Would you believe that you actually save more using HP Original Inks than remanufactured inks being sold in ink refill stores? At a first thought, you might have the impression that you can save more with refilled inks. But actually, you don’t.

Latest findings of the ink cartridge yield and reliability study for Asia Pacific conducted by leading technical test organization, TÜV SÜD PSB, revealed that HP Original Inkjet Print Cartridges can print an average of 2.4 times more pages or 146.7% more than remanufactured and refilled ink brands in Asia Pacific.
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With regards to reliability, the study revealed that more than one in four or 25.7% of the cartridges from Asia Pacific brands of remanufactured and refilled cartridges tested were found dead on arrival (DOA – failed to print on installation, with substantial ink leakage, less than 50 pages printed, or color mix on 10 consecutive pages) or failed prematurely (less than 75% of average yield per cartridge type and brand), compared to HP Original Ink Cartridges that had no such reliability issues during testing.

Key Findings
Page yield
- On average Original HP Print Cartridges produced 146.7%, or 2.4 times more pages than cartridges refilled at the organized and unorganized refill stores.
- On average Original HP Print Cartridges produced 59.8%, or more than one and a half times the number of pages than all branded remanufactured cartridges tested.
- On average Original HP Print Cartridges produced 106.6%, or more than twice the number of pages than all remanufactured and refilled cartridges tested.

Cartridge reliability
- On average 25.7% or more than one in four remanufactured or refilled cartridges tested were either DOA or failed prematurely.
- On average 33.2% or almost one in three refilled cartridges were either DOA or failed prematurely.
- On average 12% or more than one in ten of all remanufactured cartridges tested were either DOA or failed prematurely.
- On average, 16.2% or one in six of all remanufactured and refilled cartridges were found DOA.
- None of the HP cartridges tested were DOA or failed prematurely.

Details about the study

HP commissioned TÜV SÜD PSB to conduct the study to evaluate the page yield and reliability of HP branded inkjet cartridges versus 14 brands of remanufactured or refilled cartridges from the Asia Pacific region. The 14 brands of cartridges were selected based on sales and usage in the region and sourced from Australia, China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Korea and the Philippines.

For testing, HP 45a and HP 56a black ink cartridges and HP 78a and HP 57a tri-color cartridges were used on 17 HP DeskJet 5650 and 24 HP DeskJet 930C inkjet printers. HP Everyday Paper (A4) was used for all printing in this study.

To test against Original HP Inkjet Print Cartridges, 962 third-party cartridges were selected from three main categories:
1. Branded remanufactured cartridges: Cartridges that were sold under a brand name and remanufactured using expended HP cartridges or from parts procured elsewhere. Five brands were selected for the test.
2. Refilled cartridges: Expended cartridges that were taken to shops to be refilled for reuse. These cartridges were further divided into two main types:
- “Organized” refilled cartridges: Cartridges refilled at stores that had a widely recognized brand name and sold through multiple outlets. Five brands were selected for the test, and refill outlets were randomly selected.
- “Unorganized” refilled cartridges: Cartridges refilled at stores that had no widely recognized brand name. Four brands were selected for the test, and refill outlets were randomly selected.

Additional insights

While not covered by the test objectives, the study also yielded additional data that can also prove vital in weighing options between HP Original Inks and refilled or remanufactured ink cartridges:
- The study did not consider opportunity cost for the time taken to refill cartridges at the various designated refill stores. These times ranged from 1 minute to 3 hours. The average time taken was approximately 17 minutes.
- Not all cartridges could be successfully refilled: Out of the 962 units sent for refills, 14 units failed or became unusable during the refill process.
- The results do not consider the color accuracy of the remanufactured and refilled color cartridges used in the test.
- The results do not consider the longer term damage to the printer hardware caused by using refilled cartridges.
- The results do not measure the high intangible costs of urgent print jobs which may be delayed by printer damage or poor quality prints or other issues arising from using refilled cartridges.

While there are visible costs like acquisition cost and cost of prints per page, customers should also consider the hidden costs in the printing process, including increase in labor time over fixing unreliable inks, loss of productivity due to downtime, supplies wastage from reprints, frustrations brought about by poor prints, and the impact on business image.

Promoting the better option

To reward customers who patronize the use of HP Original Inks, HP introduces the Go the 2.4 Distance raffle promo.

From July 15 to December 15, 2008, each purchase of HP original ink cartridges (HP 21, HP 21B, HP 27, HP 27B, HP 22, HP 28, HP 56 and HP 57) from authorized HP retail stores entitles customers to claim a scratch card which can provide instant prizes or a special code number that can be uploaded at www.hp.com/ph/inkpromo. This special code number enables customers to join the second and final electronic raffle draw on February 15, 2009 where they can win prizes such as HP 2133 Mini-Note PCs, HP OfficeJet 4355 All-In-One Printers, all expense-paid trips for two in New York City with a 5D/4N stay at the Holiday Inn Manhattan, and a brand new 2008 1.6V A/T Toyota Corolla with 2.4 years of free gasoline. With HP’s Go the 2.4 Distance promo, consumers will be better informed about the better results provided by HP Original Inks.