4 or 6 ink cartridges?

quidsin

Hi, i'm buying a new printer soon, replacing my old epson 870 which has done served me well, most of the new printers now come with individual ink cartridges, is it better to buy a printer with more ink cartridges ( 6 rather than 4) or is this a sales ploy by the manufactures?

DatabaseError

generally, the more discrete colours a printer has, the better potential quality output (less mixing required). also, you then just change each colour as needed

smileyjohn

The new Epson and Canon printers with 4 cartridges give a superb output, however if you are printing mainly photos the 6 plus cartridges give extra depth to your pictures, the only way you can usually see it is to put the same picture printed on the two types of printers next to each other, the four ink cartridge picture will be good, but alongside the 6 ink printer you will immediately see a huge difference in the depth of the picture. The light Magenta and Light Cyan 'fill in' the bottom 10 - 15% of the visible spectrum and give the picture depth.

If you are just printing general office/home documents then the 4 colour printer will do fine - stick with an Epson because compatible cartridges are available for all of their cartridges