Lee Morris from Fstoppers On the Insanity of Ink Printers
23 Aug 2023Two weeks ago, Lee Morris went on a rant airing his frustration about the Canon printer he had recently bought, highlighting how consumer-hostile it was and how expensive the ink turned out to be. I blogged about an equally frustrating experience with my Canon Pixma, and his rant immediately caught my attention.
Today, he doubled down on the topic, reducing the emotional and ranty parts, and conducting some testing on his printer. Here are his findings:
-
The printer in question is a Canon MG Series PIXMA MG2525, equipped with a cartridge for black ink and a tricolor one for yellow, magenta, and cyan - pretty standard.
-
He found that a standard black ink cartridge (PG-275) would print a measly 35 pages with black text, amounting to $0.45 per page. The cartridge holds 3ml of usable ink and can barely manage to print two pages covered in 100% black.
-
Another frustrating aspect about printers in general is that they won’t allow you to print when the color cartridge is empty. He confirmed that the printer would actually use the color cartridge even when printing in black and white. However, did this make a noticeable difference in visual quality? To test this, he printed a page as the printer normally would, and another with the output of the color cartridge covered. He couldn’t find anything that justified the use of color for black and white prints. Some printers, however, allow you to override this and print with an empty color cartridge.
-
Next, he examined the cleaning cycle: Online forums by now suggest never turning the printer off to prevent these cleaning cycles from occurring when powered on. During cleaning, the printer expels a significant amount of ink. His printer model goes through the cleaning cycle for every damn page. He conducted a test where he printed empty pages, yet the printer consumed a considerable amount of ink. After around 300 pages, about 3/4 of the ink in the cartridge had been used up.
-
How does the printer detect that the cartridge is empty? Some say there’s a sensor inside, while others claim it simply counts the pages. Lee considers the latter disproved as he “printed” hundreds of empty pages. Does that mean it can recognize when it’s full again?
-
He purchased a container of non-Canon black ink (the AYMSous Ink Refill Kit), drilled a hole into the Canon cartridge, and refilled it. The printer did issue a warning that the cartridge was empty, but he found that on his device, he could override the error and compel the printer to continue printing.
-
So, what’s the cost per page with the replacement ink? It’s $0.0041 per page.
His surprising conclusion is that with the replacement ink, he’s extremely satisfied with the printer since all he intends to do is print black and white pages. The printer itself only cost $44, and with the affordable ink, he can print for years.
My past experience with off-brand ink (from many years ago) wasn’t that positive, as the black appeared more like a bluish gray, and the refill procedure was quite messy. It was acceptable since I mainly printed materials for university where visual quality wasn’t paramount. Now, I’m intrigued by the topic again and I’m willing to give refills another try, even if it’s just to express my dissatisfaction with printer vendors.
Here’s the actual video; make sure to watch, like, and perhaps even subscribe to the channel. Also, be sure to read through the comments – it’s a sea of frustration.