Ensure your printer never runs out of ink

Martyn Casserly reveals how HP and Epson will make sure that your printer is topped up with ink

It’s fair to say that, aside from the 3D variety, printer technology has hit something of a plateau in terms of print quality, speed and features. Most printers you can buy these days will offer colour inks, wireless connection, and can easily handle printing photographs. With this in mind, two of the largest manufacturers in this area have decided to put the focus back on the ink rather than the printer itself, coming up with a couple innovative and distinct approaches. In this feature, we’ll compare HP’s new Instant Ink service against Epson’s EcoTank system to see which one offers the best value and performance for your money.

HP Instant Ink

HP recently introduced a subscription service called Instant Ink. For a monthly fee, you can print a set number of pages, some of which can be carried over into the next month if you don’t use them. The basic package costs £1.99 for 50 pages, but there are two other tiers which will set you back £3.49 (100 pages) and £7.99 (300 pages). All have allowances for extra pages if you hit your limit, but you’ll pay £1 for a set amount linked to your plan, with the lowest being 15 additional prints on the basic package.

The cartridges themselves don’t have only 50 pages worth of ink in them, so it’s not a case of replacing one every month. Instead, the printer is connected to HP online and monitors your usage, so that you only print the amount you’ve signed up for. Then, when the printer sees you’re nearing the end of a cartridge, it will let HP know and new ones will automatically be sent out to arrive before you run dry. For this to work, you’ll need one of the wide range of Instant-Ink enabled printers that HP sells. These include the very affordable HP Envy 5530 (£59 and shown opposite), right up to the more expensive HP Officejet Pro 8610 (£179).