Cheap printer ink: Easy savings or bad investment?

Last month I looked into toner for my cheap Samsung laser printer and was shocked to see price quotes well over $100 for a simple black cartridge. (The printer itself costs only $160.)

Expensive printer ink has long been one of the biggest tech scams running. (The Register long ago noted it was seven times more expensive per milliliter than Dom Perignon champagne.) Fortunately, third-party vendors have come to the rescue with offers of private-label ink and toner, often for half the price of an "official" cartridge offered directly from the company. But, as expected, the printer manufacturers have fired back, claiming that off-brand toner and ink isn't as good as what you can get from the manufacturer. In at least one case, a company sued an off-brand cartridge maker to try to stop them from manufacturing cartridges, citng the DMCA. (On appeal, the cartridge maker won.)

Legalities aside, the question remains: Is off-brand ink really as good as that put out by HP, Epson, Canon, and the like? I bought the cheapie and ended up saving $60 on the price of a printer cartridge, but if the quality is going to be worse, was it really worth it? That's an especially important question if you're printing color photos instead of simple B&W paperwork.

This is a long way of pointing the way to PC World, which recently produced the most in-depth look at manufacturer vs. third-party ink that I've ever read. (Only inkjets were tested, however, not lasers.) The bottom line surprised me: In virtually all of its tests, "official" ink substantially outpaced third-party cartridges, both in original print quality and in resistance to fading under exposure to UV light. Only one printer, an HP PhotoSmart, had results showing prints made with third-party ink as generally as good as the manufacturer's ink. Don't believe it? Check out the slide show showing some of these prints side by side. A few of the examples are outright shocking.

The bright spot is that cheap ink, in addition to being, well, cheap, will often get you more prints from a cartridge, too. In scenarios where quality is not important (like printing simple text for personal use), third-party ink might make sense. The problem, of course, is that you never know when something you might actually need to look good will come up, and who wants to swap ink cartridges in and out?

If you're pondering an off-brand ink purchase, check out this piece immediately.

LINK: Cheap Ink: Will It Cost You?