Single Ink Cartridges

Color inkjet printers require at least Cyan, Magenta, and Yellow for color printing. With these three primary colors, it would theoretically be possible to print black, but it would appear more like a dark green. Therefore, a separate black ink cartridge is required.

One Ink Cartridge Per Color

In the past, it was common for the black ink cartridge to be separate, while the three colors—Cyan, Magenta, and Yellow—were combined into a single ink tank. Unfortunately, the entire color cartridge had to be replaced as soon as one of the colors ran out. Magenta could be empty, while Cyan might still be 70% full. This was highly inefficient and environmentally unfriendly.

Combined color cartridges were used in many Epson Stylus Color printers. With Epson printers, the print head is built into the printer, so the cartridges were essentially ink tanks.

Using a HP Deskjet printer could be even more problematic. These printers also required four colors, with a separate black cartridge and a combined color cartridge for Cyan, Magenta, and Yellow. The difference compared to the "cheaper" ink tanks from Brother, Epson, or Canon was that HP cartridges had the print head integrated into the cartridge.

This meant that every time the cartridge was replaced, the single-use print head in the cartridge was also replaced. Integrated print heads naturally increased the price of the ink cartridges. Therefore, with the three-color cartridge, users could end up paying a lot of money due to a single empty color, wasting a large amount of ink.

Today's Single-Ink Printers

Nowadays, most single-ink printers (almost all, in fact) come with a built-in print head and four individually replaceable ink tanks. When one color is empty, you can simply replace that single color and continue using the remaining cartridges until they also run out.

At one point, there were HP color cartridges that contained only one color but still had an integrated print head. Today, however, HP has switched to either offering a print head for each color in single-ink systems or combined print heads, for example, for black/yellow and cyan/magenta.

Saving Printing Costs with Single Ink Cartridges

Single-ink cartridges generally hold more ink per color compared to cartridges that combine all colors into one.

This means that with single ink cartridges, you can print in color for longer, and only the cartridge that is truly empty needs to be replaced.

Furthermore, most single ink cartridges no longer have a built-in print head. This makes them significantly cheaper compared to older "print head cartridges." Printers that use single-ink cartridges either have permanent print heads or individual or combined (two colors per print head) print heads. These print heads need to be replaced far less frequently than the ink cartridges. As you can see, there are now many ways to print at a lower cost, even with original cartridges.