Inkjet Blues

I love my inkjet. It’s a Canon 5300 and it’s been a great buy. Good photo’s, fast and can print to cd’s as well. In just under two years it hasn’t failed me once. There is however one problem.

It’s an inkjet.

Which means there comes a time when you really need to print something and you run out of ink. Grrrrrrrrr. No problem though. Pop down to PC World and pick up the cartridge required. Except it costs quite a bit of money to replace the cartridges. The best price I could find for genuine cartridges was £51 (to replace all the cartridges). Ouch. A new Canon printer that offers better print quality, a couple of new features and a slightly sleeker design could be had for £80. What a waste though. However I was really tempted to order the new printer rather than pay through the nose for the ink cartridges. It was then I decided to do something different, for me anyway.

I’ve ordered a set of third party cartridges that have picked up great reviews online for only £16. According to the reviews which I always take with a pinch of salt as there is no way of verifying them, the quality of output is indistinguishable from the genuine ink that Canon supplies at over three times the price. They should arrive this week and I’m hopefully they will be ok. It’s the worst aspect of inkjets – the price of ink is a damned disgrace. Anyway, I’ll be sure to pass on results of the printing this week and also the supplier of the ink – good or bad!