Are third party ink cartridges okay to use?

[disneysteve]

We just bought a new wireless inkjet printer so that we could easily print from our phones, my wife's iPad, and her new laptop. I went on Amazon to order ink cartridges and almost every listing is for brands other than Epson.

Are the third party brands okay? I'm happy to save some money as long as the ink will be fine. 99% of our printing will likely just be text, not photos or high quality stuff. We have our other printer for that sort of thing. I can't imagine the off-brand stuff is that bad that it would matter.

Any thoughts or personal experience with this stuff?

[corn18]

I have been using 3rd party Canon ink for the last 5 years and it works fine.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00D921JPQ/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Much cheaper than the OEM stuff. Seems to work as well as OEM and I even use it for photos.

Tom

[kork13]

In general terms, especially for basic text document printing, 3rd party ink should do just fine. Make sure it's compatible with your particular printer, but otherwise it would work fine for you.

[disneysteve]

Thanks. The reviews on Amazon for the ones I'm looking at are very positive and specifically mention the exact printer we have so it sounds like a no-brainer. An OEM black high capacity cartridge is $34.75. A 3rd party 5-pack of high capacity 2 black, and 1 of each color is $35.99 so it's a substantial savings.