HP 65XL black · XL

The HP 65XL black is the high yield black for five printers in our database: the DeskJet 2655, DeskJet 3755 and DeskJet 3772, and the ENVY 5052 and ENVY 5055. They are the cheap end of HP's home range, and the cartridge is where the money goes.

The XL beats the standard size comfortably. It is rated at 300 pages for $36.99, which is 12.33 cents a black page, against 120 pages for $19.99 on the standard 65 black, or 16.66 cents. That is about 26 percent off. It is also still expensive printing by any normal standard, and no amount of buying the larger size changes that.

The bigger saving on this printer is a different one. Our catalog lists a remanufactured 65XL black from 4inkjets at $14.99, which works out at 5.00 cents a page against 12.33 for the HP cartridge. Going from the standard size to the XL saves a few cents a page, and going to a remanufactured XL saves more than twice as much again. That is why the firmware question below matters more on this printer than the size question does.

Our firmware lockout list includes all five of them. They shipped with HP Dynamic Security, which can begin refusing cartridges without an HP chip after a firmware update, so the compatible that makes this printer affordable is exactly the thing at risk. Turn automatic updates off in the printer settings before you fit one. A remanufactured cartridge is built on a reused original HP chip, which is the safer of the two routes past Dynamic Security.

Troubleshooting a 65XL is not like troubleshooting a business cartridge. The print head is built into the cartridge here rather than into the printer, so the nozzles are the copper and gold plate on the underside of the cartridge itself. If prints go streaky, blot that plate on a damp lint-free cloth, dry it and refit. A cartridge that still prints nothing after that has a dead head, and no cleaning cycle run from the printer will recover it.