ok, so the printers loosing black. is it worth getting the cheaper cartridges for mr. printy, or is it false economy.

It's not any worse. And at some places, like walgreens and officemax, they refill the cartridge for you at a cheaper price.

Officemax also guarantees the work.

For everyday printing you should be fine with the cheap ones. If it's for photo's you want to last or proofing or any kind of professional artwork I'd stick with official. Realistically though if you want to do anything especially fancy you're better off getting it done at a professional printers anyway. You get better results and the relative cost is often cheaper.

Walgreens even offers free (or $5) refills periodically. I get my cartridge refilled then whether it's empty or not.

For some very expensive printers, there's a reason to use OEM-only stuff. For the typical sub-$100 inkjet, I'd go for the eocnomy.

higher end printers supposedly will clog with generic ink. plus, as mentioned, you'll lose the archival aspect (meaning they'll fade much faster). otherwise i have no experience with the cheap printer generics, but these recommendations sound good.

just get a syringe and some india ink in bulk.

@om nom nom - dunno about messing around with syringes and the like,

but the difference between cartridges is £1 for a generic one of £7.49 for an official one, it just looks too good to be true.

they make most of their money on those cartridges and the brand name ones aren't necessarily much better. you'd think that for photo printers some third party would make better non-brand name ones because of how high the margins are. i doubt you'd be losing much by using generic and for 1 lousy pound, you might as well try it out.