Ink Cartridge yield standards
In December 2002, the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) criticised the four major manufacturers, Epson, http://www.stinkyinkshop.co.uk/acatalog/Canon_Printers_Inkjet_Cartridges.html, HP and Lexmark, over the lack of information available to consumers about the longevity of inkjet cartridges and the true cost of ownership.
In its report it said this lack of transparency regarding the price and performance of inkjet printer cartridges was unfair to consumers. The OFT claimed that 78 per cent of consumers use only the cartridges recommended by the manufacturer, which means expenditure on these consumables over the lifetime of a printer can amount to more than double the original cost of the printer.
The OFT called on the industry to devise a standard testing method for page yield and for these results to be made available by retailers to consumers at the point of sale and in promotional literature.
It also said the cartridge manufacturers should set up webpages where consumers can compare page yield and estimate the overall costs.
This standard was meant to be in place by the end of 2003 but the OFT gave the industry additional time.
In December last year (2006), the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO), in conjunction with a consortium of printer manufactures including HP, Canon, Epson and Lexmark, approved new standards for accurately measuring how many pages inkjet cartridges would print.
The ISO 19752 standard for testing and quoting of yield for mono printing on mono laser printers already exists, and now this latest ISO standard for colour printing on colour printers ISO 24712 has been implemented. This standard was agreed and developed in consultation with the major inkjet printer manufacturers and they have all developed areas on their websites which detail the individual cartridge yields.
It is easy to see how the ISO standards offer a big improvement – standard test pages, standard test methodology and standard way of calculating and quoting the yield which should mean that as a consumer you should be able to make an objective assessment of the true cost of ownership (TCO) of your next inkjet printer.
However, even at this stage there is the view that perhaps the new standards do not go far enough, in that the standard does not address all the issues surrounding printing of monochrome pages on colour systems.
In essence, the test programme specifies a five-page document to be printed as continuously as the paper feed of the printer allows. The 5 pages are mono letter, two data presentation pages and a block and line test pattern. The yield is quoted as the number of pages printed when the cartridge runs out.
The difficulty is that in the real-world environment, the mix between colour and monochrome printing varies according to workgroup and individual. Thus it seems more useful to test to two standards, for mono and for colour, separately on the same machine. Having such data would further assist in addressing any decision to upgrade to colour printers - and indeed make realistic comparisons with the yield on Multifunction, All-in-One systems which add a further major dimension to the cost equation.
Now HP have stated publicly that the system is not accurate because the test is a continous test and does not take into account normal usage, which is to print some pages and then stop for some time and then print again. Some printers run a clean print head routine if they have not been used for some time thus using more ink than other printers who have integrated print heads into the cartridge (guess which manufacturer uses this technique? - HP of course!).
Apparently the Manufacturers have until the end of this year to ratify the ISO agreement, and HP are going back with new proposals to amend the test methodology in light of the information that they have gathered over the past few months of having to detail much more fully page yields.
Here at Stinkyink Towers we will publish as much information on each cartridge as we have available to enable you to compare your true printing costs and will keep you up to date on these developments
