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What HP Must Do to Make Amends for Its Self-Destructing Printers

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Re: What HP Must Do to Make Amends for Its Self-Destructing Printers

#151

Post by jlgaddis »

anexprogrammer wrote: post #97
zwieback wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've spent the last 16 years at HP in inkjet printhead manufacturing and R&D. Roughly speaking, we've come up with two models: - disposable cartridges with printheads (what most people have at home), here we have to recoup the cost of the disposed silicon printhead and the low initial price of the printer - permanent printheads (what you're asking for) and disposable ink "tanks" of various capacities, here the challe…

Obviously I'm older, but I'd prefer to pay a little more, and give you some profit, for a printer that's built to last, with some metal, rather than Then pay a reasonable price for cartridge with printhead ongoing, otherwise, if I'm successful keeping the printer as long as possible, I'm still recouping the low cost of the printer long past the point I bought enough ink to do so. I don't need high throughput, heavy d…

I worked at a .edu for years and we had several of those old, early LaserJets that worked for years, spitting out hundreds of thousands -- even millions, in a few cases -- of printed pages, with nothing more than the occasional change of toner cartridge.

Re: What HP Must Do to Make Amends for Its Self-Destructing Printers

#152

Post by bsg75 »

heisenbit wrote: post #140

David Packard in "The HP Way" Chapter 12 Responsibility to Society ...Among the Hewlett-Packard objectives Bill Hewlett and I set down was one recognizing the company's responsibility to be a good Corporate citizen.... ...This means being sensitive to the needs and interests of the community; it means applying the highest standards of honesty and integrity to all our relationships with individuals and groups; ...

The HP of today is not the same company unfortunately.

Re: What HP Must Do to Make Amends for Its Self-Destructing Printers

#153

Post by wvenable »

intrasight wrote: post #133
wvenable wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bought a color laser printer for a few hundred bucks and despite almost never having to print anything it's one of the better purchases I've made. It just works. It's not wasteful. And it won't dry out from lack of use. I figure I'll break even over buying ink-jet printers and cartridges in another year or so. Even if everything costs more in short term, it's so much less wasteful.

Don't new color laser printers use cartridges? They just have toner instead of ink.

Yeah they do. But they don't dry out which is one of the big reasons every time I had to print I needed a new cartridge.

Re: What HP Must Do to Make Amends for Its Self-Destructing Printers

#154

Post by willismichael »

initram wrote: post #121
mrec wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been hearing good things about Brother, but all their (and AFAIK everyone else's) laser printers are still pretty hefty compared to inkjets, aren't they? Being very space-constrained (London) and looking at very occasional use (I've managed without owning a printer at all so far) that's a bit offputting.

Yes, they are hefty. I don't know if you can find one that's only a printer. We have a printer/fax/scanner model that's now around 10-15 years old. I can tell it's getting ready to give up the ghost soon. We have actually had to use the fax part of it recently, too. The scanner in it is terrible for anything other than scanning documents to PDF. Completely unusable for photos. (Taking a few photos of a photo with my…

Yes, you can buy just a printer. I'm not really fond of the all-in-one devices because they tend to be a mediocre everything and not a really good anything.

Re: What HP Must Do to Make Amends for Its Self-Destructing Printers

#155

Post by frandroid »

SyneRyder wrote: post #71
frandroid wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The specific problem here was that this was a booby-trap feature that users couldn't prevent from happening because it got "added" to the product months after the purchasing decision. HP was able to go forward in time to modify the product, post-purchase, but you can't go back in time to get a refund.

Why can't you get a refund? Has HP denied refunds to customers who wanted to return their printer over this matter?

Will HP really refund a 2 year old printer that got this security update?

Re: What HP Must Do to Make Amends for Its Self-Destructing Printers

#156

Post by Broken_Hippo »

SyneRyder wrote: post #5

I generally like the EFF, and I'm a member (albeit at a low paying level)... but if you're really unhappy about this, isn't it better just to stop buying HP printer products? Rather than being so activist & "omg outrage!", why doesn't the EFF publish a list of printers that the EFF currently does recommend? Almost like the Wirecutter does with their product testing reviews. (It sounds like Epson might be one alternat…

That is an option for folks for their future purposes. And some of them will indeed go with another company. This seemed a bit more underhanded.

