Consumer Reports says, “The fact that our readers were able to print far fewer pages than we did in our tests (standard ISO continuous print page yield testing) suggested that, for some consumers, those tests were not appropriate. One reason for this shortfall, our engineers believed, was that those readers were printing intermittently, perhaps a handful of pages a few times per week, rather than continuously.”

That’s hilarious…..find me 1 “average consumer” that pops in a new cartridge and prints “Full to Fade” on a regular basis and I will retract every negative thing I have ever said about ISO Page Yield testing, but for now at least, Consumer Reports agrees that at least some consumers are printing intermittingly.

And you know what they the found out?

“The results, based on (intermittent) tests of dozens of current all-in-one inkjets representing the leading brands, confirmed our suspicions: In intermittent use, plenty of models delivered half or less of their ink to the page, and a few managed no more than 20 to 30 percent.

‘Diapers’ and ‘spittoons’: Where the ink goes

Manufacturers say it’s par for printers to consume ink in ways that don’t wind up on the page. For example, HP referred us to its website, which said, “Some ink . . . must be used to maintain the health of the print head; some ink is residual; and some ink evaporates.” [edited 7/2/2013]

But when we contacted them, manufacturers were mum on just how much ink consumers should expect to be consumed in such ways, though they did volunteer that the ink spent in cleaning may actually end up in a reservoir inside the printer that one manufacturer calls a “diaper” and other manufacturers call a “spittoon.”

They are very non-specific regarding the OEM’s other than to say, “Brother printers were consistently frugal with ink when used intermittently.” Brother comes out on top again, sweet, if you remember the Amazon Top 100 Printer & Cartridge article, they were the dominant manufacturer in both categories.

By Rick Ethridge