Running costs


Typical cartridge selling prices (UK, pounds Sterling), including 17.5% VAT:

No.56 (19ml pigment black) £16.45
No.57 (17ml cyan, magenta, yellow) £29.37
No.58 (17ml photo cyan, photo magenta, photo black) £21.15
No.59 (17ml photo grey-scale) £17.47
(prices from dabs.com 20th January, 2004)

We haven't yet run an exhaustive consumption test on the 7960. Previous Photoret III-based HP printers proved to be more expensive to run than comparable Epson and Canon printers, but it would be wrong to assume that the story is the exactly same here as the ink cartridges and printing systems are now quite different.

However, a set of the four cartridges to replace those originally supplied with the printer will set you back well over £80, around double the cost of some of HP's key rivals. Part of this extra cost can be explained by the integrated print heads that are thrown away when the ink cartridge is depleted. HP, of course, points out that, in effect, when you buy a new ink cartridge you also get a new print head thrown in. HP's detractors, with some justification, point out that the fixed print heads (or Canon's non-disposable, but replaceable, if required, print heads) demonstrate consistently good performance over the life of many sets of ink cartridges.

We will update this page as soon as we get an opportunity to run our ink-depletion tests on a 7960 printer.