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Head-to-Head: Printer Manufacturers' Ink vs. Cheap Third-Party Ink

In our tests, prints made with manufacturers' ink looked better and lasted longer than those made with third-party replacement inks. Want to see for yourself? Here are some examples.

Mark Sullivan, PC World

Printer Manufacturers' Inks Aged Better Under Ultraviolet Light

We subjected our print samples to high levels of ultraviolet light to test how well each resisted fading over time. The printer manufacturers' inks usually fared better than their third-party rivals in these tests. The images above, printed using Kodak-brand ink in a Kodak Easyshare 5300 inkjet printer, were scanned before (left) and after (right) exposure to artificially heightened levels of ultraviolet light for 80 hours. The printout faded by only 1.45 percent--an amount virtually undetectable by the unaided human eye.

Return to main story on our tests of printer manufacturers' inks vs. third-party inks.

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