While it would seem there’s not a lot to say about printer ink - it’s something that’s been around almost 40 years, it’s hard to find a review that actually focuses on the product, most of what you see are the complaints about how expensive it is. That’s not a review - and I’ll tell you why.MEMORIZE CPPThose who can’t get over the purchase price are all looking at the wrong price tag. The golden rule of computer printers is not what the consumables cost but what it costs you to print a page, which is abbreviated CPP for cost-per-page. And that is 100% your choice - if you need something printed, how much is that worth to you? Is it 15 cents per page, or 50 cents per page or something more? You do have options, there are plenty of places you can go to have something printed, and it is almost 100% guaranteed that it will cost you more than the amount of ink and paper it would cost you to print it at home, assuming you already own the printer. So that’s it, end of story, if it’s your choice to print it at home, buy the necessary materials to do so.ARE NO-NAME BRANDS WORTH ITThere are countless sources to back this but the short answer is no. Sure it’s no secret that selling ink is very profitable for printer manufacturers, throwing a tantrum about it isn’t going to change it. You have every right to take your chances buying from any one of a thousand places that sell refills (their word for it is compatibles). You have no idea if they are refilling old discarded ink tanks in a modern production facility or in someone’s spare bedroom. And that’s the point - you have no idea. I’ve used such refills over the years in at least 10 various printers I’ve owned. Sometimes the results are okay but far more often for laser printers than for inkjet printers. More often though it’s just a waste of money. The large cartridge shown in my photo, the one that doesn’t match the others, lasted for a few pages. The genuine ones from Canon last as long as expected. That’s way I pay a little more.HINTS AND SUGGESTIONSI know a lot about this subject, several years ago I worked for both Canon and Epson. Here are a few things I do to get the most out of my ink tanks.1. If you print mostly black & white pages buy a cheap monochrome laser printer. Sure it will seem that their toner cartridges cost astronomically higher but your CPP will be astronomically lower.2. Never turn your inkjet printer off. Leaving it on uses almost zero electricity. But if your turn it off, as soon as you turn back it on it has to “prime” which is their way of saying it spits out a whole lot of ink to self-clean itself, something it really doesn’t need it to every single morning.3. If you are sure you actually need an inkjet printer (even if you print color documents you may find your CPP to own a color laser printer to be much lower) print something that uses all of the colors once a week, it does NOT have to be a full page of colors, just a simple document that activates each ink tank. By the way, my definition of needing an inkjet printer is for printing real photographs on specialty photo paper. If you’re not doing that on a regular basis you may not need an inkjet printer. The way today’s social media is I rarely print photographs anymore.4. Unless you are a power user that uses your inkjet constantly don’t buy the XL or XXL sizes of ink tanks. The potential savings on your CPP will probably be cancelled out by tall that ink drying out before you ever use it. Thats why I bought this, the standard size. I know I will use up all of the ink before it dries out.YES OR NOIf you haven’t gotten the point yet you are probably still going to bemoan how much ink costs. I tried to help, believe me no one is paying me to sell Canon ink. It’s the right decision for me so I say yes for this product.