do i have to buy color ink cartridges? HP Officejet Pro 8600 Plus Windows XP

[Billmanjjdhfhr]

I haven't tried refilling my cartridges yet, but I think you need two sets of cartridges to swap between, so you at least must purchase one set besides the ones that come with the printer.

The printer won't recognize the refills if they are the same chips that it currently believes are empty. I'm on set number two and will refill the original cartridge set number one when I am empty again but have not yet tried this myself.

[Wpk1100]

I tried to go a different route.  I bought a set of cartridges from LD that suppose to have a 100% usage.  Well I have been using them for a couple of weeks, and now I noticed the a lot of the characters are blurry or not showing at all.  When I put in the original cartridges, it printed fine.  So, I have to stay with  the lot more expensive HP cartridges.   I am also using a MICR (magnetic) cartridge for printing checks, and that works fine.  It is made by VersaChecks.  But at $79 a cartridge plus shipping, it is expensive.  But it claims 4 times the capacity of the HP cartridge.

[pppppp]

That doesn't work. DOES NOT WORK.  We had two depleted colors, could not print simple black document. Tried the prescribed instructions, it would not work. We had to print said document for work. Bought the two depleted colors, installed them, but now without printing anything, the last color is suddenly depleted. Tried to print in just black, again. Did not work. There was still ink in the cartridges my husband removed. Something is not quite right.

[EvilBobbsy]

As of now I have the same problem as others have stated.  I have some black and white only documents to print but got a warning at I was out of yellow.  I went and bought a yellow, installed it, and before printing ANYTHING the cyan cartridge suddenly went from showing low to empty.  If I buy the cyan, will the magenta do the same thing?

I don't need to spend $120 on colour cartridges to print an important black and white document.  I'm broke.  Christmas is coming and I am furious at HP.  Why did the ink level display suddenly change as soon as I got back from the shop?

If the explanation about keeping the ink lines full, it's an incompetent design or a deliberate ploy to sell ridiculously expensive cartridges.  I'm disgusted and will never purchase another HP product in my life.  

[Davidmark]

I cannot believe this product.  I am more than furious with HP who clearly is ripping off its customers for all they are worth.  With ink cartridge prices soaring through the roof and the HP person I spoke with on the phone telling me NOT to buy non-HP brand ink, I spend over $100 each time I change the ink.  The printer wasn't even that much.  There are other printer companies that make cheaper ink that I will tell everyone in my workplace to buy and go with.  This is terrible - I have a deadline to print and I cannot.

Why make things worse HP?  Why make this printer require color ink to print simple black and white.  I do want a color printer, but I DO NOT want to need color ink to print black ink.  That makes no sense.  It is not just an inconvenience, it is another evidence that HP is trying to make as much money as they can from their customers - even if it means forcing them to do things they clearly do not want to do.  They designed this printer to bleed me dry of all my money.

Unless HP sends me a color ink cartridge package, I will get rid of all HP products where I work and replace them with another printer company.  I cannot belive this!

David

[VinnyMac]

That's the point. They can charge a low upfront price to lure you in because they know that you'll be locked into paying out of the @ss afterwards. It's like those phone "deals" that give you a free or discounted phone in exchange for signing up for a 2 year contract that has all of the bells and whistles. "The cheap comes out expensive."

I can understand why they'd do it. Most people will be upset, but they'll keep buying the ink, so HP makes a killing. The question is how many people will be pissed off enough to get rid of the printer or to not use HP for their next printer? If you complain but keep buying ink for years, then they got exactly what they wanted.

[EvilBobbsy]

Well, in my case (down here in Australia) the printer WASN'T dirt cheap--almost $300.

It was my first venture into HP from Epson and also my last.

You're crooks HP...perhaps legal crooks but crooks nonetheless.

The only good news is that in todays social media world I can tell hundreds of people of my experience.  It won't cost HP their corporate profits but it'll make me feel better and may cost the at least a few sales.

[SoftwareQA]

I bought this printer a year ago and I print in B/W only.  All of my preferences are set this way.  I replaced the B/W for the second time last week and no more than 4 pages later I got a message that all of my color cartridges needed replacing, and after going to Walmart to buy the $60 cartridge I am looking to replace this printer.   Great printer otherwise.   If I never print in color why am I replacing color cartridges?  I do not understand.   Its criminal, IMO.   

[Wpk1100]

The reason you have to replace the color cartridges is because the way the printer works is to use part of the colors to print in black ink.   They say that using all the cartridges helps keep the ink tubes from clogging up.   So, it helps to keep a extra set of cartridges around , and to check the levels every so often.   I got a little fed up with this printer, so I went and bought a Epson WF-3520 printer too.   It has the same type of cartridges as the HP does.  But I noticed the when the black ink is used, the levels in the color cartridges stay the same so far.  Just the black level drops down.  It also operates quicker than the HP.   So I am using both printers now.  I stopped using the LD ink cartridges because it was printing blurry letters every so often.  So, now I just buy HP ink only.   I print a lot of checks on my HP printer, and I print labels on the Epson printer.  So that is where I am at present.

[bs166]

David I couldn't have said it better. You're spot on and I'm so furious and frustrated. I just got back from picking up a black ink cartridge yet can't print until I go get color ink cartridges THAT I DON'T WANT!!