Is HP REALLY Giving Us A Better Deal?: HP 88 Color Ink Cartridge

I have been building and working on computer systems for many years now. I remember back when I had my first Hewlett Packard printer, how expensive it was to replace the color cartridges. What had upset me the most is that at the time that I had to replace the cartridges, there was often only one color in the cartridge that was gone, and lots of ink in the other two color wells was being wasted by not being used up entirely.

One of my clients had been using a Canon Bubble Jet printer which I had not seen previous to working on their system. What I appreciated about that printer was the fact that each color of the ink was replaced only when it was empty. This did not waste ink by disposing of other colors that were not yet empty.

I was hoping that Hewlett Packard would develop a printer with similar inkjet refills.

Back when I used those older printers with tri-color inkjet cartridges (in the early to mid-1990s), I used to be able to only replace my cartridges about 2 or 3 times a year. I was still not happy about the wasted color ink, but I did get pretty good usage from each cartridge, despite the waste.

Later on, with some of the newer printers, I could even get by with replacing only twice a year and in some cases once. I do a lot of printing consistently, so this was remarkable to me. I did not print photographs constantly, but I did print a fair amount of colored graphics and a decent amount of photos now and then (about 5-10 a week).

After my HP 932C printer started spitting parts at me, I decided to get a new printer. When I found out that the HP K550 used separate ink cartridges, I decided to give it a try.

When I purchased the K550 printer, one of the selling points was that it was very fast, used larger capacity ink cartridges, and all colors were separate. The other cartridges available were very small in comparison.


HOW DOES THE INK CARTRIDGE COME PACKAGED?

You can purchase the HP 88 color ink cartridge in a separate box, or they also come in a 3-pack.

The HP88 Color Ink Cartridge is an individual cartridge- this review shows the magenta one in the photo- but they are all the same visually, with the exception of the different color ink inside and the corresponding color swatch on the label.

The HP 88 ink cartridge comes in a box and it is not individually sealed like the older ones were with plastic tape over the orifices. There is no tape covering the printheads because the print heads are in the printer- this is just the ink cartridge.


WHAT IS VIVERA INK?

HP88 uses VIVERA inks which are supposed to be a wonderful ink with long lasting properties and when used with HP compatible products are supposed to last for many years. I must say that the color quality is excellent, and even though this is not classified as a PHOTO PRINTER, the 88 ink jet cartridge ink does excellent photographs as well.


Here is the claim made by HP:

Fade resistant, lab-quality photos that last for generations.*


MY COMMENT
That remains to be seen as time goes on.


HP Vivera Inks, when used with HP Premium Plus Photo Paper, provide light-fade resistance superior to that of lab-processed silver-halide photos – up to 100 or more years for six- and nine-ink printing systems.

Get deep, vibrant color that resists fading for up to a century on some printers*

MY COMMENT
I am not sure how accurate that is or how we can prove or disprove this statement since it has only been around a few years.

Proprietary dyes help ensure that HP Vivera Inks deliver exceptional light fade resistance while maintaining a large color gamut. The use of dyes, rather than pigments, also enables HP Vivera Inks to provide an exceptionally smooth, uniformly high-gloss finish on glossy photo papers.

Exceptional ink purity means excellent photos and prints, every time. Ink impurities can lead to numerous types of failures in inkjet printing systems, dragging down image quality and printer reliability. HP achieves exceptional purity with HP Vivera Inks by tightly controlling the quality and composition of each ingredient, by putting dyes through a number of purification steps and by using a proprietary process to fill each cartridge.


MY COMMENT
Although my printer is not a photo printer per se, the quality of these inks and how they print photos is excellent and perfectly fine for personal and business use that does not demand high performance perfection of say, the graphics industry.




Low-colorant inks produce natural-looking skin tones
State-of-the-art printing systems make use of six or more inks, usually combining dark and light photo inks. The simplest approach to designing light photo inks is to dilute an existing dark ink, but dilution can significantly reduce the fade resistance of a given colorant. HP designs light photo inks from the ground up with dyes that provide both excellent light-fade resistance and vibrant color, even when diluted.

HP Vivera inks are carefully engineered to be chemically compatible with the diverse set of materials in the HP printing system and to flow and eject effectively through the complex, highly tuned components.


MY COMMENTS
I have used these inks on many different photo, cardstock, and daily quality printing papers, both from Hewlett Packard and not from HP, and these inks do perform beautifully on all that I have tried so far.

I do want to point out, however, that this statement is a generalization of the Vivera inks by HP. The HP88 cartridge is used in my printer only with four total cartridges- CYAN, MAGENTA, YELLOW, and BLACK.

The combination of these four still offers very nice realistic photos and excellent graphics, but it is not combined with the six or more inks as described by the excerpt I have posted above which Hewlett Packard makes a point of saying about THIS ink cartridge.

This is important to call attention to, as I found it very confusing when I wanted to purchase this printer. There were none locally that I could see and no one I could talk to about it.


MY IMPRESSIONS OF HP88

I like the idea that these cartridges are separate because if you run out of one ink, you don't have to dispose of the other colors just to get a new cartridge.

Unfortunately, I am finding that I am going through these cartridges at a pretty good rate- and again, I am doing about the same amount of printing that I have always done- Not an extreme amount of photos- possibly a few low quality photos a week if that.

I am having to replace these about 3 or 4 times in a year which I think is a bit too much for the size cartridge that these are.

Compared to what else is out there in the way of ink costs to replace, however- this ink cartridge is not worse than other HP printers- I would go as far as to say that these cartridges are on the better side of performance compared to all that is out there at this point in the HP ink jet cartridge side.

HP just does not make the capacity ink cartridges that they used to. And they do make high capacity ink cartridges for the HP88, and thanks to a tip from another Epinions writer, I was able to locate them at a local office supply store where I will try to purchase them in the future to test them out.


HOW MUCH IS IN ONE CARTRIDGE?

There is 9.0ml / 0.30 fl oz of product in each cartridge of color. Each cartridge comes in either CYAN, MAGENTA, or YELLOW ink.


OTHER NOTEWORTHY INFORMATION

Cartridge expires 30 months after date of installation if installed prior to *install by* date shown on package. If installed AFTER such a date, cartridge will expire in less than 30 months.

Minimum 6 month limited warranty from install by date. My cartridges came from Singapore.


PRICE AND AVAILABILITY

I have been getting my ink for about $15 a color cartridge(black is $21)

You can find these ink cartridges in Office Max, Best Buy, and online at Amazon.com as well as Best Buy and other online office supply places. For the tri-pack, Office Max is the only place I have seen them.

I usually buy mine at Best Buy because I get a free ream of paper for every two that I purchase.

Office Max who has an exchange policy of $3 off each used cartridge returned- max of 4 that could be used toward a new one. If you have one near you, it might be worth checking out.

For more information go to
www.hp.com