Ok, maybe the package had things telling folks to always use HP ink and not a different sort. I personally would just pass most of that off as a marketing ploy. I mean, shampoo recommends I use their complementary conditioner after all.

Folks were indeed using non-hp ink with success - it isn't like the printer just refused to print with the replacements. If HP clearly stated that the machine wouldn't work with non-HP parts, it was obviously untrue.

Then a security update introduced the 'feature' that bricked the printers using non-HP ink. So one day, you find you simply can't print. Which is an annoyance if you are printing whimsical stuff, but not so great if you are printing off papers you need to take to work tomorrow or that you need for an immigration appointment or something like that. Suddenly, the printer doesn't work.

I think if it were an upfront, out-of-the-box thing (honesty and stuff) it wouldn't be such a big deal. It would be much like the DRM coffee pods. New machine, now with DRM! They didn't give the old machines an update, however, and take away the ability to use replacements.

Re: What HP Must Do to Make Amends for Its Self-Destructing Printers

#157

Post by arde »

SyneRyder wrote: post #5

I generally like the EFF, and I'm a member (albeit at a low paying level)... but if you're really unhappy about this, isn't it better just to stop buying HP printer products? Rather than being so activist & "omg outrage!", why doesn't the EFF publish a list of printers that the EFF currently does recommend? Almost like the Wirecutter does with their product testing reviews. (It sounds like Epson might be one alternat…

HP has just bought the Samsung printer business. That's one less choice if you want to simply stop buying HP printers. If HP is allowed to keep doing its dirty tricks (sneaky firmware updates and all) then things are only going to get worse.

Re: What HP Must Do to Make Amends for Its Self-Destructing Printers

#158

Post by chefandy »

trcollinson wrote: post #75
chefandy wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yay Stockholm syndrome. "How much would it change your perception if you found out that a good portion of the refill ink market is also supplied by HP?" Keeping in mind that the median personal income in the US is around 45k per year, how much would you care whether HP made that printer ink or not if you invested hard-earned salary in a printer several months ago, and stocked up on a few hundred bucks worth of cheape…

Now now, let's not get into poor arguments and logical fallacies. First off, read the rest of my comment, there is more to it. Second, you pose an interesting question. I am assuming this isn't what you did, but let's pretend for a moment that it really is what you did. Let's also assume that HP printers let you use your cheaper ink. Again, you start printing things with your cheaper ink and suddenly your papers are…

The fact that HP can't get a handle on their service/returns budget isn't their customers' fault. Having problems with things like after-market parts, 3rd party repairs, and home-spun modifications is not a problem unique to HP, or printers. If HP was more interested in reducing their service/RMA costs than forcing someone who owns a $55 printer to buy $40 ink refills, they would have developed an electronic tamper indicator rather than a kill switch.

Re: What HP Must Do to Make Amends for Its Self-Destructing Printers

#159

Post by sperglord »

jlgaddis wrote: post #151
anexprogrammer wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously I'm older, but I'd prefer to pay a little more, and give you some profit, for a printer that's built to last, with some metal, rather than Then pay a reasonable price for cartridge with printhead ongoing, otherwise, if I'm successful keeping the printer as long as possible, I'm still recouping the low cost of the printer long past the point I bought enough ink to do so. I don't need high throughput, heavy d…

I worked at a .edu for years and we had several of those old, early LaserJets that worked for years, spitting out hundreds of thousands -- even millions, in a few cases -- of printed pages, with nothing more than the occasional change of toner cartridge.

Those laserjets don't have print heads like an inkjet printer does.

Re: What HP Must Do to Make Amends for Its Self-Destructing Printers

#160

Post by ryao »

zwieback wrote: post #110
ryao wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about a third model? Customer replaceable print heads with physically separate customer replaceable and optionally refillable ink tanks of various capacities. Why must such things be mutually exclusive? That said, I switched to a laser printer from Samsung for any printing that I still do. I had a HP photosmart printer for photo prints, but at the volume of a photo a year, it is cheaper to have the photo printed…

We have that in the plotter space and had it for a while in the home space as well. Not sure why we switched away from that model although I'm sure economics were involved. It also goes toward what the other commenter says - many of us would prefer a longer-life printer but the reality is that the mass-market prefers low initial prices and it's hard to put replaceable printheads with reliable plumbing into a low-end…

Which models did that in the home space?
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