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3 Choices For Replacing Your HP 15 Ink Cartridge
The HP 15 ink cartridge has been used in quite a few models of HP printers, so it's a popular cartridge. It is larger than some of the newer models from HP, but not as large as some of their previous cartridges, so the value as far as the amount of ink you get for your money is right in the middle of the road.
The HP 15 cartridge comes with 25ml of ink. Some of their newer models include as little as 8ml, so you can see that it's not a bad value. If you've got an older printer that uses the 15 cartridges and you're thinking about replacing it, this is something to consider. Those printers with smaller ink cartridges can get pretty expensive to operate.
When you're replacing your 15 cartridge, you have basically 3 choices for ink - the original HP brand cartridges, remanufactured cartridges and refill kits.
Of the three, the original HP cartridges are going to give you the most reliable and consistent print quality, but they're also the most expensive.
The remanufactured cartridges can be just as good, provided you get them from a reliable company such as 4Inkjets.com. These companies have equipment that will clean and refresh the cartridges before they're recycled, and they fully test and guarantee them before selling them. Remanufactured cartridges are generally quite a bit lower priced than the original ones.
The least expensive, but most problematic choice is refill kits. These kits are basically just ink and the equipment you need to refill your cartridge, and you use your own empty cartridges.
Because most people don't have the professional equipment the ink companies use to recycle their cartridges, they can end up with lower quality printing than the others.
In most cases, an empty cartridge should only be refilled 2 or 3 times before it is replaced. Otherwise, the components on the cartridge can wear out and your print quality can really suffer.
Price Comparison
Let's look at how the prices compare between the three types of ink replacement. I've found that 4Inkjets.com typically has the lowest prices on ink, so we'll use their prices for this example.
Original HP 15 cartridge: $28.99
Remanufactured HP 15 cartridge: $10.95
Refill kit for HP 15 cartridge: $9.95
Now it may not seem like the refill kit is worth bothering with for the $1.00 you save compared to the remanufactured cartridge. Well, the refill kit actually includes two refills so it's a better deal than it sounds.
Plus, these cartridges can actually hold more ink than HP puts into them in the first place. The original HP black ink cartridge and the remanufacture cartridge both include 25ml of ink, but the refill actually includes 2 refills of 40ml each, so you're getting quite a bit more ink.
So let's look at how these options compare over the course of three cartridges:
Original HP ink cartridges only: $86.97
Remanufactured cartridges only: $32.85
Original HP cartridge + refill kit: $38.94
Remanufactured catridges + refill kit: $20.90
So for a little over $20, you can get the same amount of printing as you would by spending almost $90 for the original ink cartridges. Makes a big difference, doesn't it?
Go and check out the HP 15 ink cartridge page at 4Inkjets.com for these cartridges and refills.