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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

#121

Post by initram »

mrec wrote: post #106
willismichael wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another thumbs up for Brother, their consumer laser printers are now comparable in price to inkjet printers, and the toner is much less hassle and significantly less expensive per print. I've had no trouble with drivers on Linux either.

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 DSLR and doing an HDR merge produces great results, whereas using the scanner produces crushed blacks and blown-out whites with no way to fix them.)

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

#122

Post by snuxoll »

Agustus wrote: post #13

A brother MFC is $250, is sturdier and does not hate me as a consumer. Changing a toner is $50 per cartridge. I recommend it to every person looking for a printer: Buy a laser printer.

Their inkjets aren't bad either, when I do print I frequently want color but not often enough to want to spend 2-3 times as much upfront on a color laser printer. So far I've replaced the cartridges in my MFC-J4420DW once with the XL sized cartridges for ~$40 and they're still at ~70% capacity after printing 200 pages in the past year. Sure, I'd pay less with a laser printer, but for the volume it made more sense to amortize the cost than pay it all upfront.

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

#123

Post by jackhack »

Agustus wrote: post #13

A brother MFC is $250, is sturdier and does not hate me as a consumer. Changing a toner is $50 per cartridge. I recommend it to every person looking for a printer: Buy a laser printer.

Brother is playing the game, too. My 3-month-old Brother MFC (printer, copier/scanner) just refused to recognize the generic ink cartridge I bought off of eBay. I had to pry the RFID(?) chip off the empty Brother cartridge and hot-glue it to the generic cartridge. Now it works.

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

#124

Post by reitanqild »

initram wrote: post #117
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'm mostly in the same boat as you. However, I have found that with electronics, you run the risk of your beloved older piece of equipment not even being able to connect to your newer equipment because it doesn't have the latest connector (SCSI, Firewire, USB-2, USB-3, USB-C, Thunderbolt, Lightning, VGA, XGA, DVI, Mini-Display Port, HDMI, composite, component, etc.). On top of that, you have the issue of drivers and…

USB 1,2 and three has been backwards compatible.

Ethernet is. Most WiFi gear is.

For most video equipment there exist some kind of adapters.

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

#125

Post by EvanAnderson »

wvenable wrote: post #111
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 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.

Same here. Purchased a workgroup color laser almost 7 years ago. My printing volume is fairly low (around 500 pages / year) and I'm still on the original set of cartridges. The amortized cost of this printer has been amazing-- under $75 / year. It uses the PCL protocol and has an Ethernet connection, so it's a long way off from practical obsolescence, too. I'll likely be using this printer in another 7 years.

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

#126

Post by cmdrfred »

jackhack wrote: post #118
vc4devil wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue is why do people in UK/USA put up with this Orwellian customer control business model? In Asia if a company were to do these things the business would be burnt to the ground, and/or family selling the inferior by design products. ... This is silly, the printer biz has always been 'give away the camera, and take the first born when they need film' You go abroad ASIA and every printer ink or cartridge, as a b…

Because, from healthcare, to consumer products, to software, to books, the US is paying full price to subsidize the cost to much of the world. The US is the profit center that makes possible the steeply-discounted-almost-free sales elsewhere.

The "full price" here was 15 percent of GlaxoSmithKline's revenue last year. They spent 40 percent on marketing. When can this myth die?

http://www.bizjournals.com/triangle/news/2016/07/19/where-gs...

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

#127

Post by ghostly_s »

jahewson wrote: post #95
makecheck wrote: post #69

Printer cartridges are emblematic of the (sadly widespread) tendency for companies to build things that are obviously wasteful, and clear alternatives should be available. Every time you have to “throw away” something that looks 70% reusable (or in the case of printer ink, not even fully empty), it’s aggravating. We really need to push all companies to build reuse deeply into their products so that none of them feels…

Brother's toner cartridges come with a return shipping label in the box, so you can send back your old cartridge from them to recycle. I assume they refurbish and refill them and then sell them again.

AFAIK all toner cartridges are sold this way. I believe it's simply because there's no practical way to refill toner, which is an extremely messy indelible powder. There are also environmental regulations regarding the disposal of toner.

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

#128

Post by gaius »

zwieback wrote: post #83
makecheck wrote: post #69

Printer cartridges are emblematic of the (sadly widespread) tendency for companies to build things that are obviously wasteful, and clear alternatives should be available. Every time you have to “throw away” something that looks 70% reusable (or in the case of printer ink, not even fully empty), it’s aggravating. We really need to push all companies to build reuse deeply into their products so that none of them feels…

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…

make sure the printhead doesn't get ruined

How does a head get "ruined"? If its clogged can't it just be cleaned? Perhaps by flushing through with a solvent. I call shenanigans.

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

#129

Post by addicted »

vc4devil wrote: post #50
3chelon wrote: post #31

I once got a full refund on a laptop outside of its warranty period because a software update (Windows 8.1) effectively bricked the machine. I demanded it under the UK Sale of Goods Act, which states that a product must be fit for purpose, which it clearly no longer was once the automatic update had happened. I do wonder if this can be more broadly applied to consumer products that effectively change their behaviour…

The issue is why do people in UK/USA put up with this Orwellian customer control business model? In Asia if a company were to do these things the business would be burnt to the ground, and/or family selling the inferior by design products. ... This is silly, the printer biz has always been 'give away the camera, and take the first born when they need film' You go abroad ASIA and every printer ink or cartridge, as a b…

Because the consumers here are richer?

$30 for an American is far less expensive than $10 is for an Indian.

So Americans and Europeans are capable of paying more than Asians, and companies know this, and are able to price their products accordingly.

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

#130

Post by cmdrfred »

witty_username wrote: post #81
jackmott wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about we start characterizing "company lying to us" as theft, and put them in actual jail for it, then? If you want to treat corporations like people with liberties, let's make basic laws like fraud and theft have consequences. We shoot and choke to death people selling cigarettes or cds 'illegally' on the side of the street why can't Wells Fargo executives go to jail for theft?

But financial crimes are illegal. Could you point out a specific person/case? Wells Fargo fired 5300 employees and paid a $185 million fine.

Wells Fargo's shareholders fired 5300 employees and paid a $185 million fine. As far as I'm aware the CEO kept his job and bonus.
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