Not all HP Refills are the same

Quality Logic Performs Study for HP

In April 2007, QualityLogic completed a study for HP designed to test the page yield and
reliability of Hewlett-Packard (HP) inkjet print cartridges compared to 13 brands of refilled
inkjet print cartridges for the HP DeskJet 5650 (C6490A) and HP DeskJet 6940 (C8970A)
printers. All brands tested were sold in North America. The refilled inkjet print cartridges
were comprised of refilled cartridges carrying the store brand, refilled cartridges sold under
a third-party brand, and empty cartridges that QualityLogic had refilled at refill stations.

Reliability (Beware of Refill Stations Companies)

Cartridge Reliability – None of the Original HP inkjet print cartridges were dead-on-arrival
or premature failure (as defined in Appendix 2 – Definitions), whereas, on average 20.9% of
the refill cartridges tested were either dead-on-arrival or failed prematurely.


Store/Refill brands Tested
• OfficeMax store brand
• Office Depot store brand
• PrintPal refilled cartridges
• Caboodle Cartridge refilled cartridges
• Rapid Refill Ink refilled cartridges
• Staples store brand
• Nu-kote refilled cartridges
• Corporate Express store brand

Refill station brands Tested

• OfficeMax refill station
• Office Depot refill station
• Cartridge World refill station
• Island Ink-Jet refill station
• Walgreens refill station


Page Yield
When looking at the total pages printed from those cartridges tested, on average Original
HP inkjet print cartridges produced 57.5% more pages than the refill brands tested based
on comparing the normalized 90% lower confidence bound values

When comparing HP to the refill station brands tested only, based on the total pages printed
for this subset of cartridges tested, on average Original HP inkjet print cartridges produced
110.1% more pages than the refill station brands

Note: Metawatch Inkjet Supplies does not use any of the above aforementioned Refilled Cartridges. We use only Certified ISO 9001 manufacturers who perform quality testing of all products produced.