HP 65 black · standard

The HP 65 black is the small black cartridge used across HP's cheapest home machines. Five printers in our database take it: the DeskJet 2655, 3755 and 3772, and the ENVY 5052 and 5055. Every one of them was sold between 2017 and 2018 as an inexpensive box, and the cartridge is where HP makes the money back.

A standard 65 black is rated at about 120 pages and lists near $19.99, which works out at roughly 16.66 cents for one page of black text. The 65XL black prints about 300 pages for around $36.99, about 12.33 cents. Colour is worse again: the 65 tri-color is rated at about 100 pages for around $22.99, so about 22.99 cents a page, against about 13.33 cents for the 65XL tri-color at 300 pages. Run a page that pulls from both standard cartridges and you have spent close to 39.65 cents on ink alone. If you keep the printer, buy XL every time.

All five of these printers sit on our firmware lockout list, so a compatible 65 that works today may stop being recognised later. HP shipped them with Dynamic Security, which can start refusing non-HP chips after the printer takes a firmware update, and the refusal usually arrives months after the cartridge worked fine. Turning automatic updates off in the printer settings is what decides whether a compatible keeps working.

Troubleshooting a 65 is different from troubleshooting a business cartridge, because the print head is built into the cartridge rather than into the printer. When output goes streaky, the nozzles you need to clean are on the copper and gold plate on the underside of the cartridge itself. Blot that plate on a damp lint-free cloth, dry it, and put it back. A 65 that stays blank after that is dead as a print head, not just empty, and no cleaning cycle run from the printer will bring it back.