Oh, the question, Why does printer ink cost so much?

The reply, blame the U.S. patent laws.

Why? Because companies like HP and Lexmark (two companies currently involved in patent infringement law suits) have been able to file patents on the formulas for their printer ink. These patents protect the years of time and money HP and Lexmark have put in to developing the ink that goes in their cartridges. This sounds fair, so what’s the problem?

Five years ago HP filed claims that said refilled ink cartridges for their printers violated patents. They specifically named three patents that focused on the type of ink refillers were using. Odd part about their filing was that HP made it clear that if the three they selected were not successful, they had a few thousand others to pick from (no joke!). This was clearly a case of deep pockets threatening the little guy.

Just a few weeks ago HP asked the U.S. ITC (International Trade Commission) to block the import of refilled cartridges from foreign competitors because of patent violations. Not to be outdone, Lexmark has also asked the ITC to block the import of refilled cartridges because of patent infringement.

Lexmark was one of the first printer ink makers to use the patent infringement argument against cartridge refillers. They tried to use the DCMA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) as a way to companies from making printer ink cartridges that work in their printers. Fortunately, for the refillers, the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court was abusing the DMCA for anti-competitive purposes and ruled against Lexmark. (Note: The DCMA’s true intent is to protect intellectual property not prevent competitive practices).

Now, back to the cost of printer ink. Can you see why it is so expensive? First we’ve got companies like HP and Lexmark spending billions on developing their ink. Then we have these same companies trying to play “those with the deepest pockets win” in order to eliminate refillers from the market place. They are politely pushing for a market place dominated by themselves. Kind of tells you how important the revenues from printer cartridges are.

The burden of proof is on HP and Lexmark. Prove that refillers are violating your patents. I’m all for honoring the time and money that has gone in to formulating printer ink “recipes”. That’s fair. But I don’t agree with using thousands of patents to bully refillers. The burden of proof is on HP and Lexmark.

What’s your take on this? Take a minute and let me know. Thanks!

Today we released the HP 78A CE278A Toner Cartridge. This monochrome (black) toner cartridge yields up to 2,100 pages of print and can be used in the HP LaserJet Pro P1566 and the HP LaserJet Pro P1606dn.

Owners of this printers are in love with their speed. The boast, an industry leading, a first page out speed of seven seconds. They also love how quiet the printer is. Of course, when a printer is printing it is impossible for it to be silent, but when not printing the owners say you can’t hear a thing.

These printers also feature, the much loved, duplex feature (two sided printing). Duplex printing is environmentally responsible and very convenient.

Any complaints? Not many! Just the usual difficulty when installing and the printer software is not recognized by ones computer. This is common to all printers, so I really don’t see a reason one should bash the printer because of it.

As of this post, CNET has not yet reviewed the printer. They some great testing, so we’ll wait and see what they come up with.

Do you own either of these HP printers? If you do, take a minute and let me know what you think of them. Thanks!

Epson has targeted September 2010 as the release month for three new printers in its Artisan series. The new printers will have faster print speeds (4×6 inch photos in ten seconds), faster copy speed (38 pages per minute), faster ISO speeds (9-9.5 ISO pages per minute).  Added technology will also mean that owners of these printers will be able send documents to print from their mobile devices.

I’m hoping they have addressed some of the flaws that plagued their previous Artisan printers (Artisan 700, Artisan 710, Artisan 800, Artisan 810). While these printers already featured the fastest print speeds in the industry, they had extremely buggy software. These bugs made it hard to depend on printer to make your daily printing a seamless easy process. These printers could be quite disruptive!

They also featured a trait that is very common among today’s inkjet printers . . . flimsy plastic output and input paper trays. I don’t imagine this will get fixed with these new versions. No manufacturers are working to improve the input/output trays. One can hope though!

Between the buggy software and the paper jams (caused by flimsy trays) the Epson Artisan printers were quite a hassle, but the quality and speed of the  prints made me put up with them. Hopefully these flaws get fixed because Epson is on to something really good here.

If you’ve used an Epson Artisan printer take a minute and let me know what you think about it. Thanks!

We’ve just added two new toner cartridges for a few different series of Samsung laser printers.

The toner cartridges are:

Samsung MLT-D105L Toner Cartridge, High Yield

Samsung MLT-D105S Black Toner Cartridge

The high yield version of this cartridge yields 2,500 pages, the standard cartridge yields 1,500 pages. My advice would be to spend the extra dollars to get the high yield cartridge. It has a price per page cost of 3 cents. The standard yield cartridge will cost  you 4.6 cents per page.

