Consumers want to make informed decisions when choosing ink cartridges and other printing supplies. When comparing costs you therefore need to look at a range of factors, including quality, reliability and productivity.
It is also imperative to consider your main projects and the purpose of your printing. This will impact which hp envy 4500 ink cartridge will be the most suitable to fulfill your printing needs. The ink cartridge option that you choose, should therefore possess the main capabilities necessary for your current and future goals. Follow these tips to ensure that you choose the ink cartridge that will best suit your business demands.
Printer Model
Cartridges are mainly designed to work with a particular series or line of printers. Therefore, your printer model will have significant impacts on which ink cartridge you should select for your business. When shopping for printer cartridges, you should therefore always bring along the model number of your printer. This can make the shopping process faster and easier, as not all companies will create cartridges that are compatible with your printer type.
Dyes vs Pigments
When choosing an ink cartridge brand, it is also vital to also consider which form of ink will be best for the work that you will most commonly be printing. There are two broad types of ink that you can choose: dye-based and pigment-based inks.
Dyes: The main advantages of dye inks, are that they are inexpensive and produce especially vibrant colors. However, dyes are not particularly vulnerable to sunlight and tend to fade over time.
Pigments: Instead of being absorbed by the media, pigments sit on the surface, making them less vulnerable to fading over time. However, they are considerably more expensive than dyes and do not produce quite as vibrant images.
When choosing an ink cartridge for your business needs, it is therefore important to see which form of ink is used in the cartridges that you are considering to purchase. If you plan to make a print design for the short-term, then a dye-based ink will suffice and will be a cheaper alternative. However, if you plan to do prints that will last for the long-term (such as canvases or posters), then you should go with pigmented inks.
Types of Ink Cartridges
There are three broad forms of ink cartridges:
Original: Original printer cartridges (also known as OEM cartridges) come with your printer upon purchase or are produced by the same manufacturer as the printer.
Recycled: Recycled (or remanufactured) cartridges either make use of old cartridge mechanisms to build new units, or are empty cartridges that are refilled with new ink for future use.
Compatible: Compatible cartridge are made by third party manufacturers and suit several different types of printer models.
OEM cartridges are characterised by the high quality of print they produce, but they can be more expensive than other remanufactured or compatible models. However, genuine toners have been specifically paired with printers and were designed to be easy to use, safe and clean to handle. Therefore you should always steer clear from compatible and non-original ink cartridge models, and give your printer the best fuel available from the original manufacturer.
Tri-colour vs Individual Cartridges
Tri-colour cartridges are a single unit that contain all three ink colours (cyan, magenta and yellow) while individual ink cartridges contain only a single printer ink colour. Both cartridges have distinct advantages and disadvantages depending on the type of document you will most often be printing.
Generally speaking, purchasing a tri-colour cartridge is cheaper than purchasing multiple individual ink colours for the budget-friendly office. However, if you will be using one specific colour more than others (for example black), using a tri-colour cartridge can be costly in the long run. This is because the cartridge won’t work when one ink cartridge runs empty, meaning you will have to replace the whole cartridge and forfeit the other coloured ink portions. With individual cartridge however, all you have to do is just replace the one that is already empty.
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Understanding the different types of ink cartridges available is imperative to ensuring that the next time you need to refill your ink cartridge, you can make an informed decision about the best option available for your business demands.
Bio: Laura Costello is a recent graduate of a Bachelor of Law/International Relations at Latrobe University. She is passionate about the law, the power of social media, and the ability to translate her knowledge of both common and complex topics to readers across a variety of mediums, in a way that is easy to understand.