INK AND MAINTENANCE LIGHTS FLASHING

[JSR]

On one of the models that told me my ink cartridge was empty, I actually dismantled the cartridge and it was still a third full of ink

Which?, the consumer magazine, ran some tests a few years ago and found that an Epson cartridge could hold up to 38% of it's ink when the chip reported it as being empty

These tests were done by many different organisations, mostly during the time of multi-colour cartridges - like the 5 colour cartridge in the old 1290.

One particularly test was done against the Picturemate, which had an all-in-one 6-ink cartridge. These results caused such a stir in the US that a class-action suit was made against Epson.

The trouble is that these figures don't tell the whole story.

Epson cartridges were always intended to have some ink remaining in them because of the problem of drying/clogging printheads. Yes, Epson could let you use all of the ink - but if that resulting in destroying the printhead so you throwaway the printer, was it really worth using that last bit of ink?

Some tests were done on single-ink cartridges which proved this. A cartridge that's said to contain 11ml of ink actually contained 13ml of ink. The 11ml claim was of "usable ink", not physical ink. You always got to use what you paid for. What's left is excess to preserve the printhead - not waste that you paid for.

People who read the Which? type tests complained that ink was being wasted, with the most common outburst being "I paid for the ink, I should be able to use it!" But that's not the case. You're paying for 11ml of ink. If the cartridge has 2-3ml more ink in it to save the printhead, then it's not usable ink. You're only paying for 11ml, not 13-14ml.

The Picturemate case brought it all to a head because, when one colour ran out, all the other colours still had significant ink left. That's where the 38% figure came from.

The thing is that that doesn't tell the whole story either. The Picturemate cartridge was intended to produce 100 prints - that's why it was sold with 100 sheets of paper. In the real world, you would easily get 135 pictures (you'd have to buy extra paper). That's 35% *more* prints than intended. And, even after that, you can still print more. You're getting what you paid for - more than what you paid for, regardless of how much ink might be left afterwards.

I did my own tests on a Picturemate and tended to get around 150 prints before the cartridge registered empty. Yes, there was still ink left in the other colours (that agreed with the 38% wasteage figure) but I was getting 50% more prints than I'd bought anyway, so what had I lost? Nothing.

People are very quick to jump on Epson because there's some ink left in the cartridge, but the argument does not stand up to examination. You always get to use what was intended, you always get what you paid for, and often you get more than what you pay for. So what if there's ink left over? That's intended to preserve the printhead, not to print with.

[JSR]

Two Epson A3+ formats at £99 each, two D92's at £18 each. At those prices I wouldn't even contemplate any repairs, as simply not worth the hassles of dealing with indifferent repair folks.

Where did you buy the printers from at that price? I'm sure we'd all like to know.

[DREAMGLASS]

People are very quick to jump on Epson because there's some ink left in the cartridge, but the argument does not stand up to examination. You always get to use what was intended, you always get what you paid for, and often you get more than what you pay for. So what if there's ink left over? That's intended to preserve the printhead, not to print with.

Where it became a problem is when those printer manufacturers were quoting a price per copy based on the full capacity of an ink cartridge which could never be achieved. Which and the other consumer organisations quickly picked up on that sort of outright deception.

Incidentally Epson were the ones trying to make it illegal for people trying to sell refillable cartridges for their printers in the States but not surprisingly bulk systems. A move that would be unlikely to succeed in European courts. People use refillable cartridges for a whole variety of alternative ink needs, including sublimation, photographic, uv sensitised and even dtg inks. Epson don't sell inks for those specialised markets. It was also Epson that prevented sale of parts for their pro range of printers to be sold anymore. These now have to be fitted directly by Epson at a far higher cost than before.

It is not just Epson whose credentials are open to question. PC World about six years ago were selling a printer from another mainstream manufacturer at a regular price of £22. The replacement cartridges were over £29 so people were just junking the printer when it ran out of ink and buying a brand new printer. Crazy but true.

Where did you buy the printers from at that price? I'm sure we'd all like to know.

When a new model is brought out, all printer manufacturers sell off the old models cheaply to clear them. Usually to the big 'box shifters'. Surprisingly Amazon and Tesco have deals that can't be beaten with clearance lines.

[JSR]

Where it became a problem is when those printer manufacturers were quoting a price per copy based on the full capacity of an ink cartridge which could never be achieved. Which and the other consumer organisations quickly picked up on that sort of outright deception.

