qwertydude
Printing Ninja
- Joined
- May 7, 2009
- Messages
- 522
- Reaction score
- 4
- Points
- 89
HP is hands down the easiest to refill since you don't even have to drill holes in it, at least for the integrated cartridges. Also keep in mind the newer Canon 521 and now 526 printers are designed to waste ink, and boy do they waste ink with looong "cleaning cycles" every time you turn them on and in between every few color prints plus if you refill the cartridges without resetting it the cleaning cycle frequency seems to increase and the printer remembers it. Canon is really going after the refillers too with the 526 series and their opaque cartridge so you can't even manually monitor your ink levels any more, it's 226 in the US but same idea. And if you let these run out you're going to have to buy a pricey new print head. At least with the cheaper HP's if you mess up a new cartridge comes with a brand new print head. As far as resetting cartridges, if you followed the evolution of Canon printers to the BCI series to the CLI's you'll find out resetters took almost the whole generation cycle to come out, now with the 526/226 everyone is still waiting for the resetter for these cartridges, and the resetter is an absolute must if you want to refill the OEM's safely especially with opaque cartridges.
I don't recommend the HP's with individual colors because they're pretty much like the Canon's and have opaque cartridges too, they share almost the same type of construction and getting aftermarket refillable cartridges can lead to ink flow issues, OEM carts are the best. And if you mess up the print head on the individual cartridge HP they're nearly impossible to find replacements for. If you must have individual colors definitely go for the Canon but read up on Canon refilling methods here very very carefully, or you can run into bigger headaches than your HP tri-color ever gave you. I speak from experience owning HP, then Canon and now Epson.
I don't recommend the HP's with individual colors because they're pretty much like the Canon's and have opaque cartridges too, they share almost the same type of construction and getting aftermarket refillable cartridges can lead to ink flow issues, OEM carts are the best. And if you mess up the print head on the individual cartridge HP they're nearly impossible to find replacements for. If you must have individual colors definitely go for the Canon but read up on Canon refilling methods here very very carefully, or you can run into bigger headaches than your HP tri-color ever gave you. I speak from experience owning HP, then Canon and now Epson.