Irate Over Ink

In the Dark

In some respects, vendors may have themselves to blame for consumer anger over ink costs. Expenditures on ink jet printer consumables--that is, ink and paper--can easily exceed the printer's price within the first year of ownership. But in reviewing how manufacturers present data like page yields per cartridge, we found that important data on consumables is sometimes inconsistent, hard to find, or missing completely.

Epson provides yield information on its Web site and in its product documentation, but we also found incomplete data on Epson printers at PCConnection.com, as well as contradictory information at OfficeDepot.com. Epson's Barnett explains that this is because in many cases an Epson cartridge can be used in more than one printer, and print yields vary depending on the printer; but Office Depot's Web site permits listing only one yield per cartridge. An Office Depot spokesperson says that the company's Web site lists the mean of the various yields for each cartridge.

HP printers do not include ink yield data in their product documentation, but the information is available at HP's Web site. Canon USA did not supply page yield data in the past, but in response to PC World's questions for this article, the company says that it is making the information available to customers on request through its presales or postsales support lines. Lexmark's policy is not to provide yield data to customers, but to share it with reviewers such as PC World. Dell does not provide any yield information.

Dell and Lexmark say that they have chosen not to provide their customers with page yield information because, in the absence of industry-wide standards for testing page yields, such figures would be meaningless. But this means that prospective buyers have no way of trying to calculate their per-page printing costs.

Ink Lawsuits

The relationship between printer makers and some of their customers may be less than picture-perfect across the board, but it seems particularly acrimonious in the case of Epson, which is the target of four lawsuits--three (in California, Texas, and New York) filed by a single New York law firm, and the other (also in California) filed by a different firm. All seek class-action status, and all accuse Epson of manipulating its printer hardware to notify customers that their ink jet cartridges need to be replaced while a substantial amount of ink remains.

The lawsuits reason that--just as a low-oil light on your car's dashboard doesn't shut down the vehicle's engine--Epson's out-of-ink message shouldn't prevent users from printing when the cartridge evidently still holds a considerable amount of ink.

In a written statement, Epson has asserted that the lawsuits it currently faces are "frivolous" and "without merit," and some industry observers evidently share that view.

"If Epson says that consumers will get 100 printed pages based on its specs, then a consumer will likely get that," says imaging expert Jim Forrest, with Lyra Research. "Yes, there may be some ink left over, but that is by design."

Canon, Hewlett-Packard, and Lexmark have also been targets of consumer grousing over ink, both in the United States and abroad. Indignation overseas in recent years has prompted U.K. and European Union regulators to urge Canon, Epson, HP, and Lexmark to tell consumers more clearly what their long-term printing costs are likely to be.

"Yes, as an industry, we could do a much better job of making page yield and printing costs more transparent," says Boris Elisman, vice president of marketing and sales for Hewlett-Packard. Elisman says efforts are underway to create standards for yield and total cost of ownership.

"Don't hold your breath for standards," says Tricia Judge, executive director of the International Imaging Technology Council, which represents third-party ink manufacturers and vendors. Judge says leading printer makers have been promising standards for the past five years.

Nabil Nasr, director of IPL's test center, believes page yield data for printers should be as readily available as gas mileage information is for new cars. "Consumers are entitled to know," he says, adding that without this information buyers can't compare the costs of operating competing printers.

Standards Needed

Until printer firms make apples-to-apples comparisons of ink yields possible, don't count on getting a lot of help in figuring out what you'll be paying for ink jet ink.

Next month, we'll examine ways to keep these and other printing costs down. Meanwhile, if getting a handle on costs is important to you, consider buying from companies that offer the most complete page yield specs, and calculate the per-page costs yourself.