What do the savings add up to? Ignoring the initial investment, what's the price of just the Ink itself compared to cartridges? I realize you have to get the kit too, but I'm just wanting to compare the ink cost.
Using my printer for reference, they are about $15 per cart (or $50 kit), and based on some comment the black seems to lasts about 100 pages before they run out. That is roughly 15 cents per page. My parent has HP printer that uses 91 and 92 cart. They get about 200 pages per and they costs under $20 so less than a dime per page.
With my CIS set, I paid a measly $10 for a no name ink set ($2.50 per color) and they have gone through some 1,000 pages with my CIS reservoir still having some left. That is less than a penny per page in ink. You can invest more for quality ink like Durabrite for the Epson but unless you're printing lots of professional photo, cheap stuff will do fine.
You could get the same savings with a refill kit but IMO it's worth an extra $50 for the CIS to skip the messy process of taking empty cart out, refilling it, plugging it, priming it (some cart), checking for leaks, then putting it back in. Plus with multi-color cart you run the risk of mixing colors up, ruining the cart.
It is up to you if it is worth an extra $50 to have a tank and ink tubes running around vs spilled ink on your hand. If you have small pet or small children that likes to chew on anything, you'd need to protect the CIS set against their teeth or you will have horrible mess.
