Honestly. How much ink to they put in ink cartridges these days? It must only be a couple of millimeters because I run out of ink so fast and I barely print anything.
Do you find that that happens with your printer too? Or have you found one that prints well but is fairly economical with it’s ink?
I know I just bought ink about two months ago. I’ve only printed a few things. How on earth could I be out of ink already. I think I’m going to purchase a big box of generic ink cartridges for my printer at an online store. That might be the only way I’ll be able to be sure I’ve always got ink when I need it.
It depends what kind of ink cartridge that your printer uses. Ink cartridges like the HP 21 have VERY little amount of ink that come in them and are categorized as economy printers, that are basically printers that are rarely used.
It sounds like you use your printer a decent amount, so you might want to look into a printer that uses an ink cartridge with a higher capacity. For example, printers that use the newer HP 74XL ink cartridge can print an estimated 900 pages at 5% coverage, were as the HP 21 ink cartridge can only print about 100 pages or so.
The easiest way to recycle an old cartridge is to take it with you when you buy the new one. Staples, office max, and office depot all proved envelopes (postage prepaid) for you to send your old cartridges in. Some places even have large bins to place them in. Next time, take your old one with you, not only will it help you know what size to purchase, but you can also leave the old one at the store.
Unfortunately it is becoming more and more common for ink manufacturers to put tiny amounts of ink into their cartridges. One piece of advice I always give to people is to check the price of ink before purchasing a printer and not be pulled into the trap of buying a dirt cheap printer and then being stung on ink prices (Lexmark are particularly bad for this).
I used to favour Epson for the price of the compatible inks but with the new range of printers there hasn’t been any reliable third party inks manufactured as of yet.
Brother is a very good choice if you do large amounts of printing. There are very good compatibles available for most of the printers and the new 1280XL Black brother ink cartridges actually print about 2400 pages per cartridge which equates to less than 1p per page (less than most laser toners!)