Avanquest Print Saver Eco review

A fresh pigmented black ink cartridge produced 300 copies of our document at the printer’s standard settings. Using Print Saver Eco’s default 25% ink saving mode we got 372 pages – almost exactly 25% more. Using the printer’s own draft mode (which is excellent on Canon printers), we got 592 pages. By comparison, Print Saver Eco gave us 652 pages at its 50% ink saving mode, and produced noticeably sharper and darker text than Canon’s own draft prints.

Compared to a draft print (top), Print Saver Eco’s 50% saving uses less ink but produces neater lettering

The quality and effectiveness of Print Saver Eco is even more visible on colour prints. Rather than becoming streaky or jagged, colours merely looked a little more faded, with no loss of image quality beyond that. You won’t want to use ink saving when you’re printing a photo or illustration to keep, but it’s great for colour maps, web pages and draft prints of graphs or slides. It’s worth leaving on permanently for text printing, where it lets you save money on ink with no easily visible impact on print quality.

The MG5150 has a great draft mode of its down, but Print Saver Eco will be of even more benefit if your printer produces satisfactory results at standard settings but is far too pale in draft mode. Regardless of what printer you use, Print Saver Eco is a great way to save money on its most expensive consumable, and will pay for itself quickly. It’s a Best Buy.