The Cost Effective Way to Recharge My HP Printer - L&M W/O

There has long been considerable grousing about the prices of Inkjet Cartridges. Over the life of a typical ink jet printer, say four years, one could easily pay more for replacement cartridges that one paid for the printer itself. Consumables is where HP makes most of it money in the printer arena, not from the initial sale of the printer itself.

So in an effort to quell the rising tide of discontent, HP introduced the Combo-Pack featuring a Black and Tricolored inkjet cartridge tailored for the model of printer you own. In my case, the Hewlett Packard HP 96/97 Inkjet Print Cartridge Combo Pack with Vivera Ink for my HP OfficeJet 7310 All-n-One device. According to HP “HP Vivera inks offer radiant color, enhanced shadow detail, and reduced image grain for stunning color prints and exceptional black-and-white images.” HP invented Vivera Inks, which can “create up to 72.9 million rich, brilliant colors” to capture the real-life quality of photos and the inks are best used with it specialty photo paper, and the ink is supposed to resist fading for 108 years.

My HP OfficeJet 7310 All-n-One printer takes a No. 96 (Black) and a No. 97 (Tri-color) cartridge and that is what the package contains. Separately the cartridges would cost $29.99 and $34.99, but a Compo-pack cost $58.99, a savings of $6.00. This same combo-pack can also be used in a number of other HP printer; they are listed on the side of the package. Small in size, the cartridges nonetheless last me a goof four or five months depending on my print load. Officially the Black cartridge yields up to 800 pages, while the tri-color cartridge yields up to 450 pages.

Installation is easy: remove them from the box, tear open the plastic casing, peel off the clear plastic tape covering the electronic strip, and place them in the printer. After installation the printer will perform an alignment test (have a scrap piece of paper ready), after which the new cartridges are ready to use.

Paper is the key to getting quality inkjet printer output. Heavier (22-26 pound) and brighter (94 – 100 brightness) paper will make a huge difference in output. You can prove this to yourself by printing the same picture or text on regular 20 lbs. Xerox paper and 24lbs inkjet paper. The difference is quite telling, and it you are like me you will never print on another grayish-white piece of Xerox paper again.

I do not use my HP OfficeJet to print out many pictures so I cannot speak with authority to every day output of this type of printing. I print mostly text, or text mixed with graphics, and I have no complaints what so ever in this arena. My printouts emerge from the printer dry, sharp, crisp, and with no bleed, or jagged edges. Inkjet ink is a must, and the Hewlett Packard HP 96/97 Inkjet Print Cartridge Combo Pack is worth the price and convenience.