I do colour prnting on a Canon Pixma MG8250. The main black (it has two black cartridges) has run out and of course the Canon brand ink is 5x the price of the cheap non-brand stuff. The printer is old enough that I'm not the least bit concerned about warranty, but, if I buy the cheap cartridge...
Will it clog up the print head?
Will the printer recognise it as being non-Canon and stop working?
Will the colour accuracy be OK?
Until now I have always used Canon brand ink but do so little colour printing that I've been using up cartridges I bought years ago and this is the first time I've had to buy any for a long time.
(I use a Brother laser for day-to-day black and white).
Thanks
well i mainly use a brother and have always used aftermarket inks from day 1.
1. Generally speaking no, have used a few different brands/suppliers, not too many issues
2. Pretty sure they are prevented by consumer law from doing stuff like that (ie block it), and for the same reason, cartridge sold need to be fit for purpose, so they couldn't really sell them if they just get blocked...
3. Can't really speak for this, it's probably a bit subjective - not sure I would guarantee they're good for photos
I used Epson printers for years, with clone inks, and had no problems.
Thanks both of you. I might take the risk on the unbranded ink. King1, that's a good point about consumer law although I'm aware that Canon has a bad rep for that sort of thing. I know to beware of batteries - some of the cameras look at what the battery is and lose at least some functionality if it's not Canon brand. Thinking that one through I now realise it could be why listings for the battery that is right for my main camera never actually show it in the list of compatible models. That's probably why. I'll cover the "fit for purpose" with regard to the ink by finding one that says it fits my specific printer rather than just going by the code number on the ink.
I think I'll risk the photo-colour aspect. I've never had my monitor calibrated to the printer anyway so when I do want something to look exactly "right" I fiddle in Photoshop and do a test until I'm happy. I used to print photos but rarely do so these days. Which is partly why I'm hesitating to pay the full price for ink if I don't need to.
We select photos and print them on a commercial Fuji machine every few months. For ordinary printing these days I use a laser printer - much cheaper.