Canon CLI-42BK Black Ink Cartridge

Product Overview

AI-generated summary

Honestly, for a “CLI-42BK” black ink cartridge at £12.14 ex-VAT, this is the kind of spend that usually makes sense only if you’re already running a compatible Canon inkjet and you value predictable print quality over chasing the cheapest option. If you print text-heavy documents regularly, OEM inks tend to be more consistent—less faff, fewer “why are my colours weird today?” moments—and black output stays reliably crisp. Where this falls down is simple: if you’re a low-to-medium printer user, inks can feel expensive per page, and the moment you let the printer sit unused, you may burn money on extra cleaning cycles or ink that doesn’t perform as well as it should after a long gap.

Who should buy it: office users with a Canon inkjet that they actually use often enough to avoid drying out, and teams that want dependable black for reports, invoices, and routine admin printing. Who should skip it: anyone printing occasionally, or anyone comfortable using compatible cartridges to drive down cost per page—because the economics of ink cartridges rarely look great once you factor in maintenance and variable page yield. If you tell me the exact Canon printer model and your typical monthly print volume, I can sanity-check whether £12.14 is good value or just “OEM tax.”