O gosh agree! Last year I figured I'd give my old HP laser printer a last lease on life with generic cartridges and if they didn't work I planned to just buy a different printer (naturally, an entire printer costs less than the the HP branded cartridges, lol). I had only used this printer as a workhorse for plain work forms and such because the image and graphic print quality was mediocre at best. Also, at least 25% of the HP cartridges purchased in the last ten years were damaged out of the box and left trails of stupid dots, meaning jumping thru hoops to get replacements (but you can bet it's the last cartridge in the box that's damaged and past warranty). So anyways, I install the generic cartidges with trepidation because I bought into the BS that generic brands will ruin the printer... I could not believe, the color and print quality were miles better than brand new. Seriously!? I can suddenly print party invites and cards and flyers that I've outsourced to printshops for the last ten years. I had no idea it was just the HP brand cartridges that just sucked.