Monday, January 30, 2006

The Lunacy of Printer Cartridges


I've never been to an "Island Ink Jet" kiosk before, but Hil's been printing off scads of papers, and we've been going through ink cartridges fast.

As all of you who own printers can attest, it's the cost of ink that kills you. Right now, our snazzy Epson 5400CX (believe me, you have to know the name of your printer when you go looking for ink) takes a hundred bucks to fill up with completely fresh black, cyan, magenta and yellow cartridges.

It's ludicrous. A black ink cartridge from Epson alon costs 60 bucks! They're sneaky about it too - they put a microchip on the cartridge that tells the printer not to read it if it's been refilled.

We've tried using generic cartridges as well. Our last Staples cartridge cost 43 bucks, but much to my dismay, the Island Ink Jet guy goes, "Sorry. These Staples ones can't be refilled."

"What do you mean?"

"See this...", he points to the back of our cartridge, "there's only one hole. Normally, there should be another one for refilling."

"Why isn't there a hole?!"

"So you have to keep going back and buying more Staples ones"

Unbelieveable. Fortunately, Mr Island Ink Jet had generic cartridges available for the CX5400 for 38 bucks - cartridges that can be refilled for a lot less.

I continue my line of investigation in the shady world of print cartridges, "I hear that you can't even refill the Epson cartridges."

"Actually," Mr Island Ink Jet interupts, "You can get around their microchip, you just need a special machine that resets the chip. " (He pulls out some weird doo-hickey with lights on it)

"Oh - But it's getting to the point where it's probably cheaper to throw out your printer, and buy a new one with fresh cartridges."

Mr Island Ink Jet shakes his head, "The printer companies have thought of that too - lots of companies ship their new printers with half-empty ink cartridges"

***
It's pretty pathetic to see - with our issues of the environment, stuff like this happening. Planned obsolence, and a blatant grab towards monopoly. In the end, the only morals of the story are:

1. don't buy Epson cartridges
2. take them to a place to get refilled
3. don't bother buying "Staples" brand

j