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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

#141

Post by VT_Drew »

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.

>Changing a toner is $50 per cartridge.

What is the yield though?

I haven't seen anything that even comes close to the cost savings with a Kyocera (not to mention their machines are work horses will print all day without issue). I can get a Kocera TK 3112 toner which yields 15,500 pages (and it actually does) for $66.

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

#142

Post by rdiddly »

There is no practical way for HP to "make amends." I would consider buying an HP printer if they gave me for free, a flawlessly-working printer (or johnny-on-the-spot support and/or enough free replacement printers to achieve the functional equivalent), and 5 years of free ink. In other words, a level of generosity and support that, if they did it for everybody, would put them out of business. Which is probably where they deserve to be. That also, would help make amends.

It would also be okay with me if the whole printer market were regulated into some semblance of normalcy by the government. (Assuming the government is competent and capable of governing the corporate class to which it is currently in thrall... obviously not a valid assumption. Everybody who was all GET BIG GOVERNMENT OFF OUR BACKS - enjoy.)

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

#143

Post by rdiddly »

Can't sign my name to something with a grammar error:

"...the printers now automatically verify whether its ink cartridges are official HP ink..."

The word "its" has no antecedent to which it refers. Assuming you mean "belonging to the printers" then it should be "their." Though it highlights a factual inaccuracy - the cartridges are not the property of the printer(s), so maybe just say "the" ink cartridges, or better yet, "any installed" ink cartridges.

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

#144

Post by alistairSH »

specialist wrote: post #73
alistairSH wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another Brother laser printer user here. I did have some strange networking problems when I initially configured mine for wireless use. The Macs on the network consistently lost the ability to connect. My son eventually resolved the problem, though I never bothered to ask how. Never had that issue with Canon, but so far, I much happier with the Brother. The toner cartridge lasts WAY longer than the Canon inkjet and p…

I have same zombie connectivity issue with Mac clients. Have to walk over and bounce the printer. Doesn't happen with Windows. Would love to know your son's fix.

I think he gave the Brother a fixed IP (using the admin tool on the wireless router, maybe). We didn't change anything on the Macs themselves. If he's around this evening, I'll ask.

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

#145

Post by alphapapa »

untothebreach wrote: post #82
icefo wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Epson did it: http://www.epson.com/ecotank I didn't bought it because it was too big to fit on my desk and I don't know if I will buy an other Epson because they drivers are bad on my Debian. I should try to upgrade them. HP is pretty terrible but the Linux drivers are impressive.

I have had great luck with Brother drivers on all the linux machines I've ever tried to use them with, so I would consider that a good option as well.

I have a Brother HL2270DW printer, does duplexing and wireless, looks nice, doesn't take up much space. Got it on sale at NewEgg for less than $100. Replaced the toner cartridge once with a third-party brand. It's been great.

I use Debian and Ubuntu, and the driver has mostly worked very well.

However, there have been a few times when, after upgrading Ubuntu, which upgrades CUPS, some very obscure thing in the driver was incompatible with something else in the chain of commands used to print a job (ghostscript, etc--there's quite a pipeline), and suddenly the duplexing would print an extra, blank page between pages, and every page was offset by about an inch to the side. I was able to find a bug report on Launchpad and manually edit one of the driver files myself to work around it, but it took several hours of fiddling, and it's nothing any "average user" would be able to do.

And, sadly, Brother hasn't released updated drivers for this printer in many years; they don't seem to care about keeping up with newer versions of Ubuntu or CUPS, etc.--at least, not for this printer.

And I haven't been able to get it to print on envelopes correctly, no matter what I tried. It just prints as if it's printing on a normal sheet of paper.

So, anyway, whenever it needs replacing, I will probably try to get a printer that just does plain old PostScript. I'm no expert, but my understanding is that if a printer correctly handles PS, then basically anything can print to it correctly, without having to worry about arcane, manufacturer-specific drivers.

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

#146

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#147

Post by a3n »

I don't understand how this can be a thing.

You can buy and use an oil filter from any source for your car. I think it's illegal to require original manufacturer parts.

Yet HP is doing exactly that, and in an underhanded way. And this fight, over printer ink, has been going on for years.

How can this be?

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

#148

Post by bjterry »

specialist wrote: post #73
alistairSH wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another Brother laser printer user here. I did have some strange networking problems when I initially configured mine for wireless use. The Macs on the network consistently lost the ability to connect. My son eventually resolved the problem, though I never bothered to ask how. Never had that issue with Canon, but so far, I much happier with the Brother. The toner cartridge lasts WAY longer than the Canon inkjet and p…

I have same zombie connectivity issue with Mac clients. Have to walk over and bounce the printer. Doesn't happen with Windows. Would love to know your son's fix.

I had this problem. There was a firmware update for the printer that solved the issue. Now it reliably wakes from deep sleep on WiFi from my Mac. It is a Brother DCPL2520DW.

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

#149

Post by TheRealPomax »

zimbatm wrote: post #66
j_m_b wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>.. Orwellian customer control business model? When I think of "Orwellian" I think of government control that is forced upon the individual, not simply bad practices of a few players in a single industry. Of course someone could just buy another make of printer. It's not like they have no other choice, lots of people suggested Brother printers as good alternatives when this story first made the rounds. They could mak…

Government control like DMCA is very much put in place by big corporations trough the corruption of congress. I'm not saying the control is total but we're certainly getting there. Even if there are alternatives today they are getting slowly stripped away through more regulation and reallocation of funding. It's not a far stretch to entertain the view that we're under Orwellian control.

That does not make the term apply to this situation. Orwellian is strictly about the relationship between the people and the government. It's a good term, great to use, but not applicable in this case.

Here, HP is allowed to exploit the rules of the free market in a way that is both wasteful and unethical, but legal. Not because of Orwellian practices (we are not told by the government to use HP unquestionably) but rather quite the opposite: the government is in fact explicitly NOT allowed to formalise the ethics here through law. Any kind of governmental regulation here is seen as "the government interfering with the free market", and as idiotic as that claim is, it seems deeply entrenched in the thought patterns of those who can influence the legal landsdcape.

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

#150

Post by jlgaddis »

a3n wrote: post #147

I don't understand how this can be a thing. You can buy and use an oil filter from any source for your car. I think it's illegal to require original manufacturer parts. Yet HP is doing exactly that, and in an underhanded way. And this fight, over printer ink, has been going on for years. How can this be?

This is one of HP's top revenue generators, while the rest of the company is in a slow downward spiral (and has been for years). You better believe that they're going to do whatever {they can,it takes} to preserve that revenue.
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