The last two ink cartridges I have put in my printer have quit printing in black when the indicator showed half full.

Now, tonight, I put another brand new black cartridge in and the black will print now, but it's more like it's printing in gray as it's all faded out.

I tried to deal with Dell and instead of accepting that these ink cartridges may be bad they want to connect me with someone to fix my printer. There is not a darned thing wrong with my printer. Anything in color prints fine. 

My problem is I am sick of paying this big price for genuine Dell cartridges that end up being faulty.

Does anyone know of other cartridges that will work really well without messing up my printer? Or anything else that might help?