Obviously, HP Thinks We Are Stupid • Hacker News Board

Re: Obviously, HP Thinks We Are Stupid

#41

Post by po » Tue, May 25, 2010, 2:03 PM UTC

revital9 wrote: post #11

po wrote: post #3

It's not about greed as the article states… people are stupid. We overvalue short term savings and undervalue long term savings. When Apple let AT&T start to subsidize the iPhone the initial price dropped but the total cost over the lifetime of the phone was about the same or even a little higher. Sales went gangbusters! The media even went nuts reporting about how apple finally relented and responded to consumer pre…

People are stupid - but not all of them. Look at the comments around you :)

How many cognitive biases can you list? Because there are a lot of them:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases

They might not get you on this one, but at some point you will be part of the stupid crowd. I don't think about all of these every time I make a decision. When I said people are stupid, I was including myself. :-)

Re: Obviously, HP Thinks We Are Stupid

#42

Post by pmjordan » Tue, May 25, 2010, 2:20 PM UTC

GrandMasterBirt wrote: post #37

retube wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

one of my big gripes is (in the UK) all these FREE IPHONE! FREE LAPTOP! on a £30 - £40 / month contract. in small print: contract is 24 months. That's 960 quid. The laptop is a shitty bargain-basement dell that you get for £200. And on top of that you got data charges, 0845 numbers etc etc.

When working in a cellphone store, we used to make more money on the shitty Nokia 8830 phones because they cost us 70 bucks to buy, sell em for free with a $250 spiff. Thats more money than selling a phone for 100 bucks where usually the phone price is $300 - $250 spiff + $50 profit. Don't forget, when signing up for a contract they also charge you for line activation ($35) so they recoup their price rather quickly.…

The situation here is extremely different. All phones work on all networks in principle. (except for 3G-only networks like Hutchison/3 which don't allow 2nd gen GSM handsets, and of course SIM locked phones, which are the norm if you buy the phone or modem via a major network operator)

You can get phoneless contracts which are much cheaper - either with no monthly charge (I literally pay nothing if I don't use the phone one month, and when I do it's €0.04/min or per SMS sent) or a very generous deal (1000 free minutes+SMS for €10-20 say). Prepaid is a little more expensive, 7-15 cents/min or /SMS seem to be the norm.

As for data, the rates vary wildly - I'm using prepaid at 2 cents/MB, but you can get €4 per started GB/month, or various contracts between €5 and €20 for some fixed amount of data, or unlimited data at €25+. They fleece you for > €1/MB if you don't have any specific data provisions in your tariff though.

For smartphones or netbooks, add €20-40/month, a minimum run time of 24 months, very inflexible conditions and at least one downside (for example, the most basic iPhone contracts often charge 25 cents per SMS, a rate that's otherwise unheard of).

Re: Obviously, HP Thinks We Are Stupid

#43

Post by tjmaxal » Tue, May 25, 2010, 2:25 PM UTC

What suggestions do you guys have for printing photos? Is it still cheaper to go to a print shop or is there an low end professional device that is cheaper in the long run?

Re: Obviously, HP Thinks We Are Stupid

#44

Post by theBobMcCormick » Tue, May 25, 2010, 2:25 PM UTC

pmjordan wrote: post #5

wheels wrote: post #2

One of the best investments that I made about 7 years ago was to buy a black and white laser printer for home: http://www.okidata.com/mkt/downloads/B4250_B4350Series.pdf I paid about €250 for it (which then was thousands of pages (I'd guesstimate 5000 pages), it still hasn't run out of its initial toner cartridge, and the prices I've seen for when it does are about €25. With printers, as with much in the electronics…

Laser printers are great for many things, but when you do need good colour prints of photos, etc., you can apply the same advice to inkjets and get good results. We got an HP Photosmart 8250 or so 3-4 years back. IIRC it was pretty much the most expensive A4 inkjet from HP at the time, but even that was only 2-3x as much as a mid-grade consumer printer. In any case, unlike most printers, it uses separate tanks for ea…

Unless you print a lot of color photos and have a really good photo printer, it seems like it's hard to beat the cost-per-photo of just uploading your photo's to Walgreens, Walmart, or whatever other inexpensive photo printing place is near you.

Re: Obviously, HP Thinks We Are Stupid

#45

Post by amalcon » Tue, May 25, 2010, 2:26 PM UTC

wheels wrote: post #2

One of the best investments that I made about 7 years ago was to buy a black and white laser printer for home: http://www.okidata.com/mkt/downloads/B4250_B4350Series.pdf I paid about €250 for it (which then was thousands of pages (I'd guesstimate 5000 pages), it still hasn't run out of its initial toner cartridge, and the prices I've seen for when it does are about €25. With printers, as with much in the electronics…

In some cases, it can still be worthwhile to buy ink, if certain circumstances are true:

- You can get an inkjet printer for free (not difficult, people throw working printers away all the time)

- You can invest the money conservatively at a high, but not extraordinarily high rate

- You print very rarely

My current inkjet cartridge cost $50. I've had it for two years, and it's about 60% full according to the display on the printer (which, admittedly, might be lying). That's a savings of about $250 over buying a cheap laser printer. Assuming that the laser printer will last indefinitely with no further expenses (hey, it very well might), I need to get about a 1/5 ROI on the $250 over the expected lifetime of the ink (5 years, but assume the software lies and call it 4) to break even. That takes about a 4.7% interest rate. If you can invest the money and make about 5%, it's actually cheaper to buy the ink. I could do this, by "investing" it in paying student loans more quickly, so it makes sense.

