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The great inkjet debate: replace or refill
By DAVE GUSSOW
Replacement cartridges range from $20 to $40 each. The costs have spawned a cottage industry of companies selling refilled or generic cartridges that cost about half as much as a name brand. The name-brand printer companies have put up a stout defense of their marketing, saying they are offering a system, with the printer, ink and paper designed to work together. Ask and they'll each go into the detail of how the printheads work, how the drops of ink are absorbed by the paper and other factors involved in the process. John Lamb, Canon's product manager of imaging, says he has seen generic ink cartridges that claim to work with different brands of printers. "I don't use the same ink formulation as HP or Epson," Lamb said. "One ink cannot work across multiple vendors. The ink formulations are done to such a tight tolerance. If you put in any other ink, every other color will be wrong." Their low-price competitors say it's simply a matter of the big kids on the block throwing their weight around. Yet price drives consumer interest, and refill and generic ink companies have carved out a $3-billion-a-year industry, or 11 percent of the refill market. To fight back, printer manufacturers are using a variety of techniques. Some put a chip on the cartridge that make it difficult to refill it, warn that the cartridge will be "invalid" or even disable the printer. "There's only one reason" for those tactics, said Gerald Chamales, chairman of Rhinotek Computer Products in Carson, Calif. "It's to prevent erosion of their market share." Part of the decision whether to go with a name-brand replacement or a generic may be based on how it will be used, according to Lisa Cekan, associate editor at PC World magazine. Generic ink likely would work well for letters and other documents, Cekan says. "But if you're printing something you might want to last, then you might get into trouble" with generic ink. "Printer manufacturers put in a lot of time and effort to get papers and ink to work together, to resist fading and last a long time," she said. "And the other guys don't care about that." An article on "How to Print Perfect Photographs" in the magazine's June issue (www.pcworld.com) says to avoid cheap ink. "In most cases the resulting print quality is inferior. You get what you pay for." The printer companies also warn of dire consequences for straying from their brand. Steve Semos, product manager for office inkjets and driver solutions for Epson, says it manufactures and fills its ink cartridges in "clean rooms," specially designed facilities to avoid dust and other contaminants from getting into the product. "The only way to refill (an Epson cartridge) is to punch a hole in it," Semos said. "If you drill a hole into a cartridge, it could add contaminants to the ink." And if the ink damages the printer, it could void the warranty. Hewlett-Packard designs the nozzles on its cartridges to last just for the initial supply of ink, according to Michel Maupoux, technology support manager. If users refill them, the nozzles can get clogged and "people may wonder why the ink quality is not what they want." The generic companies have found work-arounds for many obstacles put up by the printer companies, but not all. "It's a cat-and-mouse game, totally," said John Jackson, sales manager at TonerPlus, a re-manufacturer in Austin, Texas. "So far, we've been able to counter. We're sitting here with our fingers crossed, waiting to see what comes next." - Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.
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From Tech Times
From the AP |
