Never buy Epson printers • Hacker News Board

Re: Never buy Epson printers

#141

Post by Grishnakh » Sun, Mar 13, 2016, 2:48 AM UTC

mbell wrote: post #101

bbcbasic wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a few. Tickets. Boarding Passes. Government forms that cannot be filed electronically. Carrying information you need where you don't want to reply on a phone whose battery could run out. To read something in a focused way, with no internet to distract you. I printed out a plane ticket today to fly in a country where waving your phone with the same ticket is apparently not satisfactory.

It doesn't surprise me that there are edge cases where you need paper. It surprises me that those edge cases are numerous enough that you would own a printer and deal with it. All of my boarding passes are covered via phone but on the occasion that I need a pass for an airline that doesn't have that option I would just spend 5 minutes at a kiosk to get it. On the occasion I have to file a gov form that isn't availabl…

I got my printer for something like $100 on Ebay, and it's ridiculously reliable and the cost per page is dirt cheap. Why would I want to waste my time driving somewhere and paying to print stuff when I can do it in a few seconds at home?

The home printing market is only going to get more and more expensive if consumers are so stupid they can't go buy small business printers on Ebay that are a few years old and off-lease.

Re: Never buy Epson printers

#142

Post by LyndsySimon » Sun, Mar 13, 2016, 2:54 AM UTC

soyiuz wrote: post #48

My HP LaserJet 1020 has been chugging away for 10+ years on $11 refilled cartridges that yield around 2k monochrome pages. It just might last ten more!

I pulled a LaserJet 1160 out of storage today because my wife's inkjet stopped working. It printed ~75 pages without a hiccup, and I don't even know how old the cartridge in it is.

Re: Never buy Epson printers

#143

Post by fallinghawks » Sun, Mar 13, 2016, 3:07 AM UTC

walrus01 wrote: post #5

Never buy any inkjet printer. I threw in the garbage a Canon multifunction that refused ton work as a SCANNER when its ink was empty. If you have the space and print a lot of black and white, buy an eight year old used HP LaserJet with an Ethernet interface.

I bought inkjets for years because I was doing a lot of photo printing, but my latest one (or I should say last one!), a Canon Pixma, was just ridiculous this way. No ink = no scanning -- whaaaaa?? I don't print much anymore, so now the cartridges dry up in the printer and/or expire, I'm not sure which, before I get any use out of them.

I picked up a Brother laser a few months ago and I don't ever have to be annoyed by that crap again.

Re: Never buy Epson printers

#144

Post by jgalt212 » Sun, Mar 13, 2016, 3:12 AM UTC

In general, I agree with all the ant-inkjet comments.

That being said, I've yet to see a laser printer with grayscale rendering approaching that of a garden variety inkjet.

Re: Never buy Epson printers

#145

Post by Tempest1981 » Sun, Mar 13, 2016, 3:56 AM UTC

csomar wrote: post #34

Multi-function inkjet printers are a Scam. No, I'm serious. 1. The printing functionality is flawed. A cartridge will not last for more than 100 pages. (I tried Epson, HP and Canon). 2. The cartridge will dry and not function after a few weeks only. 3. The original cartridge cost almost as much as a new printer with the cartridge. 4. The printer will not function (Scanner or Fax) without the full cartridges (black an…

I had a Canon Pixma iP1600 that would still work after months of non-use. I was in awe, since every other inkjet is like you described -- I had several HPs.

Re: Never buy Epson printers

#146

Post by Tempest1981 » Sun, Mar 13, 2016, 4:00 AM UTC

And you know that some high-paid exec decided it was a good idea to refuse to print when low on ink... "to ensure quality" and uphold the brand name. Haha - it had the opposite effect.

Re: Never buy Epson printers

#147

Post by pmarreck » Sun, Mar 13, 2016, 4:03 AM UTC

csomar wrote: post #34

Multi-function inkjet printers are a Scam. No, I'm serious. 1. The printing functionality is flawed. A cartridge will not last for more than 100 pages. (I tried Epson, HP and Canon). 2. The cartridge will dry and not function after a few weeks only. 3. The original cartridge cost almost as much as a new printer with the cartridge. 4. The printer will not function (Scanner or Fax) without the full cartridges (black an…

Agree with this 100% as I found this to be the case, repeatedly.

Bought an HP LaserJet P1606DN and a Fuji ScanSnap scanner a few years ago and never looked back. Amazing.

Re: Never buy Epson printers

#148

Post by techdragon » Sun, Mar 13, 2016, 6:25 AM UTC

pjc50 wrote: post #91

JensRex wrote: post #31

I bought a Brother (HL-2170W) laser printer about 8 years ago, and it's still using its original cartridge. I do very little printing, but I do need it from time to time. During my last move, I accidentally tipped a book shelf on top of it. Cracked a few plastic bits, and bent some metal things inside it. I unbent the metal, and glued the plastic, and the thing still prints like it's new out of the box. I've talked m…

I have an HP LaserJet 4L. It's noisy and has an inconvenient Centronics interface. This is because it's over 20 years old, but it has been similarly reliable and repairable because it dates from the era when HP were a respected engineering company.

Those HP printers were some of the most reliable I ever dealt with. Fond memories.

Re: Never buy Epson printers

#149

Post by nikcub » Sun, Mar 13, 2016, 7:57 AM UTC

pjc50 wrote: post #91

JensRex wrote: post #31

I bought a Brother (HL-2170W) laser printer about 8 years ago, and it's still using its original cartridge. I do very little printing, but I do need it from time to time. During my last move, I accidentally tipped a book shelf on top of it. Cracked a few plastic bits, and bent some metal things inside it. I unbent the metal, and glued the plastic, and the thing still prints like it's new out of the box. I've talked m…

I have an HP LaserJet 4L. It's noisy and has an inconvenient Centronics interface. This is because it's over 20 years old, but it has been similarly reliable and repairable because it dates from the era when HP were a respected engineering company.

I have the same printer, from 1992 iirc - still prints and has been an absolute workhorse. HP bought a lot of brand loyalty from me with that printer.

Re: Never buy Epson printers

#150

Post by veddox » Sun, Mar 13, 2016, 8:01 AM UTC

Spooky23 wrote: post #105

veddox wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Printers are my biggest IT nightmare. No piece of modern computer hardware fails so consistently, so ununderstandably or so frequently as a printer.

Not true at all. Buy a good management solution (we use PrinterLogic) and buy good printers. By getting rid of crap devices, putting the good, self-service management system in solution in place, and proactively replacing consumables, we took something like 75k annual printing tickets down to around 300. Those support interactions and dispatch cost like $1M/year, so eliminating them paid for 100% printer replacement…

The problem is that you can only afford to do that if you're a moderately large business. For home users or small schools (where I have worked), that's simply not an option moneywise...