What are your thoughts about HP Instant Ink?
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@IRJ said:
@thanksaj said:
@IRJ said:
This is what I am looking at for replacement ink
$35.99 for 2 sets of ink (2 black, 2 magenta, 2 cyan, and 2 yellow)
Do yourself and your printer a favor...don't...
Why?
If I am paying $100 for one set of ink from HP or $35 for two sets of 3rd party ink. I could save $165 on just two ink changes which is more than the cost of the printer. Most reviews on the ink were positive (4 star rating). Some of the negative reviewers installed the ink incorrectly or some gave a negative review just because the printer couldn't read the ink levels as accurately as before.
The panic around using third party ink is often based on the mistaken assumption that the printers are worth tens of thousands of dollars when, in fact, they are essentially disposable. Third party ink is not "quite" as reliable as OEM ink but it is often so much cheaper than even if every other cartridge destroyed your printer (they do not, that's FUD) it would be break even. In reality, one in fifty or one in one hundred causes damage and, on average, that makes third party ink nearly always the far better option.
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I almost always use third party ink, it works just fine. There is always risk, but the cost savings more than covers any concern around the risk, normally. Just make sure you are really saving money.
If you are using super high end, large format printers or something special that really does cost many thousands of dollars, maybe OEM ink is worth it or likely is the only thing available. But that's not the common printing solution.
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@IRJ my dads inkjet was just ruined by using a third party cartridge in his HP printer. All it takes is 1 time and you have your justification to not using 3rd party cartridges.
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@david.wiese said:
@IRJ my dads inkjet was just ruined by using a third party cartridge in his HP printer. All it takes is 1 time and you have your justification to not using 3rd party cartridges.
Why would that justify not using it? If, on average, you save money using it (even including the cost of replacing the printer) why spend more money to get less? Yes, third party ink ruins printers more often than OEM ink, this is accepted. The point that IRJ and I were making is that it does this infrequently enough that you still save money because it is cheaper to replace the printers (normally) than it is to use the OEM ink. That it ruins printers from time to time is a given, that it does that is part of the equation is showing that third party ink normally makes good business sense.
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It's hard not to feel betrayed by your ink when it kills your printer. But step back from the emotional aspects of it and look at the total costs and fail rates. If one in fifty third party inks kills a printer, then that means every fiftieth person will have a story of "the first time I used it, it killed my printer." It's just the law of averages. But the chances that it will happen again are extremely low. It doesn't mean that the cheaper ink wasn't the right decision, it's calculated risk. It's just very hard not to become emotional when you are the one that got hit with the unlucky fiftieth cartridge.
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@david.wiese said:
@IRJ my dads inkjet was just ruined by using a third party cartridge in his HP printer. All it takes is 1 time and you have your justification to not using 3rd party cartridges.
I think like StrongBad is saying, its an odds game. If you win 90% of the time you more than pay for destroyed printer. In my case my printer was $120 at Office Depot. I have since seen the price drop to $99 on Amazon. I can save $82.50 each time I use 3rd party so if 80% of reviewers are having success with printers and another 10% don't know what they are doing. It makes much more sense to use the 3rd party ink.
There are actually some cheaper alternatives but they either have 2 star reviews or no reviews. The one I posted has 58 reviews. Of those 58 reviews 35 reviewers had a 5 star experience and 5 reviewers had a 4 star experience.
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@IRJ Exactly! And with a $99 printer and $82 savings per refill (wow, that's an extreme example) even if third party ink ruined printers nearly every time, it would still be a savings! That they only do it rarely makes it a huge savings in a case like that. No way OEM ink would be worth it.
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@thanksaj said:
Do yourself and your printer a favor...don't...
@IRJ said:
If I am paying $100 for one set of ink from HP or $35 for two sets of 3rd party ink. I could save $165 on just two ink changes which is more than the cost of the printer. Most reviews on the ink were positive (4 star rating). Some of the negative reviewers installed the ink incorrectly or some gave a negative review just because the printer couldn't read the ink levels as accurately as before.
Exactly. There is zero reason to buy vendor branded ink. So what if your printer gets wiped out. You will likely have already saved much more than the cost of the printer.
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The fact that printers are sold at a loss and the expectation being that they will vastly overcharge on ink to make their money pretty much guarantees that this situation will exist in this way. The OEMs have to take an up front loss hoping that people will overspent like crazy on ink. The third party ink makers don't need to do that. They sell their ink without the upfront loss on the printers. And it is common for people to never refill their ink which makes the losses even heavier for the OEMs.
There is just a lot of opportunity for the third party ink makers to make a good product cheaper than the printer makers can.
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@david.wiese said:
@IRJ my dads inkjet was just ruined by using a third party cartridge in his HP printer. All it takes is 1 time and you have your justification to not using 3rd party cartridges.
Exactly. This. Out of 10 batches, only one batch might be bad. But that one batch just ruined your printer.
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@thanksaj said:
@david.wiese said:
@IRJ my dads inkjet was just ruined by using a third party cartridge in his HP printer. All it takes is 1 time and you have your justification to not using 3rd party cartridges.
Exactly. This. Out of 10 batches, only one batch might be bad. But that one batch just ruined your printer.
But the other 9 batches that didn't already paid the difference for you to purchase a new printer and supplies for the next year. Sure it's inconvenient that you have to run to the store and buy another now, but the savings in your pocket should easily make that worthwhile, unless you're Scott making 7 figures - then your time running to the store is more valuable, and using name brand ink starts to make sense.
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@thanksaj said:
Exactly. This. Out of 10 batches, only one batch might be bad. But that one batch just ruined your printer.
And the point here is to prove you ignored the rest of our comments?
