What are your thoughts about HP Instant Ink?
-
@scottalanmiller said:
@IRJ said:
Where is @thanksaj ?This is a printer thread. I figured he would be all over it.
Probably still asleep! He was awake for 56 hours!!
Correction, 64.
-
This program isn't great. Depending on how much color vs black you do, the program may be significantly more expensive than buying cartridges yourself, albeit more convenient.
-
It seems a bit like they are trying to rush you into a deal that you'll regret later on.
I would not sign up purely because it sets of my scam alert.
-
@nadnerB said:
It seems a bit like they are trying to rush you into a deal that you'll regret later on.
I would not sign up purely because it sets of my scam alert.
I want to say I did the math on this one time and it is a scam...
-
@thanksaj said:
@nadnerB said:
It seems a bit like they are trying to rush you into a deal that you'll regret later on.
I would not sign up purely because it sets of my scam alert.
I want to say I did the math on this one time and it is a scam...
Yeah, you're right and that is assuming you buy HP ink. Some 3rd party ink that has great reviews on Amazon is unbelievable in expensive. Some are cheap, but give you a non-oem notice. They also 3rd party ones that cost a bit more that have chips that cause the printer not to display any message, but are still less than half the price of oem.
What do you think of 3rd party ink for inkjet printers?
-
Ink just needs to die in a fire.
But that is from my perspective of printing < 5 pages per month.
-
@JaredBusch said:
Ink just needs to die in a fire.
But that is from my perspective of printing < 5 pages per month.
This printer prints nearly as fast as a laser printer. 19PPM for black and 14.5PPM for color. Also the cartridges have a high capacity. Black does 2300 pages and color does 1500
-
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)
-
@IRJ said:
@thanksaj said:
@nadnerB said:
It seems a bit like they are trying to rush you into a deal that you'll regret later on.
I would not sign up purely because it sets of my scam alert.
I want to say I did the math on this one time and it is a scam...
Yeah, you're right and that is assuming you buy HP ink. Some 3rd party ink that has great reviews on Amazon is unbelievable in expensive. Some are cheap, but give you a non-oem notice. They also 3rd party ones that cost a bit more that have chips that cause the printer not to display any message, but are still less than half the price of oem.
What do you think of 3rd party ink for inkjet printers?
No, just don't.
-
@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...
-
@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.
-
@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.
-
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.
-
@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.
-
@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.
-
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.
-
@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.
-
@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.
-
@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.
-
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.
