HP Ink Challenge Week 1
Free Hot Samples is 1 of 100 blogs/websites selected to participate in the the HP Ink Challenge. It's a challenge of how their products perform in real life. The challenge will run for about 5 weeks. Each week I will be emailed tasks to perform at home. It's simple: I just print, participate in their forum about my experience and answer any questions/test about the products HP sends me.
To participating in the challenge I received from HP:
Two HP Hp Photosmart AiO D110 Printers
1 SD Memory Card
Two 10' USB Printer Cables
Two HP 60 XL tri color cartridges and two HP 60 XL balck cartridges
Glass jar containing near-empty HP 60 XL tri color cartridge and HP 60 XL black cartridge
Two 100 count, 4x6" HP Advanced Photo Paper
25 count, glossy 8.5x11" HP Advanced Photo Paper
50 count, HP Everyday Photo Paper Glossy 8.5x11"
30 count, glossy 8.5x11" HP Brochure Paper
500 count, multipurpose/ColorLik 8.5x11"
10 count, glossy 4x6" Kodak Premium Photo Paper
Two labels, for labeling printers
$40.00 Gift Card for refill ink purchase
One Photo Book
This weeks challenge was pretty much just getting everything set up.
1. Install the printers. This was actually not to bad from my end of it. You see I'm printer challenged, so my other half set everything up. He said it was pretty easy to do, we (he) had to set up both printers. One is using HP ink and the other is going to be using refill ink.
2. Refill and install the empty ink cartidges that were sent. We went to Office Max in Ballard, a stones throw from downtown Seattle. Once refilled they were super easy to install.
The gift card that was sent for refills had $40 on it. It only took about 20 minutes to get the cartridges refilled. Here's the cost break down for refill vs. new.
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.
The rest of the challenge for this week is comparing the prints from the refill ink and the HP ink for quality. You may not see the same results I do since the photos and pictures have been scanned and resized to be upload.
I had to do a print test of the New York Subway System Map on both printers using 4x6" Advanced Photo Paper and compare the pictures.
I didn't see a difference in this picture. The refill and HP Ink really do look the same to me.
Next I had to print a photo on the 4x6 HP Photo Paper. I printed out Pixie because she's so darn cute.
This picture I could easily see the difference in the color of the photos. The HP Ink is truer to her color than the refill. The refill photo made her stripes more red looking and the fur between the stripes a deeper orange color.
Now there is the fade test. I had to print out a picture on 4x6" photo paper from both printers. Cover half of each photo and hang it in a sunny spot until the end of the challenge. Then compare the two to see which faded more over the 5 week period. Someone else in the HP forum recommended the picture I decided to use for this test. The bars of different colors will make it easy to see any changes. Obviously the first column is the HP Ink, the second is the refill. The area to the right of the refill is covered to check for the fading.
Honestly, I'm not expecting either of them to fade too much, if at all. I have it taped to a window, but this test just makes me laugh. You see, I live in Seattle and it's getting to that time of year where the overcast is common and we don't see much of the sun until spring.
That was week one, I'll post the rest of the assignments as they get completed!
Posted 10/3/11
