Speaking of printer equipment, I believe everyone is familiar with it. For many home users, in order to meet their daily printing needs, more and more friends will choose to purchase a printer for their families. Ink cartridge inkjet printers are inexpensive and support color printing, making them the preferred choice for many home users. In the process of purchasing consumables in the future, many friends may have the following question: Should I buy original or compatible consumables for the printer? What is the difference between original consumables and compatible consumables? What is the difference in printing quality?

Indeed, from the classification of consumables, it can be seen that printer consumables can be divided into two types: original and third-party compatible. The biggest feature of third-party compatible consumables is that they are cheap, but the quality of printing needs to be questioned. With this question in mind, we conducted a comparative evaluation between original consumables and compatible consumables.

1. Select models and compare consumables

From the overall sales of household printers, HP's inkjet printers have a good reputation and sales on e-commerce platforms. Therefore, for this comparative evaluation, the HP 2722 inkjet printer was selected as the test model. The model of its original consumables is 805, and we have selected two brands with good sales, Gezhige and Huawei, for comparison of compatible consumables.

In terms of price, the HP 805 high-capacity black ink cartridge is priced at 106 yuan, and the high-capacity color ink cartridge is priced at 116 yuan. The black color set of Gezhige is priced at 169 yuan, while the black color set of Huawei is priced at 159 yuan. In contrast, third-party compatible consumables have a price advantage.

2. Appearance and machine testing

Firstly, let's take a look at the appearance of the three consumables. Observant friends can see that these three ink cartridges are basically the same in appearance, with only some differences in details. This is because most third-party compatible ink cartridges come from recycled original empty ink cartridges, which are then cleaned and finally filled with ink, so the mold is consistent with the original.

Unlike original ink cartridges, third-party compatible ink cartridges replace the original sponge in the original cartridge with a larger capacity sponge in order to achieve greater print output. And from the appearance, it can be seen that third-party compatible consumables have added ink injection ports on the ink cartridges. The ink cartridge sets of Gezhige and Aiwei both provide multiple refills of ink for easy later refilling.

On the ink cartridge of Gezhige, the HP logo can be seen on its mold, and there are obvious smudging marks. Hua Wei applied stickers, but the areas where they were applied could also be vaguely seen.

Obvious smearing marks

So overall, although the appearance of the original consumables and compatible consumables is basically the same, third-party compatible consumables have been modified in some places. Whether the printing quality and user experience can be consistent with the original ones, we will conduct actual testing.

3. Print quality testing

For a printer product, the quality of printing is crucial. Firstly, we conduct color testing. Color deviation is a headache for users. If there is a color deviation in the photos printed daily, it will directly affect the quality and usability of the printed products. Especially for family users, it is inevitable to print some photos or color picture books for their children in daily life, so there are certain requirements for color.

During the testing process, we selected several photos for printing. The printing mode adopts the optimal mode, and all photos are scanned and uploaded using the HP 2722 inkjet printer with a resolution of 600dpi.

From this sample of the parrot, it can be seen that the colors of Gezhige and Huawei are noticeably darker, causing distortion in the color of the parrot. The photos printed with HP original consumables will have more natural colors and will not have the situation of "calling a deer a horse" due to color deviation.

In addition to printing photos, outputting documents is also a common daily requirement. Especially for parents in school, it is often necessary to print some teaching aids and exercises for their children. In order to obtain a higher reading experience, the accuracy of printing is equally important.