Compatible Ink

The compatible ink cartridges or compatible toner cartridges are new cartridges that are made and filled by a third-party manufacturer and are not associated with genuine printer manufacturers.

It is designed to work in printers designed to use the original OEM ink. They are made to be as good as or better than the original brand.

Inkjet cartridges have liquid ink in them whereas laser cartridge has laser toner powder in them.

In general, inkjet is usually better at print high quality images whereas laser toner is better at printing high quality text and graphics.

There are ink tanks and printhead cartridges.  Printers using ink tanks have a printhead integrated in the printer (example: Brother Epson).  Printhead cartridges exist mainly in Canon and HP models.  When changing a printhead cartridge you are also changing the printhead every time you change cartridge.

Compatible cartridges are either brand new generic cartridges or re-manufactured cartridges and costs less than the actual brand.  Just think of it as buying a no name brand vs. the original brand.

Yes compatible cartridges have the same or higher yield as the original.

Do not update your printer!  Companies use printer updates to update the firmware of your printer so that you cannot use compatible cartridges.  If you do the update, there is usually no way to downgrade the firmware and you might be stuck buying original cartridges until the aftermarket comes up with a newer chip that will work with that new update.