I'm sure this topic has been touched upon many times but for a newbie can you give me your input? I use a Lexmark x7170 all-in-one printer mainly for home use. The kids print pictures from Disney's website and other places. The wife prints scrapbooking pages, and I print CD labels for my photographic clients.

Knowing all that, what do you think about these office stores offering an ink cartridge refill service? My local store (won't mention the name) charges $9.99 for black, and $14.99 for color. Now to buy them brand new it would cost me $23.99 for black and $26.99 for color. Is it worth getting them refilled, or should I stick with new cartridges and just donate the empties to a recycling service?

Hi fjclaus,
as anecdotal as it is, i have been doing the refill thing for a couple years and not had any problems

That is of course if your refill store will even refill your cartridges (which mine won't for some reason) I haven't checked on any retail chain stores yet..

It is actually cheaper for me to buy a brand new printer with the ink cartridges then is it to buy the standard ink cartridges.....

Original inks are of better quality, while that of refills can vary rather widely. But for the non-critical applications you mention, quality is not a prime concern, so reasonable quality refills should do just fine. Also, despite what some people say, the printer’s guarantee is not invalidated by using other inks, unless the defect is due to such use, which is unlikely.

I've heard of people having ink leaks from using refills but we've never had a problem. We've got an HP all-in-one printer & have been using refills on it practically from the moment we bought it. I hear new printers have chips in the cartridges to prevent this sort of thing though... but as our printer is about 5 years old, we're before that.

Somebody did the math on the volume of ink in OEM cartridges, and it comes to about $3500.00 dollars an ounce. That almost seem like there should be some legislation against it.

I have found that its cheaper to buy the exact same model printer I have then buy the small black and color in cartridges that come with it when you originally buy it......

At least with the Canon MP190 all-in-one printer/scanner

40$ for the printer 37$ for the ink cartridges (small) its 45$ for the larger ones does that make any sense at all?

Chips in the cartridges? Maybe thats why the refill guy wouldn't do mine.....

Ink is really expensive.....

......and yet sad, is that true Corwin?

Yep though I haven't been buying the printer over and over again even because not sure what i would do with that many printers even if i could manage to sell a few...

But those are the prices approx anyhow from one retail store in my area

Perhaps the ink can be found elsewhere maybe even online for cheaper i don't know I haven't really looked into that as of yet

Look here and see if its cheaper for you. That particular cartridge is listed as compatible with your printer on the Canon website. Check here and scroll down to find it. Click the Compatible Products link to see for yourself.

Corwin - With at least some printers, the ink that ships with them is smaller quantity than even the normal ones you can buy at the store.

If anyone reading this has an epson or some canon printers (and lives in the US), I've found that Tylermartin.com has ink for cheap and they get it shipped out to you quickly. BUT you don't want to print photos with it, the ink fades in sun badly.

The Smaller size ink cartridge is the same as the one that comes with the Printer though they do have a larger size but they are about 5$ more

Rage - the remanafactured ones are cheaper they are the larger ones i had been buying on occasion at the store the OEM ones are the same price that I had been paying

Hmm, ok...

Do you noticed that some sites providing discount on buying two or more cartridges.
So please check it at once before buy it or refill it.

this post is more than a week old.

Costing as much as 60% less than branded printer ink cartridges, refills are no longer just an alternative, but, for many, the true answer to all their printing needs.
So,basically its depend upon the use because both have advantages in a different way.
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Brother Ink Cartridges
Sharp Ink Cartridge

New cartridges all the way (for me). If I used the printer that much to justify a savings, I'd use a laser printer.

Captain Cranky, anybody with a pencil can tell that your $3500 an ounce is just fluff or another CaptainCranky joke.
But the cost is high, outrageously so... When you have nine companies, at least (HP, Epson, Lexmark, Compaq, Brother, Samsung, Konica Minolta, Canon, and NEC) selling printers cheaply simply to gain the ink sales, you know something is rotton in more places then Denmark.

Maybe Obama and the English, and the Russians can get together on stopping this crup.

In all our years of maintaining and repairing computers and printers, we have never seen a printer which used refilled or remanufactured cartridges last very long. When you use refilled cartridges, you can expect to have only a half life for your printer, on average... some even less.

We rarely see the same printing quality, either. Many of the refilled inks have faded to nothing usable in less than a year.

Cheap is relative. Printer manufacturers charge too much, but there is a cost to refilled and remanufacturered cartridges almost as high over time.

Try refilling them once just to see the quality.
If you don't like it then buy compatible cartridges (not original ones) which are cheap and offer about the same quality (~90%) as the original ones.