How do you explain away not just buying a new printer as @Dashrender said above? These things are disposable devices.
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I don't earn 7 figures but probably two of my top ten most hated things to do are (1) go shopping and (2) setup new printers, so I'm with AJ! Plus, you have take your old printer to the town recycling centre, which is another major ball ache. You can't just bin electrical items here - is it the same in the US?
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@Carnival-Boy said:
I don't earn 7 figures but probably two of my top ten most hated things to do are (1) go shopping and (2) setup new printers, so I'm with AJ! Plus, you have take your old printer to the town recycling centre, which is another major ball ache. You can't just bin electrical items here - is it the same in the US?
In Brevard County, Florida you don't get penalized for anything. There are no deposits on canned goods or other recyclables. You probably aren't supposed to throw a printer out like that, but I have never heard of anyone getting fined for throwing anything out. So I don't think they even check the garbage
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@IRJ said:
@Carnival-Boy said:
I don't earn 7 figures but probably two of my top ten most hated things to do are (1) go shopping and (2) setup new printers, so I'm with AJ! Plus, you have take your old printer to the town recycling centre, which is another major ball ache. You can't just bin electrical items here - is it the same in the US?
In Brevard County, Florida you don't get penalized for anything. There are no deposits on canned goods or other recyclables. You probably aren't supposed to throw a printer out like that, but I have never heard of anyone getting fined for throwing anything out. So I don't think they even check the garbage
A lot of areas have it so you can't just throw a lot of stuff out. In my area in NY, you have to take stuff to a recycling center. It's a hassle honestly.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
I don't earn 7 figures but probably two of my top ten most hated things to do are (1) go shopping and (2) setup new printers, so I'm with AJ! Plus, you have take your old printer to the town recycling centre, which is another major ball ache. You can't just bin electrical items here - is it the same in the US?
It does depend on where you live, two people have stepped up saying that you have to recycle the equipment, where I am there is no check. Though a lot of businesses like Best Buy and Staples now allow you to drop of old equipment and they will send it off for recycling. So since you're making the trip anyway, you can bring the old with you and drop it off.
In your particular case CB and anyone like you, I guess you have to decide for yourself if the hundreds of dollars saved is worth the hassle of buying a new printer. If I was really concerned about this, I might take my first such savings and buy the exact same printer and keep it on the shelve for the time the first one does die. Then when one dies, replace it with the spare, and immediately order another spare (hopefully you can find the exact same model again). Installing the same model often takes nothing but the manual switching of it, and possible Re-IPing if networked. Should be pretty easy.
Though I'd argue, that if you hate the hassle of these problems why are you buying low grade stuff in the first place - spend the money on a business class unit and support, then the problem isn't yours to deal with.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
I don't earn 7 figures but probably two of my top ten most hated things to do are (1) go shopping and (2) setup new printers, so I'm with AJ! Plus, you have take your old printer to the town recycling centre, which is another major ball ache. You can't just bin electrical items here - is it the same in the US?
If you aren't rich, doesn't saving hundreds of dollars or pounds make MORE of a difference rather than less? A little hassle for a lot of money seems like an obvious choice.
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@thanksaj said:
@david.wiese said:
@IRJ my dads inkjet was just ruined by using a third party cartridge in his HP printer. All it takes is 1 time and you have your justification to not using 3rd party cartridges.
Exactly. This. Out of 10 batches, only one batch might be bad. But that one batch just ruined your printer.
Sorry AJ, you totally failed on logic here. That one batch that ruined your printer doesn't matter because you just saves nearly $600. I don't know how much money you guys are willing to just throw away, but for me, I'm with the third party ink people. Your own statement here, even though you try to make it a tone of "don't buy third party ink" shows clear as day that it is crazy to buy OEM ink.
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@Dashrender said:
@thanksaj said:
@david.wiese said:
@IRJ my dads inkjet was just ruined by using a third party cartridge in his HP printer. All it takes is 1 time and you have your justification to not using 3rd party cartridges.
Exactly. This. Out of 10 batches, only one batch might be bad. But that one batch just ruined your printer.
But the other 9 batches that didn't already paid the difference for you to purchase a new printer and supplies for the next year. Sure it's inconvenient that you have to run to the store and buy another now, but the savings in your pocket should easily make that worthwhile, unless you're Scott making 7 figures - then your time running to the store is more valuable, and using name brand ink starts to make sense.
Maybe I get offered seven figures because things like "not wasting crazy money on printers just to say I used OEM ink" is something that I actually do financial analysis on
Even for people making gobs of money, the savings here is looking to be enough to justify nearly anyone to buy OEM ink - especially as people can buy a printer via Amazon and have it the next day at home (probably cheaper than Best Buy or Staples anyway) and if you are really into the money you have a personal shopper who costs less per week than the third party ink saves you.There is pretty much no financial situation that leaves you in the position of $600 being so trivial that it isn't worth saving that.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
I don't earn 7 figures but probably two of my top ten most hated things to do are (1) go shopping and (2) setup new printers, so I'm with AJ! Plus, you have take your old printer to the town recycling centre, which is another major ball ache. You can't just bin electrical items here - is it the same in the US?
We rarely "have" to recycle them. I am not even aware of how you would recycle that in most of the US. You can't just bin some things, but printers you mostly can. But let's just say that you want to recycle anyway, you just add it to your pile of normal recycling waste. We deal with that weekly or monthly anyway. Doesn't seem like a big deal, how much do you print? I haven't gone through ten cycles of ink in twenty years. So, on average, it would be like a quarter century between trips to the recycling center for me and after all of that time getting a new printer would probably make sense anyway.
