Customer Reviews

HP 96 Black Inkjet Print Cartridge

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I bought a new HP Deskjet 6980 from HP, which included one 97 color and 96 black ink cartridges. I installed the ink cartridges and noticed the printer's ink light blinking. I used the diagnostic tools of the printer to check the ink level, and saw that the 96 black cartridge was empty! Brand new, out of the box printer with "brand new" ink cartridges, and it came with no ink. Upon further inspection, I noticed a long pen mark on the 96 cartridge, so it's very likely the cartridge was tampered with.

HP sold me a brand new printer with an empty ink cartridge. Consumer, beware!

Despite being very happy with my HP Officejet 7310, the ink has turned out to be a painful expense. In the past six months, I have gone through three of these cartridges. I hate to single HP out, but the entire inkjet industry is guilty of fighting price transparency with inexpensive printers and inflated ink. This is not to mention the constant changing of ink cartridges models. Does HP really need 200 different models of ink cartridges? No. It would, in fact, be much cheaper to consolidate the cartridge offerings. However, this would lead to excessive duplication and remanufacturing by third parties.

What is particularly amusing, and perhaps offensive to some, is the enclosed "recycling" envelope that comes with new HP ink cartridges. This prepaid envelope, with the empty cartridge, goes back to HP so that it can demonstrate its environmental leadership. Of course, HP doesn't want the empty cartridges to go back into the hands of companies that refill and remanufacture them. Although I haven't done the calculations, I would assume the transportation and handling costs would actually do more harm than good to the environment. My suggestion is to fill the prepaid envelope with torn up remains of the consumer packaging that comes with the cartridges.