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How to change the region on an HP OfficeJet printer in 57 easy steps

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Re: How to change the region on an HP OfficeJet printer in 57 easy steps

#191

Post by laurencerowe »

AshamedCaptain wrote: post #137
rblatz wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So with infrequent use you use about 1% of the cartridge just cleaning. I typically print 1-3 pages when I print something. So your ink cartridge would give me about 200 pages.

Sounds about right. Which would make this corner case about 5-10x more expensive than a laser, which is close but below one order of magnitude difference. At these points and with such infrequently printing, the cost of the printer itself becomes more relevant than the cost of ink, and that favors inkjets and inkjet multifunctions (e.g. dual-sided ADFs can be had for around 50€ inkjet, since they obviously under-pric…

I’m not sure it’s a corner case. I print a handful of times a year. I’ve had my $80 Dell laser about 10 years and just had to replace the toner and buy a second ream of paper. This seems about average for people I know.

If I’d bought an inkjet I suspect I’d have had to buy a new cartridge at least once a year wiping out any savings on the printer itself even if I had gone for the more expensive Brother (which would have been less of a pain on a Mac now that the old Dell drivers barely work on current macOS.)

Re: How to change the region on an HP OfficeJet printer in 57 easy steps

#192

Post by jen20 »

makeitdouble wrote: post #30
bombcar wrote: post #2

It has always annoyed me that "region settings" don't just take into account the realities of the situation; they're OBVIOUSLY designed to prevent people in "rich" countries from buying media designated for "poor" countries in a form of market segmentation; but that should mean the "rich media" should just work in all devices. Of course now things like the players are so cheap you can just buy multiple if you want to…

> but that should mean the "rich media" should just work in all devices. There's no simple business reason to do that. The most basic approach is to have the customer pay multiple times: they can afford to move regions or have the goods imported, blocking that route and have them pay for a whole new set is a simple strategy. Arguing against that simpleness requires fuzzy touchy/feely brand image, consumer satisfactio…

No-one in their right mind would pay a scumbag company with that strategy having moved, so they in fact lose revenue as the ongoing media cost goes to their competitor.

Re: How to change the region on an HP OfficeJet printer in 57 easy steps

#193

Post by TheHappyOddish »

optimiz3 wrote: post #103
OJFord wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What're you printing? At some point I realised it was extremely rare that I printed anything other than a return label (and was doing so at the office while largely working from home, not that convenient), so I just got a label printer.

If you do anything financial, legal, or business frequently you have to provide PDFs of signed physical documents. Every quarter I have to print->sign->scan->email multiple forms. Inefficient and wasteful? Yes. Also required by law.

Me too. I however scanned my signature years ago and insert it in, along with my name. I use my iPad and Apple Pencil for dates or any other data.

In thousands of official documents, nobody has called it out. When asked "did you print and scan this?" I lie.

Eventually the world will catch up, but there's no need to participate in their bullshit in the meantime.

Re: How to change the region on an HP OfficeJet printer in 57 easy steps

#194

Post by TheHappyOddish »

AnotherGoodName wrote: post #119
robswc wrote: post #113

I actually have no idea how printers (things that have been around for ever) are _still_ just so bad. I do get cheap printers tbf... but sometimes they just flat out do not work or can't connect or get jobs stuck in the queue, etc. I never experience this when buying other "cheap" peripherals, yet, printers just seem to consistently suck in almost every way.

They are required by law to do certain things. You can't print black if yellow is out because the tracking microdots won't print. The region is extremely important not to be changed because different regions have different requirements. You can't even create a printer startup and fix the issues because it's all basically regulatory.

From what I can see, there are no such laws or regulations.

Can you provide any citations for this claim?

Re: How to change the region on an HP OfficeJet printer in 57 easy steps

#195

Post by makeitdouble »

jen20 wrote: post #192
makeitdouble wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but that should mean the "rich media" should just work in all devices. There's no simple business reason to do that. The most basic approach is to have the customer pay multiple times: they can afford to move regions or have the goods imported, blocking that route and have them pay for a whole new set is a simple strategy. Arguing against that simpleness requires fuzzy touchy/feely brand image, consumer satisfactio…

No-one in their right mind would pay a scumbag company with that strategy having moved, so they in fact lose revenue as the ongoing media cost goes to their competitor.

This is an issue only if your direct competitors have different strategies. And in my experience, they don't.

I think the general wisdom for anyone caring enough, is to go for a Brother laser printer (I personally went for Xerox but it's the same deal), and I'd posit they're not in direct competition with HP or EPSON:

- it requires ample prior research. You don't stumble upon a laser printer when going to a shopping mall and ask the staff for a printer for your kids homework.

