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#68073 by Ted B
Wed Jan 20, 2016 5:44 pm
Is it just my bad-luck, or has the quality of new HP inkjet cartridges and the refilled-ones on Ebay and Amazon gone to hell?

I've been an HP-exclusive printer-user for over 30-years, and it used to be that you could buy a new one HP factory-cartridge and get months of refills out of it before the contacts in the back wore-thru, or the inkjets became irrevocably-clogged. I used to buy HP94 cartridges for my HP 9800 printer-plotter and it would plot many reams of 11x17" paper before it finally failed to work after refilling. Recently I've been getting maybe one ream or two before the cartridge failed, and a greatly-reduced number of pages out of a fresh factory cartridge before the first-filling. Sometimes I could go nearly a year between having to purchase a new HP factory-cartridge. Now it's barely a month or two. Recently new factory HP92 cartridges for my HP6320 printer/copier now barely survive two, maybe three refills. I'm starting to suspect that HP is recycling cartridges and selling them as "new".

The "re-manufactured cartridges" I've tried from EBay and Amazon have down-right sucked lately. They either come with barely-enough ink for 100-pages, or more often recently have been arriving "light" and empty -- or are incapable of working after a first-refill. Of the last 10-cartridges I've purchased through Amazon, 7 were "light" empty cartridges that refused to print even after refilling. An addl. 2 worked out of the packaging, but refused to work after refilling, and the last one last only 3 refills. The last 4 from Gigatoner were all empty non-functioning duds right out of the sealed packaging.

Several of the big-box office-supply stores have been offering the Epson Work-force WF-7620 11x17" printer-plotter-scanner for about $200, I'm going to buy one tomorrow. Apparently the Epson print-jets are part of the printer itself instead of disposable, and you just replace or refill the ink-reservoirs. The WF-7620 has two paper-trays so I don't need two printers anymore, and it can copy and scan 11X17" (yay!!)

I'm fed-up with being an HP inkjet cartridge victim...
#68074 by joshhuggins
Wed Jan 20, 2016 7:30 pm
We have the Workforce 7620 and it's a decent little all-in-one inkjet printer. Some of the paper handling is a little finicky, but it works better than some of the other 11x17 AIO inkjet units we've gone thru in the last few years, but we don't run a whole lot thru it as we only really use it for 11x17 scanning and color 11x17's. The print carts don't print very much though even with their XL cartridges FWIW. As for HP for inkjets you have to buy items that show up under their Office Category on their website and even then it's hit or miss. I read Amazon and Newegg reviews in depth before buying any printers now days and when I get it home/back to the office I run the heck out of it to see if something seems iffy. I have a OfficeJet 8600 Pro that's decent small format, but it will be my last. I'm going all business class LaserJet after it dies. HP's LaserJet stuff still just works like a horse. If you are running enough 11x17's I would highly look at that as a possibility if you haven't already, as the cost savings in ink vs toner might be worth the price of admission if you are going to be using it for the foreseeable future.
#68075 by tigere
Wed Jan 20, 2016 7:33 pm
A note of caution - if you go the Epson route I would suggest you also get the "warranty" as well. My experience has been about 2 years with Epson before "something" happens. I bring this up as I suspect that your workload far outpaces mine, so I can't speak to copy before crash - but both my previous Epsons seemed to "conk out" after a couple of years ... almost to the month. I am now working on an WF-7610 wide format and keeping a close eye in it. Unfortunately I didn't pay attention to the cartridge type 7610 vs 7510 and left money on the table with 2 backup cartridges I couldn't use. Darn it.
#68076 by joshhuggins
Wed Jan 20, 2016 10:44 pm
tigere wrote:My experience has been about 2 years with Epson before "something" happens.
Ours as well, with about 3 units before in the last 5 years or so. We got the 7620 because it was the only thing available in town and we needed something ASAP. So far it's been pretty stable.
#68077 by tigere
Thu Jan 21, 2016 4:52 am
...."we needed something ASAP"

I had to smile at that Josh, both my previous printers pooped out on the very day I had committed to extensive printing projects with some urgency ... It was as if the machine was just waiting for the "right moment" to pounce! Oh No not now!

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