Even if you are living in a cave, chances are you must still have noticed that printers are becoming cheaper and cheaper these days. Why is that so? That's because printer manufacturers are competing to have as many printers in homes and offices as possible, even if it meant making a loss upfront. So you see printer manufacturers selling their printers cheaply, and some even give them away for free as bonuses for buying other hardware such as desktops or laptops. But what makes printer manufacturers behave in such a seemingly erratic manner?



No, they have not gone crazy. All printer manufacturers know that the money is not in selling printers. But rather, the money is in selling ink cartridges. Therefore, have you noticed that ink cartridges are ridiculously expensive these days? Some printers require two cartridges to work - one black and one color. While others require up to four cartridges to work - one black, one cyan, one magenta, and one blue. Also, you must have noticed that the ink in these cartridges run out very fast. A set of ink cartridges can easily run out of ink within a couple of weeks, depending on usage. And taking into account the cost of original manufactured cartridges (OEM), that means you may have paid the price for two printers when you bought two to three sets of ink cartridges.

The printer manufacturers need to make their profits somehow, so they priced their ink cartridges at outrageous prices. This makes business sense to them because without the ink cartridges, the printers are useless. And ink cartridges are not compatible with other brands. That means if you buy from one printer manufacturer, that means you must also buy their ink cartridges, over and over again.

Fortunately, there are re-manufactured ink cartridges readily available in the market. Usually, these cartridges offer more ink, at much lower prices - sometimes less than half the price of original ink cartridges.

To prevent users from jumping ship and using re-manufactured ink cartridges, printer manufacturers attempt to use scare tactics. They stick warning stickers all over the printers, claiming that the warranty may be void if original cartridges are not used. But in reality, it is illegal to void the warranty because when a consumer buys a piece of hardware, he or she is free to use any compatible ink cartridges. So it's certainly not true that the warranty will be void if re-manufactured ink cartridges are used.

Still, the bottom line is, the printer must continue to function with as little wastage as possible. Feel free to run some tests yourself. Compare and original cartridge with a re-manufactured one and see how many pages can be printed. Then take the cost of the cartridges into consideration and calculate what's the cost to print a single page. You will be pleasantly surprised with the results.

In sum, bear in mind that using re-manufactured ink cartridges often result in cost savings never before thought possible. They will not spoil your printer, and will most certainly not void your printer warranty.