These two cartridges work in the following Samsung laser printers.

Samsung ML-2525W
Samsung ML-1910
Samsung ML-1915
Samsung ML-2525
Samsung SCX-4600
Samsung SCX-4623F
Samsung SCX-4623FW
Samsung SF-650
Samsung SF-650P

Have you used these cartridges or printers? If so, let me know about your experience with them. Thanks!

This printer uses the Lexmark 100XL (high yield) series of inkjet cartridges: Lexmark 100XL (14N1053) Black Ink Cartridge, Lexmark 100XL (14N1054) Cyan Ink Cartridge, Lexmark 100XL (14N1055) Magenta Ink Cartridge, Lexmark 100XL (14N1056) Yellow Ink Cartridge

If you own this printer, let me know what you think about it. Thanks!

— CNET Rating: 4 Stars —

The good: Rapid print output; easy wireless setup; user-friendly touch-screen LCD with convenient “SmartSolution” shortcuts; includes autoduplexer.

The bad: Photo quality needs improvement.

The bottom line: The Lexmark Interact S605 multifunction device prints, scans, copies, and connects wirelessly with a streamlined user experience facilitated by an easy-to-use touch screen and customizable widgets called “SmartSolutions.” Built for small businesses and home usage, the Interact S605 stands out in its price range and is well-deserving of our recommendation. (Read the full CNET review)

— Amazon Rating: 3.5 Stars —

A positive comment from Amazon.com:

Lexmark did it again. For an inkjet it is right on the money

For more years than I care to remember I used the Lexmark X83 that scanned, copied, and printed better than the competition; yes even better than the HP’s. I took a blank check, scanned it in my brothers HP and scanned it in my Lexmark, and the resulting printout was almost scary how true to life it was and the colors were more accurate. That being said, I quickly became a Lexmark printer fan. The one problem is that I hated having to buy the expensive cartridges. This S605 comes with multiple cartridges, so when you run out of yellow for example that is the only one you have to purchase, instead of dumping the whole cartridge when only one color is low.

Then I discovered the advantages, and economy of laser printers. The ink never dries out because it is already dry powder. With its large capacity it comes to a penny or two per page instead of the dollar plus for a full page color photo. But, for photographic excellence the inkjet’s have the reasonably priced lasers beaten. Pertaining to the text quality, the laser wins hands down. I admit that I took out a magnifier to see the real difference, but the difference between the laser on black and white text and this Lexmark, the S605 was substantial (under a maginfiying glass). Inkjets, this one included spray out wet ink and that causes slight fuzziness on the edges when compared to a laser my latest laser purchase, which was the Brother HL-2170W 23ppm Laser Printer with Wireless and Wired Network Interfaces That one is a network ready wireless unit but does not scan, nor does it copy, have color capabilities or any of the sophisticated web enabled touch screen features of this S605. So if you want to print out the occasional photo and enjoy color capabilities, and being a Lexmark fan, I highly recommend this S600. One other thing I want to mention is that after comparing the print quality results of both the laser and the inkjet is that although the inkjet costs more for ink costs it also creates a much higher quality, thicker richer text image. It looks like it was poured on the page. The laser prints cheaper but in addition to the powder equation, it also uses less ink resulting in a thinner text; clear clean but thinner.

With the color instead of all black and white reminds me of some marketing and advertising data I had read. They conducted a study to measure the comparison between an all black text written advertisement, and the same ad with a second color, and the one with 2 colors produced 40% better results. I printed out a page with all black text, and just a small logo in blue that immediately attracted me to the page, rather than just a boring page of plain text. Of course there are color lasers as well, but they are usually more expensive in making the initial purchase. For about the same money, you can pick up the brother 2170W and this printer and have the best of both worlds, plus you have the ability to have printers in 2 locations. With both printers loaded, you always have the option of a printing job coming right out alongside of you, or from coming from the printer in a more distant location (another room for example) in the other format.

Setup was relatively easy. I tried the CD setup to automatically recognize my Verizon supplied wireless router for FIOS and it didn’t automatically setup using the one touch button on the router as instructed. But when I went with the USB cable wireless setup, I was able to choose manual setup and it worked like a breeze. I was surprised to see that the manual setup was that easy; all that all I needed was to input my WEP key number when it asked for it, and it took care of the rest. So overall Lexmark did their engineering, and made setup very easy. I was also pleased that I could add another computer, or as many as I would like, even my XP machines. My interest in newer printers was due in part to my need to find something that would work with Vista and XP in the same network.

