Which is better, OEM ink jet cartridges or compatible ink jet cartridges?
When a company like Canon, Epson or Lexmark manufactures a printer, it will also provide OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) ink jet cartridges for that printer. Many big brand manufacturers will insist that OEM ink jet cartridges are the best pick because they are manufactured with their printers’ specific technology in mind. For example, Epson’s website (www.epson.com) states, “What you save in dollars with third party (or ‘compatible’) ink cartridges, you could sacrifice in quality and performance.” However, Tech Support Alert (www.techsupportalert.com) reviewed the most popular compatible cartridges for two market leading brands of printers (purchased from 20 different ink jet cartridge websites). They found “good results with all the cartridges we tested from the recommended sites” and felt that “the cartridges we tried, worked just as well as the original OEM cartridges though not necessarily identically.” It may be true that OEM cartridges perform slightly better in some categ
