A Guide to High Capacity Printer Cartridges

Most of us scream with shock when we have to replace our printer cartridges because it seems that we have only just put a cartridge in. This is especially the case with colour printer cartridges as a lot of people are printing their photos at home with their own printer. The reasons for printing photographs at home are good – it’s convenient, it’s fast and it should cost less than traditional methods. However, this last point, cost, can be a problem if you are not using high capacity ink cartridges. Most printer cartridges have only a fraction of the ink capacity which they can actually hold. A good example is the HP 22 ink cartridge. The original HP22 inkjet has only 5ml of ink and retails for about £19.00. The high capacity cartridge will cost you about £25.00 and they have 12.5ml of ink. However, by using a remanufactured printer cartridge you should get around 21ml of ink for approximately £13.00. This means that you are getting 300% more ink for only 2/3 of this price!

So, how do you know which is the best deal? Firstly, always check the capacity when you buy the cartridges. It may look like a good deal if you see a cheap cartridge, but remember to see if the capacity (usually stated in ml) is on the listing. If the capacity is not shown, it is a good bet that this ink cartridge does not contain maximum ink. Secondly, check the long cartridge code as well as the short code. In the example of the HP ink cartridges above, the HP 22 has two codes – the short code is HP22 and the long code is C9352AE. However, the high capacity cartridges are coded HP22XL and C9352CE, so make sure you look out for these. But remember that some websites state high capacity ink cartridge when it still does not have maximum ink inside. The HP22 holds up to 21ml, so make sure that your high capacity ink cartridge does contain the correct highest capacity!