HP 67XL tri-color · XL

The HP 67XL is the high-yield tri-color cartridge for HP's recent budget inkjets. It fits the same eight printers as the standard 67: the DeskJet 1255, DeskJet 2742e, DeskJet 2755e and DeskJet 4155e, and the ENVY 6055e, ENVY 6075, ENVY 6455e and ENVY Pro 6455e.

Read the cost per page before you pay for the upgrade. The 67XL tri-color is rated at about 200 pages and lists at $36.99, or 18.50c a color page. The standard 67 tri-color does about 100 pages for $23.99, which is 23.99c. That is about 23 percent off each page, worth roughly $10.99 over one full XL cartridge, plus half as many cartridge changes. The black side of the family does the same thing, 15.00c for the 67XL black against 19.16c for the standard. Anyone printing enough color to care about this number should be looking at a printer with separate color cartridges or refillable tanks instead.

Every printer that takes this cartridge is on our firmware lockout list, and six of the eight are HP+ models rather than plain Dynamic Security ones. An HP+ printer is committed to Original HP supplies for good, because the enrolment happens once at setup and cannot be reversed, so a compatible 67XL is not an option on those machines. The DeskJet 1255 and the ENVY 6075 will take third-party cartridges today, though a firmware update can end that, so keep automatic updates off and buy from a seller who states current firmware compatibility.

The rated 200 pages assume the three colors run down at roughly the same rate, and they rarely do. The whole cartridge is spent when the first color empties, so a run of photos heavy in one color finishes it early and the ink left in the other chambers is wasted. That is the tri-color trade-off and no cartridge choice fixes it. If a color disappears from your prints, run a nozzle check before you assume the cartridge is done, since a blocked nozzle looks much the same from the paper. If the printer refuses to recognize a new one, remove it, check the tape is off, clean the copper contacts with a dry lint-free cloth, refit it until it clicks and unplug the printer for a minute.