Had a little time at work today to sojourn over to Lexmark's website
with an eye towards confirming a strongly-held suspicion of mine-that
their printers which can use their number 32 black and/or 33 color
cartridges can also use the 34 and/or 35 cartridges without the
converse being true, a situation that may have helped to give rise to
what I experienced over the weekend with regard to InkStop's
"compatibles" which were labeled as a 34 and 35 but weren't recognized
as such by my printer.
Well, I was right. Every printer Lexmark makes that can use 32 and/or
33 also lists 34 and/or 35 among the cartridges it's compatible
with...BUT there are a number of printers-*including* the Z1300 and
similar models-that can use 34 and 35 but DON'T list 32 or 33 as
substitutes.
I'll bet dollars to doughnuts now that not only InkStop's refills but
more than likely *everyone's* currently available 34/35 "compatibles"
are really 32/33s. The refillers simply saw what I did and wrongly
assumed that the pairs would be both "forward" and "backward"
compatible. Obviously they aren't. So they're selling 32s as 34s and
33s as 35s, and wondering why people like me whose printers *can't*
use 32s or 33s are causing problems. A little honesty on their part
would go a long way towards solving them, wouldn't it?
Not that it really matters much in the grand scheme of things. It'll
be a while before I'll need more ink, and it's possible the refillers
will get their act together by then. Even if they don't, so what? I
have a pair of the *right* cartridges, and there's no reason I can't
refill them myself. In fact, picking up another pair of OEMs as
spares wouldn't exactly break me. After all, I essentially got the
printer for only $4, since the number 29 starter cartridge that came
with it can be bought locally for $19, and I scored a USB cable for $1
at a dollar store.
