It’s 2am in Walmart, you’re tired, and can’t remember what ink cartridge your printer takes.  Is it the WD- x4g9s3 ver. 2.8 or 2.7?  How many times have you been here?    What’s with those long, elusive part numbers anyway?    It’s great to see companies such as HP make their ink jet cartridges easier to identify.

HP has pioneered the simple numbering system for it’s DeskJet and OfficeJet machines, with codes like 45.  With codes this easy, one could send a computer illiterate parent, better half, or even newborn baby to Walmart, with complete trust that the correct cartridge will be purchased. 

Another nice feature of HP’s cartridges is that they include the print head with them.    If you don’t use your printer very often, the print heads can clog, and this makes it a lot easier to fix that problem.  When the print head is separated from the ink tanks, it is typically very expensive and hard to find, so if it clogs at 2am as you print out your senior thesis, you’re out of luck.    With the HP system, you can run to Walmart at 2am, remember the simple “45” code, and viola, you have a new working print head and ink! 

Ink Jet Cartridges, gasoline, the opposite sex; they are all annoying at times, but we need them in our lives.  Laser printers offer lower operating costs and higher speed, however ink jets are lower upfront cost and better resolution for photographs.    Ink Jet, Laser, Dye-sub, the war between the types will be fought forever.  Just like the war on drugs.    There are other companies out there which have started simplifying their part numbers, however I have an HP Office Jet, so that’s why I wrote about it.  It’s just listening to the customers and they are getting better

 

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