Do you have a link to this problem? At the time of the issue in question, Epson were printing a "ml" quantity on their cartridges. People who opened up new cartridges found that there were approximately 2ml more of ink in the cartridge than that quoted on the side of the box. I don't recall manufacturers quoting a "price per copy" because the price depends on the type of print, the price of the cartridge, and the amount of ink used on the print. As I recall, all manufacturers ever tended to do was quote a number of pages at 5% coverage, which had no real relationship to real world printing but it wasn't inaccurate.

Incidentally Epson were the ones trying to make it illegal for people trying to sell refillable cartridges for their printers in the States but not surprisingly bulk systems. A move that would be unlikely to succeed in European courts. People use refillable cartridges for a whole variety of alternative ink needs, including sublimation, photographic, uv sensitised and even dtg inks. Epson don't sell inks for those specialised markets. It was also Epson that prevented sale of parts for their pro range of printers to be sold anymore. These now have to be fitted directly by Epson at a far higher cost than before.

I'm no defender of Epson's practices and they do need to be called into question with unfairness such as their desire for ever decreasing size of ink cartridges (the smaller they are, the more often you change, and the more that gets wasted from the other cartridges), and their habit of redefining "standard" cartridges as "high capacity" ones just so they can call half-filled thimble cartridges "standard" rather than "low capacity". I just feel we need to be clear where there is wrong-doing and where there isn't.

I recall one website (a supplier of dye-sub photo printers) that were on a crusade against Epson and used the "38% wasted" report to justify their own dye-sub printers. Their argument was that you get a fixed page price with a dye sub, but an Epson Picturemate wastes over a third of the ink. They failed to point out that the "fixed page" print price from the dye-sub was 29p for a 6x4, while the "wasted ink" print price from a Picturemate was 12.5p. This is largely the reason it annoys me when people just put down the "38% wasted ink" headline without actually going into what it means. At the time that Picturemates were "wasting 38%" of their ink, 12.5p was a pretty good price for a 6"x4" photo that would last for 100 years. Unfortunately, the class action suit in the US led Epson to dumping the really good Picturemates and releasing inferior models instead, just so they wouldn't get sued again. Today, the price per print from a Picturemate is more expensive - but at least they don't waste as much ink. I'm not entirely sure that we (the consumer) won that battle.

The sad thing is that colour laser printers are now sold under the same pricing model as inkjets, leading to some lasers costing more than some inkjets in page cost. All manufacturers are guilty of that, including Epson.

It is not just Epson whose credentials are open to question. PC World about six years ago were selling a printer from another mainstream manufacturer at a regular price of £22. The replacement cartridges were over £29 so people were just junking the printer when it ran out of ink and buying a brand new printer. Crazy but true.

I believe it was PC World who sold Lexmark printers for £29 (the first printer below £30, they claimed). Yet, when people got it home they found it only came with a tri-colour cartridge. To print black, you had to go back to the shop and spend another £35 on a black ink cartridge. Suddenly the £29 printer price wasn't so cheap.

On the non-Epson front, I recall a website that took HP and Lexmark cartridges and disassembled them. The cartridges themselves look massive, but when opened you could see the very tiny space that contained the tiniest amount of ink. You think you're buying a big cartridge, but you have a tiny amount of ink and a lot of air.

Manufacturers play all these kinds of tricks. Like there was a time when the argument was that Epson cartridges were too expensive because they were twice the price of Canon cartridges - but no one thought to look that Epson cartridges had 10-14ml of ink in them while the "half the price" Canon ones held just 3-5ml of ink. Of course they were half the price, but the cost-per-ml (and cost per print) was significantly higher. This ultimately resulted in Epson selling half-filled cartridges with less ink in them, just so they could challenge their rivals on "price per cartridge".

No wonder the consumer never knows which is the best printer, or brand, to buy.

Most of these things that we've both mentioned are certainly wrong but, it seems, all that comes from it is an even worse deal for the end user. We (the consumer) achieved nothing from the "38% wasted ink" lawsuit. We (the consumer) achieved nothing from the "half-price Canon cartridge" argument. The situation for us just got worse, not better.

When a new model is brought out, all printer manufacturers sell off the old models cheaply to clear them. Usually to the big 'box shifters'. Surprisingly Amazon and Tesco have deals that can't be beaten with clearance lines.

I hadn't thought of Tesco, but I'm sure I would have seen them if they were on Amazon. I'll have to pay more attention. I quite like the idea of a £99 A3 printer...

