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HP fails to derail claims that it bricks scanners on printers when ink runs low

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Re: HP fails to derail claims that it bricks scanners on printers when ink runs low

#161

Post by bArray »

sacnoradhq wrote: post #2

Even if you only print things once a month, a laser printer is far less wasteful in time, money, and bullshit than ink that's perpetually dry or consumed. Rather than an entry-level laser printer that cannot be economically repaired, a used mid-level enterprise printer is often the cheapest option long term and saves useful electronics from becoming e-waste. Office furniture rental/repo places and secondary markets l…

I recently purchased an Epson Eco Tank printer (their budget mono without a scanner) [1], I'm quite impressed so far. The first thing I did was print 200+ pages, and it kept up well. My biggest cost now is the price of paper (as it should be). I would suggest ink jet still could be useful, especially with cheap refillable ink rather than this expensive cartridge bullshit.

I remember years ago wanting to buy a new ink cartridge for my HP printer. In the shop the printer was something like £25 (printer + scanner, black + colour ink) - or - I could pay something like £20 for black and £25 for colour cartridges. I explained to the service person "so you're telling me, it would be cheaper for me to buy a new printer, throw the printer in the bin and just take the cartridges out?". They answered "yeah". I tried to refill the ink cartridge manually with a syringe and an online guide, but never could get it to work due to their "smart secure" cartridge lock-ins.

HP time and time again prove to be a massive problem in the printing industry. I think I have said on HN a few times that I would be very much interested in building an open source ink jet printer (including head) - it can't be impossible.

[1] https://www.epson.co.uk/en_GB/for-home/ecotank

Re: HP fails to derail claims that it bricks scanners on printers when ink runs low

#163

Post by poulpy123 »

sacnoradhq wrote: post #2

Even if you only print things once a month, a laser printer is far less wasteful in time, money, and bullshit than ink that's perpetually dry or consumed. Rather than an entry-level laser printer that cannot be economically repaired, a used mid-level enterprise printer is often the cheapest option long term and saves useful electronics from becoming e-waste. Office furniture rental/repo places and secondary markets l…

I bought a first price laser printer few years ago, it was twice the price of a inkjet printer with the same quality, and B&W only but it paid itself by having more ink in the package and not having ink drying when I'm not using it

Re: HP fails to derail claims that it bricks scanners on printers when ink runs low

#164

Post by Stevvo »

akrotkov wrote: post #144
hakfoo wrote: post #134

One thing I've noticed is that the bottom of the standalone scanner market completely disappeared. You used to be able to easily find parallel-port flatbed scanners for $50 or less, and they eventually shifted to USB. I suspect it was often used to "fluff out" a PC bundle-- "Buy a $1200 AMD-K6 machine and get a scanner and terrible inkjet printer free!" They were probably more than ample for the "scan in this documen…

The lack of a low end scanner market could also be attributed to the fact that everyone these days has a device with a camera that is either good enough or in some cases better for digitizing documents than those old scanners.

Are phones really better? A scanner has uniform and perfect lighting every time. On a phone there are often issues with glare or shadows.

Re: HP fails to derail claims that it bricks scanners on printers when ink runs low

#165

Post by chmod775 »

Stevvo wrote: post #164
akrotkov wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The lack of a low end scanner market could also be attributed to the fact that everyone these days has a device with a camera that is either good enough or in some cases better for digitizing documents than those old scanners.

Are phones really better? A scanner has uniform and perfect lighting every time. On a phone there are often issues with glare or shadows.

Someone is going to "solve" that with AI, if they didn't already.

Yeah it might randomly decide to swap out a few words, sentences, and numbers, but it looks really good!

Re: HP fails to derail claims that it bricks scanners on printers when ink runs low

#166

Post by tim333 »

justinclift wrote: post #159
esel2k wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which brother do you have / recommend? I have been quiet happy with my OKI but the phone connection is the only letdown so far and I might change for a brother in the future.

Brother have started going down the cartridge DRM route now too, so they're no longer a good brand. :( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31860131 There are ways around their particular DRM - for now - but who knows how long it'll be until they're as bad as HP and friends: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzaRVEzYuz8

I'm happy with my Samsung laser printer and would recommend it except HP bought the company and discontinued the good ones. I think their strategy is to own all the things and then extort us.

Re: HP fails to derail claims that it bricks scanners on printers when ink runs low

#167

Post by justsomehnguy »

Stevvo wrote: post #164
akrotkov wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The lack of a low end scanner market could also be attributed to the fact that everyone these days has a device with a camera that is either good enough or in some cases better for digitizing documents than those old scanners.

Are phones really better? A scanner has uniform and perfect lighting every time. On a phone there are often issues with glare or shadows.

99% of usage is scanning office documents. Sure, with a flatbed you don't need to bother with perspective correction, but 99% of times it's get scanned, mailed and forgotten forever, so nobody bothers.

Re: HP fails to derail claims that it bricks scanners on printers when ink runs low

#168

Post by lr1970 »

Retric wrote: post #97
coder543 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the printers themselves don’t last very long A high quality citation is seriously needed for a claim like that. That’s not a complaint I’ve ever heard about the EcoTank printers, and googling it didn’t turn up anything . I strongly doubt this is a characteristic of EcoTank printers. That unsourced claim sounds suspiciously convenient for your side of the discussion. Epson also makes a dedicated line of business Eco…

By not lasting very long I mean I’ve seen 3 die between 2-3 years of heavy use. I have heard they last longer with moderate use, but that suggests a lifetime page limit. Honestly, I don’t have high quality sources which is why I was interested in the first place.

> By not lasting very long I mean I’ve seen 3 die between 2-3 years of heavy use.

YMMV. I have EPSON ET-2850 EcoTank all-in-one for about a year with moderate to heavy use and so far no problems. Being able to refill ink by simply pouring it over from an ink canister is so refreshing. No DRM, no chips, no nonsense.

Re: HP fails to derail claims that it bricks scanners on printers when ink runs low

#169

Post by criddell »

seanhunter wrote: post #12

As I sit here I look at my HP-35S and HP-12C calculators that I have on my desk. My 12-C in particular is about 15 years old and still on its original battery. I remember fondly the HP-85a that I learned programming on when I was 8 years old or so. HP used to make amazingly great hardware. The first HP laserjet printers were an absolute marvel. It makes me so sad what has happened to HP.

I have an HP-35S at work and an HP-28S at home. The '28 I bought in 1989 so it's 34 years old now. The plastic has cracked near the battery door (as they all seem to do) and the display is losing contrast, but I'm okay with it because 30+ years is a pretty good run. Nothing lasts forever.

Earlier this year I started to look around for a replacement calculator and found that HP just released a collector's edition version of the HP-15C. I bought one and so far I'm very happy with it. It feels well made, it's fast, and I enjoy using it.

Re: HP fails to derail claims that it bricks scanners on printers when ink runs low

#170

Post by joenot443 »

Stevvo wrote: post #164
akrotkov wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The lack of a low end scanner market could also be attributed to the fact that everyone these days has a device with a camera that is either good enough or in some cases better for digitizing documents than those old scanners.

Are phones really better? A scanner has uniform and perfect lighting every time. On a phone there are often issues with glare or shadows.

They’re better in the sense that they are in your pocket and take fractions of the time to use.

The app iScanner really does work very well. The glare and shadow issues are trivial to solve with good CV these days, the resulting documents are pretty damn close to a hardware scan.

I had to fill out a bunch of forms when I transferred my car to the US, and everyone along the way seemed perfectly happy with photo scans.

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