- it requires having given up on many dreams in general and recognizing the bullshit of the whole industry. They are big and bulky, expensive, under marketed, your friends won't have them (or you're lucky), they're never on discount, and you're not a lawyer so you shouldn't be buying something named "WorkCenter 6515" instead of "ENVY Inspire all-in-one" to print school assignments. When I bought mine online I was asked my VAT number for the corporate tax paperwork and had to explain we're just some random family needing a reliable printer.

It's only after having seen the other side for so many years that you give up and buy a professional grade color laser printer if you expect to have to print more than 3 times a year at home.

Re: How to change the region on an HP OfficeJet printer in 57 easy steps

#196

Post by midoridensha »

rekabis wrote: post #84
Freak_NL wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I got a Brother laser printer (HL-3170CDW) and in terms of economy it's hard to beat. (Never buy an ink printer though. That advice holds.) About the random bricking though… While this printer doesn't actually brick itself, it does have a very curious failure state where if you leave it off, but plugged into the mains, it will eventually refuse to boot up until you unplug it, wait for ten minutes, and plug it back in…

> Never buy an ink printer though. That advice holds. With traditional ink printers, yes. With the new tank-based printers? No. That advice no longer holds. Tank-based printers separate out the tank that holds the ink from the nozzle that sprays the ink. This allows the printer to fully seal off the tank when the printer is not in use, preventing the ink from drying up. The traditional ink cartridges are not able to…

How do they keep the ink from drying up in the nozzles? That, in my experience, is the problem. There's always leftover ink in the nozzles from the last print operation.

Re: How to change the region on an HP OfficeJet printer in 57 easy steps

#197

Post by midoridensha »

rekabis wrote: post #82
rtpg wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm going to advise against this. Most people selling their printer are doing so out of frustration due to paper jams or other nonsense. I have gotten 2 used printers out of not wanting to generate e-waste, only to have constant printer jams and other frustrations leading to me having to just print at the grocery store instead. "That Brother printer" will cost you more (and be Yet Another Plastic Thing To Go To A Lan…

> Most people selling their printer are doing so out of frustration due to paper jams or other nonsense. Consumer printers? Sure. Highly likely. That stuff was designed to be disposable. Business-class or Enterprise-class printers that had been used in larger offices or have low page counts? A much lower probability. The business/enterprise stuff is meant to last because they cost a lot going out the door, and so are…

One problem with those older office-size laser printers is the standby power consumption is pretty terrible.

Re: How to change the region on an HP OfficeJet printer in 57 easy steps

#199

Post by account42 »

jbm wrote: post #152
oefrha wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tangential: after moving to a “cheaper” region I can no longer gift American friends Steam titles. I’d pay the full American price but there’s simply no such option. Sad. (Of course I can send cash instead, but cash gifts IMO are kinda gross.)

On a side note, I've come around on cash gifts. I used to think they were gross, as they seemed to put a number on a relationship. However, life is short and I would much rather give my kids 20-40 bucks to gift to a friend than go shopping for a toy. Moreover, I'd rather get something I wanted instead of 10 things I didn't really want; cash presents make that possible.

As a kid I preferred cash gifts because it meant I could buy the things I actually want. As an adult I have enough disposable income that 20-40 bucks does not make a meaningful difference to what I can buy - I much prefer getting an item that I didn't think about buying, something that the giver has invested time into creating/slecting or that has some other personal meaning.

Of course that doesn't work out for situations where people just buy a random item as a token gift because they (feel they) are expected to provide one. In that situation the best solution is to remove that expectation - if nothing else works by forbidding gifts.

Or to sum it up: I think cash gifts only make sense if the amount is menaingful for the receiver and they are not expected to just gift the same amount back (i.e. the relationship is asymmetric in terms of gift transfer).

Re: How to change the region on an HP OfficeJet printer in 57 easy steps

#200

Post by maccard »

AshamedCaptain wrote: post #137
rblatz wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So with infrequent use you use about 1% of the cartridge just cleaning. I typically print 1-3 pages when I print something. So your ink cartridge would give me about 200 pages.

Sounds about right. Which would make this corner case about 5-10x more expensive than a laser, which is close but below one order of magnitude difference. At these points and with such infrequently printing, the cost of the printer itself becomes more relevant than the cost of ink, and that favors inkjets and inkjet multifunctions (e.g. dual-sided ADFs can be had for around 50€ inkjet, since they obviously under-pric…

Could you share what cartridge you're talking about specifically?
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