Which ink does the HP OfficeJet Pro 8035e use?

The HP OfficeJet Pro 8035e takes the HP 910 family in both sizes, four colours each, and the standard against XL question has a clearer answer on the colours than on the black. An XL colour holds enough for 825 pages and sells for $18.99, so a page costs 2.30 cents. The standard tank covers 315 pages at $13.99, or 4.44 cents. That is 48 percent off. The black saves less: 5.45 cents against 8.33 cents, or 35 percent. Four XL cartridges list at $101.96 and four standard ones at $66.96, so the XL set costs half as much again and prints well over twice as far.

The other thing the numbers say is that black is expensive on this printer. A black page costs 2.37 times a colour page at XL size, which is the reverse of the assumption most people print by.

The e at the end of the model name is the part to take seriously. This machine was offered HP+ at setup, and our tracker lists it under HP+ and Dynamic Security. A printer enrolled in HP+ accepts Original HP cartridges for the life of the machine and the enrolment cannot be undone, so no compatible HP 910 will ever work in it. On an 8035e where HP+ was declined, third party cartridges can work, and the remaining risk is a firmware update that starts refusing them.

If a cartridge is rejected the moment you fit it, read the wording rather than the cartridge. A message about a missing, damaged or undetected cartridge is usually contacts or seating, and it clears with a wipe and a firm reseat. A message about a cartridge that is not genuine HP is the firmware talking, and no amount of reseating changes its mind.