[DREAMGLASS]

The ink wastage on cartridges is not really an issue for me as such, as I don't buy any printers unless either refillable cartridges or bulk feeds with auto reset chips are available for that model. I did used to own a big Epson 3000 and that used to annoy me when one of the cartridges regularly used to run out halfway through printing up a big piece of art canvas, as it effectively used to mean scrapping the canvas.

Perhaps my biggest irritation with printer manufacturers in general, is when they moved up to silly numbers of cartridges in their printers. I defy the average person in the street to tell the difference between the output from a four cartridge printer and an eight cartridge printer. Many of the big Giclee art printers used by professional studios only use four ink colours.

When you start fitting multiple cartridges into a smaller format printer, you have to reduce the ink capacities not just to get them all fitted into a confined space, but also to reduce the weight on the printhead carriage mechanism. Most smaller printers are built to a price and are nothing as like as robust as their bigger brothers. I have a big Epson 9600 series and it is built like a tank. Get a lot of small capacity ink cartridges in a small printer and it is inevitable that you'll always have one that is about to run out. That is both frustrating and inconvenient for owners, to mention nothing of the time wasted in replacing cartridges and ordering new ones.

I'd have been happy for printer manufacturers to produce a well built four colour printer, with decent sized ink tanks aimed at business use. A plain, no frills workhorse.

[JSR]

Perhaps my biggest irritation with printer manufacturers in general, is when they moved up to silly numbers of cartridges in their printers. I defy the average person in the street to tell the difference between the output from a four cartridge printer and an eight cartridge printer. Many of the big Giclee art printers used by professional studios only use four ink colours.

In some cases, the additional inks served a purpose. For example, pigment inks used to have quite a small colour gamut compared to dye inks. To solve the problem, Epson reduced the droplet size to 1.5pl and added Red and Blue inks to strengthen the gamut in the red and blue areas - that was the R800/1800 printers. In another instance, they kept with the "light" colour inks so they could keep the droplet size larger and used three shades of black for superior mono printing.

When you start fitting multiple cartridges into a smaller format printer, you have to reduce the ink capacities not just to get them all fitted into a confined space, but also to reduce the weight on the printhead carriage mechanism. Most smaller printers are built to a price and are nothing as like as robust as their bigger brothers.

I do wish that Epson would produce desktop printers with fixed-position ink tanks. I don't see why they can't do it. My A3 Brother AIO (that costs less than the Epson B1100) has fixed-position ink cartridges of a reasonable size. My previous A4 version had fixed-position ink cartridges, as does my HP Officejet, and a previous Picturemate.

If Epson adopted the same practice, it'd sure save us the trouble of having CISS cables wopping about all over the place.

I have a big Epson 9600 series and it is built like a tank. Get a lot of small capacity ink cartridges in a small printer and it is inevitable that you'll always have one that is about to run out. That is both frustrating and inconvenient for owners, to mention nothing of the time wasted in replacing cartridges and ordering new ones.

Yes, that's the whole issue with moving from multi-ink cartridges to single-ink cartridges. It sounds good on paper because, it's alleged, there's less wasted ink, but the printer pretty much spends its life always telling you that one is empty. This is true even with my HP Officejet that has, comparatively speaking, large ink tanks (59ml black,17ml colours). If that kind of printer flashes "ink low" in perpetuity, then printers with 7ml ink cartridges have no chance.

I'd have been happy for printer manufacturers to produce a well built four colour printer, with decent sized ink tanks aimed at business use. A plain, no frills workhorse.

That's one of the reasons I haven't replaced my HP. The large tanks mean it is cheaper to run than a laser (particularly mono printing). It has two paper trays, and built-in duplex, and it's fast (compared to other printers I have). I've been watching HP's printers to see if there's a modern model that runs just as cheap, and there just isn't. All printer manufacturers are as bad as each other.

[DREAMGLASS]

I do wish that Epson would produce desktop printers with fixed-position ink tanks. I don't see why they can't do it. My A3 Brother AIO (that costs less than the Epson B1100) has fixed-position ink cartridges of a reasonable size. My previous A4 version had fixed-position ink cartridges, as does my HP Officejet, and a previous Picturemate.

If Epson adopted the same practice, it'd sure save us the trouble of having CISS cables wopping about all over the place.

The Epson 3000 I used to own had fixed position ink cartridges of large capacity, so the technology is within their capabilities

All printer manufacturers are as bad as each other.

Aint that the truth.