How To Find The Best Printer Cartridge Suppliers

Since all print cartridge manufacturers used to use different testing methods, comparing suppliers had never been an easy thing to do.

This has changed in the last couple of years, however. In mid-2004 most of the top ink suppliers started to work under the International Standards Organization’s requirements for testing monochrome inkjet cartridges.

The ISO works to create industry standards that allow consumers to rate and compare competing products in a fair and unbiased manner.

Printer cartridge standards allow you to compare ink manufacturers’ products. Since the same methods are used to ascertain the yield derived from cartridges, they are much easier to compare against each other.

The standardization by the ISO specified these points:

- Default settings must be used when printing test examples.

- Temperature is strictly controlled while test examples are being printed.

- Both the cartridges and the printers used for testing must be available to the average consumer

- In order to assure that tests are valid, nine cartridges of each type must be tested.

- Since a certain printer could unfairly affect test results, three cartridges have to be tested with three different printers.

Aside from raw numbers, you should also consider some other things when deciding on your ink supplier. These things include delivery, reliability, and general quality.

If you do a fair bit of printing, you can also keep your own notes about different suppliers to see which ones last the longest and are the most cost efficient.