Just how much ink is in those little ink cartridges?
I was recently asked to help someone compare several printers and they wanted to find the cartridge capacity for the Claria ink cartridges of the Epson R380.
Evidently the government regulations in the UK require companies to tell more than they do in the USA. According to a 2007/01/13 post on the “Printers & Printing” forum (http://www.dpreview.com)—“It was learned from forum members in the UK that standard R260/265 cartridges have 7.4 ml of ink in them.”
I’m pretty sure the R260 UK version is the same as the USA R260—and we know the R260 and R380 use the same carts (T078 series).
Keep in mind, the “7.4 ml” is for a standard capacity cartridge. Since Epson claims their “High-Capacity” ink cartridges “offer about 50% more prints for just a few dollars more”, I would presume the hi-cap carts have 11.1 ml ink in them (7.4 times 1.5). This would appear to be about right, since most of the information I’ve seen out there puts the R800/R1800 and R2400 carts at about 15 ml ink capacity (these carts are a little larger than the “high capacity” R260/R380 carts—as you’ll see in a picture that is mentioned in my next paragraph).
Here’s an interesting review on the R260, with a comparison photo of an R800 cart (similar in size to the 2200 and R2400 carts) and an R260 cart. I love Alain Briot’s comment under the comparison photo:
“The R800 ‘regular size’ $15 Yellow cart on the left with the R260 ‘High Capacity’ $20 yellow cart to the right… What was Epson thinking? Is Claria ink so much more expensive to manufacture? Do I dare ask how much smaller the ‘regular size’ R260 cart is?”
And I’m not here to pick on Epson today. Forum members from “Printers & Printing” have examined some HP color cartridges and found as little as 3.5 ml of ink in each of the individual color cells—which would make even the standard (7.4 ml) Epson R380 cartridges appear to be “high-capacity”!
Posted by Royce Bair on 02/10 at 06:13 AM
Next entry: Epson 1280 dye inks vs. Epson 3800 pigment inks
Previous entry: Kodak is focused on women inkjet users