The web enabled touch screen feature is impressive. It has a large LCD screen right on the front of the printer that you can actually access the web from as well as a lot of other functions. It’s the most modernistic approach for a printer that I have seen. All you do is create a user name and account to access Lexmark’s “Smart Solutions” such as Apple Hot News, Business Card Scan, Eco Copy, Google Calendar, Mobile Me Photos, MSNBC Headlines, and more… Once you have saved your choice of these solutions, they are immediately ready to use right at your fingertips on the printers touch screen. So this printer does a lot more than just scan, copy and print.

One last thing that I want to mention is that when I was using the Lexmark X83, although I loved the machine one of my pet peeves was that when the electricity went off, like during a summer storm, the printer, even though it was off, when the juice was restored, it would turn on, and place the cartridge in the middle of the carriage, and just sit there for days drying out, unless I would notice it, and go over and hit the power button, which would immediately park the cartridge in the protective position. Needless to say, I went through more cartridges than were necessary. This one the S605 automatically parks the cartridge after a certain period of inactivity time. I would prefer that they park the cartridge after every run, but I am not an engineer, so maybe there is a reason for that beyond wanting to sell more cartridges. Hands down you cannot beat a laser for saving money on printing supplies.

I’m glad I have this, and am already looking forward to being able to print T-Shirts, with the iron ons for fun, and cards, photos etc. I also like the idea of having a scanner handy. The only thing is that I wish I had gotten the one with the 4 way that does faxes as well. Overall a nice machine with tons of features not normally found in a printer and I also have to say that my 10 year old X83’s never failed, so I am expecting a long life out of the S605 as well. From one Lexmark fan to another, buy it.

A negative comment from Amazon.com:

Be warned on ink usage and cartridges

I purchased this printer the other day to replace my Lexmark X74. The X74 printer still works perfectly (in WinXP), but will not work with the new Windows 7 OS. There is no new driver available for it. Lexmark has determined that the printer is too old and they will not develop a new printer driver for it. So, I was basically forced to upgrade my printer.

I really liked my old Lexmark so I decided to purchase another one. I did some research and settled on the S605. I liked the look of it and the wireless feature so I purchased it and took it home to set up on my wireless network.

I have to tell you that the installation went flawlessly. As mentioned in some of the reviews I read, that reading and following the directions made it go smoothly. In about 30 mins. I had all THREE of our computers setup and printing with this printer.

I gave this printer a 3 star rating due to it’s printer cartridges. I am a little disappointed that the cartridges can’t be refilled and are a little pricey. The cartridges (#100) have a chip installed in them that prevents the cartridges from being refilled. I’ve had my X74’s cartridges refilled in the past and they worked perfectly – and cost a lot less than new cartridges. I only hope that I can at least get close to the number of pages printed, that Lexmark says I should get. Somehow, I don’t believe that’s going to happen. Probably will turn out like the estimated mpg your supposed to get on your new car – time will tell. (Read all Amazon.com user reviews)

This printer uses the High yield (2,500 pages) Samsung ML-D105L toner cartridge and the standard yield (1,500 pages) Samsung MLT-D105S toner cartridge.

If you own this printer, let me know what you think about it. Thanks!

— CNET Rating: 4 Stars —

The good: Cheap; prints high-quality text and graphics-heavy documents; USB, wireless and Ethernet connectivity; small footprint.

The bad: Lacks autoduplexing; ships with starter toner cartridge.

The bottom line: The Samsung ML-2525W monochrome laser printer doesn’t pack in extra features, but delivers worthwhile improvements over previous generations in output speed and quality. We highly recommend this wireless workhorse if you refuse to sacrifice quality for affordability. (Read the full CNET review)

— Amazon Rating: 4 Stars —

A positive comment from Amazon.com:

Great wireless laser printer: small, quiet, and great quality prints

I bought this printer a few weeks back. So, my review can only attest to the initial quality and operation of the printer. When shopping for a printer, I wanted a small, wireless (i.e. WiFi enabled), laser printer that I could use on my home wireless network. This printer fits the bill.

Once I received the printer, setup was incredibly easy. You just hook the USB cable to your computer, follow the software prompts, and then the printer is suddenly connected to the WiFi network. That is the last time I used the cable. Now, when I hit print on my laptop, it prints wirelessly.

