choosing your printer.  There are still certain printer models available that you can keep fed at a really sensible cost.   An example is one of the many Brother inkjet machines on the market.  If you buy copy cartridges (known as compatibles) from a good supplier of reliable ones you can get a package (showing a bundle of 6 compatibles) containing 90ml of black inks (3 x 30ml cartridges) together with 60ml of colour inks (3 @ 20ml) all for under £16.  You might pay a tenner (showing a tenner) or so more for the printer, but if you’re going to run it for – say – 5 years, the savings are impressive.