stock of the HP 27 available on their retail outlet stores worldwide. They can also buy in popular chain stores like Walmart.
It cannot be denied that original printer ink cartridges are quite expensive. This is not surprising. Printer manufacturers lure consumers with cheap printers and then make their profits by selling expensive printer ink cartridges. These manufacturers believe that because the consumers have bought their printers, they are committed to buying the inks they provide for these printers.
Unfortunately for manufacturers, consumers do have other and much cheaper options than getting stuck with the original ink that manufacturers produce. They can choose to have their empty ink cartridges refilled at ink refilling stations. They can also buy generic replacement ink cartridges in lieu of original inks.
Thus, if you wish to save on printer inks and you do not want to spend your money on expensive branded inks, you can opt for replacement ink cartridges. The question is: Where do you buy replacement ink? There are two best sources for these ink cartridges, namely office supply stores and online ink suppliers.
Office Supply Stores
Physical office supply stores are good sources of replacement ink cartridges. Examples of such office supply stores that sell replacement ink are Staples, Cartridge World and Office Depot. You can be sure that the replacement ink cartridges that you will be buying from these stores are good because these physical stores need to maintain their good reputation with their customers. It would harm their reputation greatly if they were to carry replacement inks of bad quality.
There are even some office supply stores that offer incentives for their customers to buy replacement inks from them. One example of these incentives involves customers giving the store their empty cartridges in exchange for discounts for purchases on replacement inks.
Online Ink Suppliers
One downside to buying replacement ink cartridges from physical office supply stores is that you have to drive to go there. This will take up your time and waste your gas, especially if you have no other purpose for going to these stores. Thus, one good alternative to office supply stores is shopping for your inks online.
There are hundreds of websites on the Internet that serve as storefronts for ink suppliers. Even physical office supply stores have their own websites as extensions of their premises. However, when you buy printer ink cartridges from an online ink supplier, you need to make sure that this supplier is reliable. You can easily spot if the website you are buying your replacement ink cartridges from is reliable.
For one, a reliable online seller will have a return policy or a money-back guarantee that will assure their customers of the quality of their products. The website should also be secure against hacking and other security breaches. In addition, the website will have information about where it gets the replacement ink that it sells.
Original printer ink cartridges are expensive. That is an undeniable fact. However, you do not have to be stuck with buying original branded ink if it is straining your pocket too much. You have the option of buying replacement ink cartridges instead.
Dye- and pigment-based inks are two common types of inks that make a big difference in how your printer performs. The type of ink your printer uses will tell you whether it’s designed to print photos, black and white text, or colour graphics. Compared to industrial oil-based inks and those based on alcohols, they’re considered ecologically friendly—but they both have their own strengths and drawbacks.
Pigment-based Inks
Pigment-based inks are not water-soluble, although if you break open a pigment-based ink cartridge you’ll see a liquid. These inks are basically small pigment spheres suspended in water. They’re created by grounding chemically-based polymer resins into a small powder and then added to water.
Pigment-based inks are more resistant to UV waves than dye-based inks, so they won’t fade as quickly when exposed to sunlight. They have a longer life expectancy overall. But the colours themselves aren’t as brilliant as those you’ll find in a dye-based ink printout. Because they’re not water soluble, these inks aren’t likely to smear when they come into contact with water—so they do a better job than dye-based inks of resisting both water and UV light.
Pigment-based inks are not often used for colour desktop printing, because they tend to be more expensive and difficult to produce than dye-based inks. They can also run together and block the cartridges if they’re used heavily. Colour printers that use pigment-based inks tend to cost more, because they require special hardware that keeps the ink from running together, blocking the cartridges and producing overly dense colours.
However, they do tend to be used more often in black printer ink cartridges. With black ink, colour brightness isn’t as much of an issue—and the fact that pigment-based inks are more resistant to water and light than dye-based inks make them more desirable in that regard. Many printer manufacturers use pigment-based black cartridges in conjunction with colour ink cartridges that use dye-based inks.
In addition, pigment-based ink is usually considered more desirable for archival printing, because it retains its original colour and look much longer than dye-based inks do—even if it’s exposed to sunlight or comes into contact with water.
Dye-based Inks
Dye-based inks are easier to incorporate into digital printers because they’re cheaper and easier to make than pigment-based inks. Dye-based inks are water soluble, and they’re made by dissolving a colourant enhanced by optical brighteners into water. The resulting colours are much brighter than what you’ll get with pigment-based inks.
However, dye-based inks do tend to fade much more quickly in the sun and to have a shorter shelf life overall than pigment-based inks do. This is because the optical brighteners used to make the colours more vivid are also strongly affected by light and chemical exposure—and they’re likely to break down over long periods of time. Dye-based ink printouts can also take longer to dry than those made with pigment-based inks, which means that if you handle the paper too quickly when it comes out of the printer, it could smear and ruin the printout. Since dye-based ink is water soluble, it’s also more likely to smear if it comes into contact with water—even if it’s already dried on the page.
Dye-based inks are more often used for producing professional-level colour graphics and photos. If you have a colour inkjet printer, chances are it uses dye-based inks in its colour cartridges. Pigment-based inks, however, are generally only used for black and white or grayscale printing. It’s possible that your inkjet printer uses pigment-based ink in its black ink cartridges.
As to which type of ink is better for you, it depends on the type of printing you’re doing. If longevity is more important than any other factor, pigment-based inks are probably a better choice than dye-based inks. But if you need printouts that display brilliant colours, you’ll need dye-based inks—and the industry has already made that choice for most consumers by including dye-based inks in most colour inkjet printers. If you’re printing only in black and white, the other benefits offered by pigment-based inks may outweigh the fact that their colours aren’t as bright as those of dye-based inks—and you should make sure your black ink cartridge contains ink that’s pigment-based.