Of course, if you print a lot, it's absolutely silly to use an inkjet for it.

Re: Obviously, HP Thinks We Are Stupid

#46

Post by DrSprout » Tue, May 25, 2010, 2:31 PM UTC

GrandMasterBirt wrote: post #37

retube wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

one of my big gripes is (in the UK) all these FREE IPHONE! FREE LAPTOP! on a £30 - £40 / month contract. in small print: contract is 24 months. That's 960 quid. The laptop is a shitty bargain-basement dell that you get for £200. And on top of that you got data charges, 0845 numbers etc etc.

When working in a cellphone store, we used to make more money on the shitty Nokia 8830 phones because they cost us 70 bucks to buy, sell em for free with a $250 spiff. Thats more money than selling a phone for 100 bucks where usually the phone price is $300 - $250 spiff + $50 profit. Don't forget, when signing up for a contract they also charge you for line activation ($35) so they recoup their price rather quickly.…

>Basically use V phones for V, or throw them out.

Sans contract my Droid is still a nice mp3 player / WiFi device. I'm hoping they back up their bluster about switching us all over to per-GB plans before my contract runs out so I can either renegotiate down to $15/month data or just walk with a nice little subsidized touchscreen device.

But yeah, this is bullshit and needs regulation. The entire market is so far beyond price fixing it's not even funny.

Re: Obviously, HP Thinks We Are Stupid

#47

Post by wendroid » Tue, May 25, 2010, 2:39 PM UTC

dhimes wrote: post #34

wendroid wrote: post #8

1) buy inkjet printer 2) install continuous ink system 3) ??? 4) reduce the baseline

Does the continuous system work ok? I have one for an epson, and when I run out of ink I intend to install it. I'm also preparing to buy an emergency backup printer, just in case...

The only problem I had was the usual - leave it for 6 weeks without printing and it gums up a bit.

I've also had some feed problems where it dumps ink into the printer.

The guys I share an office with got one and didn't read the instructions properly and we stood their (me laughing) as the ink unloaded into the thing.

But when it's all working you get 6+ months of reliable printing.

And for the price of an inkjet, a spare one is cheap, though I'm lucky - my local retailer is 5 mins away by foot and when my dried up I just went and got another one - the dried up one is under my desk waiting for me to clean it!

Re: Obviously, HP Thinks We Are Stupid

#48

Post by krschultz » Tue, May 25, 2010, 2:40 PM UTC

pmjordan wrote: post #5

wheels wrote: post #2

One of the best investments that I made about 7 years ago was to buy a black and white laser printer for home: http://www.okidata.com/mkt/downloads/B4250_B4350Series.pdf I paid about €250 for it (which then was thousands of pages (I'd guesstimate 5000 pages), it still hasn't run out of its initial toner cartridge, and the prices I've seen for when it does are about €25. With printers, as with much in the electronics…

Laser printers are great for many things, but when you do need good colour prints of photos, etc., you can apply the same advice to inkjets and get good results. We got an HP Photosmart 8250 or so 3-4 years back. IIRC it was pretty much the most expensive A4 inkjet from HP at the time, but even that was only 2-3x as much as a mid-grade consumer printer. In any case, unlike most printers, it uses separate tanks for ea…

Costco does photos for about 9 cents each at a higher quality than I can print at home, and I don't have to do it. And you can get up to 30x20" things for $3. I'm replacing my inkjet with a laser the next time my ink cartridge is out.

Not to mention I prefer the quality of laser for B&W and that's all I do anymore.

Re: Obviously, HP Thinks We Are Stupid

#49

Post by wendroid » Tue, May 25, 2010, 2:40 PM UTC

tumult wrote: post #20

wheels wrote: post #2

One of the best investments that I made about 7 years ago was to buy a black and white laser printer for home: http://www.okidata.com/mkt/downloads/B4250_B4350Series.pdf I paid about €250 for it (which then was thousands of pages (I'd guesstimate 5000 pages), it still hasn't run out of its initial toner cartridge, and the prices I've seen for when it does are about €25. With printers, as with much in the electronics…

I have a Dell laser printer I bought off of woot.com for $99 years ago. Still on its initial toner cartridge. Still works 100% flawlessly. It plugs in via ethernet, uses zeroconf/Bonjour, and requires no drivers. I still can't believe what a ridiculously good deal it was. Like some other commenters here, if I need a color print, I just walk down the street and have a professional printer do it for one or two dollars…

Same here with an HP4000+ from eBay. Full duplex, network, two full ream bins, $150. I expected it to die pretty quick but two years later (and 1000s of pages) the spare toner is still on the shelf.

Re: Obviously, HP Thinks We Are Stupid

#50

Post by mattmaroon » Tue, May 25, 2010, 2:44 PM UTC

HP's article was pretty good. I doubt they're lying about spending $1b a year on R&D for it. They're a publicly traded company so that should be verifiable.

Calling them greedy is just silly. Again, they're a company. It's their job to maximize revenues. That's what they exist for.

They wouldn't be able to charge as much as they do for ink if people weren't willing to pay for it. People wouldn't be willing to pay for it if there were equal quality ink available at half the price. Which means that either HP is correct and the enormous investment required is what keeps competition from driving the price down, or they're doing a hell of a branding job by making people think that generic ink will ruin your printer. Either way HP is just doing what it's supposed to.