HP prints new cost-saving solutionsSingapore--HP announced Monday an overhaul of its print supplies strategy to embrace more customer choice and better value at the PrintWatch Live! 2007 event held in the island republic. While most of the releases are targeted at, according to John Solomon, Vice President for HP's Supplies division in Asia Pacific including Japan, "the enterprise and high level consumer", the heart of the announcement still holds relevance for the consumer market. The Palo Alto print giant will be offering a new high-volume ink cartridge, termed the HP XL inkjet cartridge, which HP claims to have better value over conventional cartridges. Three different versions of the new ink cartridge will be available at retail to suit different user usage patterns and the retail package will be color-coded to make them easier to recognize and hence improve the customer purchase experience. The three different types of XL cartridges are the "standard" (colored blue) which is meant for moderate printing on a weekly basis, the cost-saving "value" (colored green) for high volume printing and the "specialty" (colored red) which incorporates additional performance attributes for photo printing. For printers without XL cartridge support, Solomon said that HP will be selling multi packs, which bundles two ink cartridges together at a retail price that is 30 to 40 percent cheaper than buying two cartridges separately. When queried on whether the price of the XL cartridge will be priced competitively against third party refill inks, Solomon retorted that the R&D behind the latter products are simply a case of "putting in water, ink, dye and hoping it works". Indeed, according to a HP-commissioned 2005 study by QualityLogic Inc, two out of three refilled ink cartridges tested had reliability problems. Solomon cautioned against the use of such third party products which he warned would undoubtedly damage a printer's innards and thus increase the cost of repair for the end-user since HP's warranty does not cover such damage from non-HP ink cartridges. Click to see our coverage of the event
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