Inkjet print cartridge page yield information?

Roger at CCCC · 4th December 2007

Is there any independent source of information on the page yield of inkjet print cartridges?

There are lots of reviews of inkjet printers and they all quote the purchase price of the printer. But most of the cost of printing is in the cost of the ink cartridges. Some manufacturers publish a rating on their cartridges but I doubt that this is very reliable. It would not be difficult to test the cartridges. Simply buy a few and run them until they quit then note how many pages were printed. But I haven't found any website or testing organization that actually does this and posts the results.

So that leads to my question: is there any reliable independent source of information on how many pages an inkjet print cartridge will actually print, at least for the most commonly used cartridges (for example HP 55 (black) and HP 78 (color)) ?

Thanks for any suggestions.

**Steve R Jones** · 4th December 2007

ConsumerReports.org has some nice information. The attached pic shows it.....

But, there is an annual fee to join the site or get the magazine delivered. I've been a member for many years and have always liked em...

Roger at CCCC · 5th December 2007

Thanks, Steven, for your response. I guess I am very surprised that few websites apparently evaluate print cartridges when dozens of websites post evaluations of printers (for free). But thanks - I'll keep looking.

**mattman** · 5th December 2007

Interesting topic and this may not help you at ALL

My daughters need a printer for their school work, etc. Since I know they are going to use lots of ink (even if I try pleading with them to be frugal), originally I rigged up an old B&W inkjet for them. Even then, the usage and cost of ink was a little eye-brow raising. I have now found a B&W laser printer for them and the costs have settled down very nicely. They give me any documents that need colour printing and I carry it out on my colour printer. Works well for all of us.

I suppose if I was looking for "good value" in a new printer, ink yield would be a factor, but looking the information, the main thing I would look at is exactly what I wanted the printer to do. Printing photos and their quality can be all over the place. Would I need really high quality photos? Do I just need "ordinary" photos and reasonably good colour documents? Who is the print going to be presented to? Are lots of prints required or a few occasionally that I could afford little higher quality on?

The ink yield could be good compared to other printers, but the quality might be very ordinary.

I suppose I would find a few printers that would do what I wanted, in my price range and check some of the reviews. The yield should be covered (checked?) in those, but I don't think I would base my choice solely on that unless I was doing a lot of printing and could afford, maybe, ordinary quality.

It appears there are many different levels of quality. If I went cheap or high-yield ink, I would not expect "high" quality printing.

One question I am asking after looking around is if black and white printing uses up the colour cartridges as well?

I suppose we need to expect that the manufacturer's yield results are somewhat factual.

Just some things I would take into consideration.

10 tips here:
http://www.printcountry.com/resource...mized_tips.asp
of course, yield is one of them.

Let us know if strike something.

Matt

**Rockster2U** · 6th December 2007

Great Topic ....

I too will follow with interest. I'm similar to Matt's girls in that I use a B&W Laser for quite a bit of stuff but I've also got a couple of inkjets and an office jet all within easy reach. My biggest challenge is moving print jobs around so the cartridges don't dry up for lack of use.

Now, my wife and her affinity for printing is a totally different story ..... Like I said, ...... I'll follow this thread with interest. (she probably logs more prints per day than a good technician in HP's "time to failure" department.)

Roger at CCCC · 6th December 2007

One thing that I have learned in the past few days is that both my HP printers have a page counter that prints on the self-test page. That means I CAN calculate my own cost/page by keeping track of how many pages I get out of a print cartridge. Unfortunately, my two Canon printers don't seem to have that.

I agree that cost/page is not the only criterion in choosing a printer. However, it is clearly more important than purchase price, at least for cheap printers, and that's why it still seems odd to me that printer reviews don't always list or test for cost/page.

Thanks for the comments so far. I will try to remember to post my own cost/page the next time I change a cartridge. If other persons would do that, that would be helpful to everybody.