( 2 reviews )
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Posted: Jun 9 2008
When you get a good cartridge, it works beautifully. But there can be two problems when you buy a discounted one (the full priced ones are dishonestly expensive - about half the price of the printer itself!): 1) it may be old stock and so the ink quality may be deficient and/or the head has deteriorated so the print quality is poor, 2) it may not be a full cartridge but a "tester" that only prints for a short time and then runs out of ink. Most sellers [or actually resellers of such older/remaindered stock] do not clearly state what you are getting, but misleadingly implying that if the package is unopened then the cartridge is "new". I have found too many times [in trying to save money] that they are selling substandard merchandise - either ones that are too old or testers [or both]. My luck runs about 50% on them. The ones I've bought on Ebay have been worse; the ones on Amazon somewhat better. The date of manufacture is engraved on the bottom of the cartridges. Likewise, I've read that the full cartridges have a serial # ending in zero, while the testers don't. However you can't determine either when buying online. Maybe Lexmark likes to keep things this way to get people to buy the full priced ones and not take chances on the discounted ones.
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( 7 of 13 found this review helpful ) Posted: Dec 17 2000
I own a Lexmark 3200 printer and ink is totally expensive. It doesn't last very long either.