I also like that the printer is relatively quick (24 ppm) and prints clean, crisp laser prints quickly. For $99, this is great deal and I’m pleased with the purchase.

I’d recommend buying this laser printer over the all-in-one units. While those all encompassing units may be tempting, I think you end up with a better deal by buying this Samsung printer and then buying a high-quality scanner as a separate item. For instance, I bought a separate Fujitsu Scansnap scanner (also, a very compact item). It scans so much better than the scanner I have on the all-in-one that I bought a couple years ago.

A negative comment from Amazon.com:

Do not buy if you have a Mac!!

I have tried and failed to install this on a new Imac. I cannot believe the appalling support by Samsung. The installation disc they supply simply does not work and it is not as though they have not had this feedback from other customers – see other feed back on this thread. I am pretty computer literate and simply gave up after many wasted hours. A visit to their website to get support is laughable, it takes you through an installation process under the heading of this printer and talks you through setting up scanning software! Unless you are an advanced user i would really avoid this printer. I have returned it for a re-fund it is just a shame they cannot re- fund my time! (Read all Amazon.com user reviews)

That said, I am striving not to be one of those sites. I want to be original. Provide something of value to the readers. If you think I am becoming one of those junk blogs I mentioned above, let me know. Thanks!

In looking for something to write about today (because it has been a while). I came across the following.

Getting a printer or scanner trustworthy to a mechanism is not a formidable task. One can simply get a singular plugged in to a system. Alternatively, someone can buy a singular multi-functional printer with scanner, fax, etc., all in a singular unit. This multi-functional copy section is easy to install, efficient, as good as user-friendly. No make a difference what printer you select as befitting for you, it will final prolonged as good as yield we with hassle-free opening usually if confirmed well.

One area of regard for people who move printers to complicated operate is an ink cartridge cost. Ink cartridges for Printers have been a necessary order as good as comment for a vital volume of handling price of a unit. This price can be cut down to a good border by correct use of ink cartridges. The cartridges have been in all opposite for opposite array of a same printer brand. Canon Printer, for instance, uses opposite toner cartridges for opposite Canon printer series. The prices of a toners change according to their peculiarity as good as an array of pages they can print.

Does this make any sense? Not to me!

Printer ink blogs have become fertile grounds for search engine spiders to crawl. By fertile I mean the post contains words that people like to search for when looking for printers and printer ink online. The author of the post uses some high frequency words – printer (used 7 times), ink cartridge (used 3 times), cartridge (used 2 times), and print (used 1 time). The combination of all the other words in this post makes absolutely no sense. It is useless!

What’s the point? The point is that blog posts like these are trying to show up in search results. Hopefully in the top 1 to 3 spots.  If they can do that, they can be pretty sure your eyeballs will see them. If they can attract eyeballs they will certainly get a few clicks. Eyeballs plus clicks means advertising revenues for the blog owner. For you, it means a dead end search.

Bottom line, it’s frustrating to see posts like these at the top of the search results. You, and I, are looking for something informative and relevant. Unfortunately, we end up with a set of words that don’t make any sense and some heavy use of our browser’s back button.

Take a minute and let me know what you think about this. Thanks!

ENERGY: August 4, 1977 – US President Jimmy Carter signs legislation creating the United States Department of Energy.

MISSOURI: August 10, 1821 – Missouri is admitted as the 24th U.S. state.

STEAMBOAT: August 17, 1807 – Robert Fulton’s first American steamboat leaves New York City for Albany, New York on the Hudson River, inaugurating the first commercial steamboat service in the world.

EARHART: August 24, 1932 – Amelia Earhart is the first woman to fly across the United States non-stop (from Los Angeles to Newark, New Jersey).

Water
Glycol
Pigments or dyes
Alcohols
Oils
Resins
Polymers

Most of these items make up the base of the liquid. The dye or pigment is what gives your printer ink its color. Mix all your ink ingredients together in a pot, with some heat, making sure to mix completely. Mixing will filter out the large particles and your ink will be ready to put in your printer cartridge. Make sure you test your colors before printing. You’ll want to make sure your cyans, magentas, and yellows are up to your specifications.

Okay, this is a pretty basic version of how to create printer ink, but it is actually how you would go about doing it. If your are HP or Canon, you’ll spend billions on machinery, formulations, and production. If you are you, you might not be so picky.

So, give it a try! Brew up a batch of ink, but make sure you let me know how it goes. Thanks!