Having a portable handheld printer that boosts your printing efficiency and saves costs is a bonus to your business, and having your printing done in a professional and vivid way makes your brand image look even better.
It is a common sense that OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) cartridges are of the highest quality, but after you finish the OEM ink cartridge that comes along with your UPRINTJET printer, should you go with the original ink or change to a generic version? Beyond the expenses, what should be taken into account when buying ink for this special type of printer? This article will show you the details.
● Printing Materials
As you may already know, UPRINTJET has different handheld inkjet printer series and different models support different types of printing materials. Before choosing ink replacements for your printer, whether it is OEM, remanufactured or compatible ink, you should be aware of what kind of materials your printer can be applied to. Referring to the model name of the original ink and consulting the printer manufacturer is always the solution.
● Genuine Cartridges or Generic Cartridges
After confirming your applicable printing materials, it is time to choose the ink. But whether to stick with the OEM cartridges made by the printer manufacturer or change to its third party made equivalent is another question that pops up in many users’ minds.
In general, the most obvious advantage of a compatible cartridge is the low price. On average, a generic cartridge is between 40 to 70% cheaper than its brand name equivalent. However, with the price going down, deterioration in ink compatibility also goes up according to many consumer reviews and tests. This means there’s a risk of your productivity being slowed down due to the incompatibility prompted. On the contrary, though the pricing for original ink is a little pricey but you will be surprised at how long it lasted, especially without any issues compared to non-genuine ink cartridges that claim have the same amount of ink.
Apart from compatibility, third party made alternative inks tend to leak and leave lines on your prints. Small leaks can be fixed and won’t do harm to your expensively paid printer, but if left unnoticed, it could be time to say goodbye to your printer and your printer vendor will not be responsible for it. However, with the ink made by the printer manufacturer, this rarely happens and even if it doesn’t happen, your printer vendor will fix it for you and sometimes you may even get a brand new printer.
To sum up, if all you care about is the ink costs, then definitely stick with the compatible ink; but if you do not want any incident caused by poor quality third party ink to slow down your productivity and your item delivery schedule, OEM cartridges should be your first choice.
● Quality of Print Head
The print head is the most vulnerable part on an ink cartridge. There are many factors that will cause the print head to be blocked, such as the temperature and humidity, using habits, voltage, etc., but the main reason is the quality of materials and components. At UPRINTJET, all our R&D equipment, production equipment and raw materials for ink cartridges are imported from Germany. Each cartridge is processed in a dust-free environment and filtered through a nanoscale filter element. Using thermal foaming technology, our products have passed strict tests and inspections to ensure exceptional quality.
● Ink Adhesion
Ink adhesion is usually related to how well and how long will the ink stay on the printed objects. Poor quality ink replacement can be wiped off easily and ink colors will fade more quickly under harsh long-term UV exposures, which in return will bring unhappy experience to your customers and damage your brand image. Hence, before choosing an ink cartridge, you can ask the seller for ink adhesion test results. Referring to the genuine ink cartridges can always guarantee you the quality you need.
● Ink Drying Time
The core feature of a handheld printer is to make printing easier and more convenient, as a handheld printer that aims to print directly onto objects, the quick drying time is essential to ink cartridge because you will not want to stand aside waiting for the ink to dry until you can print next items. At UPRINTJET, regardless of water based or solvent based ink, the drying time on commonly seen porous and non-porous surfaces is super fast and at a few seconds.
To conclude, unlike traditional office printer consumables that you only need to decide whether to refer to genuine or non-genuine inks, there are a few more things for you to consider when it comes to choosing ink for direct print-on handheld printers, including printing materials, quality of print head, ink adhesion and ink drying time.
