I use a desktop inkjet printer, mostly because of their ease of use, convenience and speed. I’ve been watching how the manufacturer’s have been filling cartridges with less and less ink – below are my own personal views and experiences with Hewlett Packard.

I would say I’m a typical user, printing off every day reports, invoices and so on. I’ve changed printers every few years and the cartridges I use mostly are black ones.

Below are the cartridge codes and the corresponding ink volumes they contain:-

Year’s used     Cartridge Code         Ink Volume
1998-2002             No.45 (51645)             42ml
to 2005                   No.15 (C6615)             15ml
to 2007                   No.21 (c9351a)              5ml

Looking at the wholesale price of each of these cartridges, today (17th December, 2007) from a UK supplier:-

Cartridge     Total Cost     Cost/ml
No 45                 £13.48             £0.32
No 15                 £12.65             £0.84
No 21                 £6.64               £1.33

I’ve also noticed that the printers themselves aren’t built as well as they used to be and don’t last as long

I’m starting to think that I need to move away from using an inkjet printer, or at least the HP offerings.