We recently bought the HP309a Photosmart Premium All-In-One (AIO) printer from Costco which worked great except for the premature depletion of the ink from the included cartridges. It has been nine years since we've bought a printer and I'm wondering if printer companies are including print cartridges that are only half full, in order to quickly regain costs?

The first C309a we got from Costco depleted the ink cartridges (ink colors missing on the page, not when the low ink indicator was appearing) after 161 pages, when they are supposed to have "up to 300 pages" worth of ink. Thinking the unit was possibly faulty by expending too much ink or we got ink cartridges that weren't properly filled (knowing the cost of replacement cartridges), we returned the unit to Costco and got another one. This second unit is looking to follow the same trend.

When we mentioned this to some friends one night, we were told that Staples (where they buy their printers) has known knowledge of this tactic, and yes, many of the printer companies do only fill their included, initial ink cartridges half full when included with a printer.

Does anyone else know about this? If this is the case, then I'll keep the printer and simply get off-the-shelf cartridges with the expectation they will perform closer to the 300 page specification compared to the cartridges what were included in the box. If not, I'm taking this second unit back.

If it is the case the print cartridges are in fact only halfway filled with ink, it would be nice to have this information printed on the cartridge wrapping so the consumer is aware these are "introductory" cartridges and will bot print to the specification included with the printer. Unfortunate, this is not the case, and in this day and age, every penny counts.

Anyone aware of this "half full on included print cartridges" tactic?