Epson WorkForce Enterprise WF-C20590 ink cartridge, cyan, 859 ml

An ordinary cartridge for a home or small office holds a few to a few dozen millilitres, while this one holds 859 ml of cyan ink. A supply that size means that in an office with heavy print volumes the cartridge is changed far less often and the printer spends less time standing idle. The weight of 1.013 kg also shows that this consumable is meant for a large office machine.

The supplier names the product WorkForce Enterprise WF-C20590, which is the name of an Epson printer in the WorkForce Enterprise series. The supplier data contains neither a separate list of compatible printers nor a cartridge product code. Before fitting it, compare it with the printer's supplies list or with the old cartridge to make sure the colour and volume match, so an expensive cartridge does not turn out to be the wrong one.

The manufacturer is Epson, so this is a genuine consumable rather than compatible third-party ink. For company printers this matters: the service engineer and the printer administrator know exactly what is in the machine, and when a print quality issue appears, the consumable is not the first suspect. Genuine ink is made by the same manufacturer that built the printer.

The cartridge contains cyan ink only. Cyan is one of the base colours of colour printing, mixed with the others to produce blues, greens and purplish tones. Because each colour sits in its own cartridge, only the empty one is replaced and the remaining colours are used up completely, which adds up to a noticeable saving at high volumes.

Companies and print centres running an Epson WorkForce Enterprise printer whose supplies list includes cyan ink in an 859 ml volume. It also suits IT departments and printer administrators who keep a spare in stock so that running out of cyan does not stop the machine halfway through a large print run.