HP Ink Challenge 4, 5 & 6
If you read assignments 1,2 & 3 you know I received tons of supplies to do all the challenges. The challenge is HP Ink vs. Refill Ink.
Week 4 Test: Print out on both printers using HP Advanced Photo Pager, 3 pictures from the summer and the photo montage along with 3 other photos provided. Compare. I'm only posting one picture from the summer and photo montage, but I did print all required for the challenge. The results are the same for HP Ink and Refill Ink.
You may not see the same results I do since the photos have been scanned and resized to be upload.
Summer Photo: These pictures are from when we went to visit a friend in Astoria, OR. There was a dock near our hotel with sea lions just hanging out and taking naps. The HP ink is truer to the color of the sea lions, they appear to be more of a red tone with the refill ink. Some did have a reddish tone to them, but not as red as the refill ink made them look.
Photo Montage: This family belongs to Thom at HP. Again, the colors in the HP Ink photo are much better than the refill ink. Santa cheeks are so rosey red in the refill ink picture that it looks like he has too much Christmas cheer. Comparing the rest of the pictures in the montage, all the colors in the refill ink picture seem to be a shade or two off from the HP Ink. They are definately brighter and not as true as the HP Ink.
Week 5 Test: On both printers using plain paper, print out the presentation attached in my email. Compare the graphs and background areas. The other challenge is to print out an article on both printers and compare. Again, I printed everything but am posting only one page but all the results.
The presentation is 6 pages long and after looking at them all I didn't see a difference between the two inks. Which is strange, when you consider the difference in the photos above from challenge 4. Maybe it has to do with being printed on plain paper rather than photo paper.
Actually these both turned out kind of crappy. In both the type is fuzzy.
Week 6 Test: Fade Test. In week 1 of the challenge I printed some color bars and hung them in the window to check at the end of the challenge. These are the results.
This is what the color bars looked like hanging in the window. Half of each picture is covered to protect it from sunlight. I did mention in week one that I live in Seattle. The challenge started at the time of year where we have overcast most of the time. Sunny days are few and far between until spring, I wasn't expecting much of a difference.
To the right of the black line is what was exposed to light, to the left is what was covered on the pictures. Please ignore the piece of tape in the middle of both pages.
I was actually surprised at the results. The HP Ink didn't have any changes. However, the refill ink did! The blues are definately faded with the refill ink.
Conclusion: That is it for all of the HP Challenges. After everything that I have printed in this challenge it comes down to this for me. If you want quality pictures, it's best to print them on HP photo paper using HP ink. The combination does a better job than the HP photo paper and refill ink. If you don't print a lot of pictures or any at all, or just printing out coupons and school projects. Save yourself money by using refill ink.
From Week 1 Post:
Refill: $10 for the 60 XL black cartridge and $15 for the 60 XL tri color cartridge. Total $25.00.
If you were to buy new cartidges at Office Max it would cost $39.99 for the tri color and $33.99 for the black cartridge. Total $73.98
If you refill, you can save $48.98.
Posted 11/7/11
