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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

#41

Post by jsmith99 »

I bought a cheap (£50) hp multifunction at the start of covid with an instant ink subscription. Obviously this involves dystopian DRM and the printer phoning home the number of pages I am printing but it actually works really well. I print over WiFi from Windows, iPhone, android, etc with no issues, cartridges arrive at my door before I need them, and the cost per page is competitive with professional equipment (under 5p for the ink even if full colour photo).

The cartridges belong to hp, not me, so they would stop working if I cancelled and I would have to buy my own. That's normal with pay per click printing, which is also the standard in high end leased machines. I don't want my computer to be an appliance but having the printer be 'just an appliance' is very convenient.

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

#42

Post by Freak_NL »

rtpg wrote: post #34
tdeck wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For those of us who need to print a bit more often, my advice is to buy a black and white laser printer for ~$40 on Craigslist and you'll get years of cheap, reliable occasional printing in your own home while you use up the rest of the toner cartridge that came with it. When it breaks you can probably find another one in the same price range.

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…

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. No error message, no blinking lights, nothing to indicate that something is wrong, just nothing until you let it reset itself by removing the power cable for a while. I just leave it unplugged most of the time now.

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

#43

Post by tragomaskhalos »

A pox on printers with DRM cartridges and all their works. We binned ours a couple of years back in favour of an Epson something-or-other. It's not exactly the world's greatest printer, but it has two absolutely killer features - one, it has four ink reservoirs that you refill from (non-DRM!) squeezy bottles of ink that are cheap, and two, once in there the ink lasts for absolutely ages.

Like OP's, that printer took an absolute caning during the pandemic as both kids' schoolwork was constantly spewing out of the thing, and I marvel at how much money it saved us.

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

#44

Post by jojobas »

andai wrote: post #37
Neil44 wrote: post #31

HP printers are absolutely awful now in terms of their PITA setup, obtuse smart setup exe’s instead of drivers, stupid drm or subscription lock stuff like this. We do not supply or recommend them any more (IT company).

Can you recommend a printer or brand? Or else enumerate all the bad ones? ;)

Fuji-Xerox laser mfus seem to be OK. Proper linux driver support, cups/ipp and the toner never dries.

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

#45

Post by skuzye »

Jolter wrote: post #36
t344344 wrote: post #18

Who has so much free time? Easy solution: - return cartridges since they do not work in "compatible" printer. Consumer laws do not care about small print or region locks - go to unauthorized shop and have original cartridges refiled. I recycled cartridge like that for several years.

Not sure refilling works with HP’s DRM-equipped cartridges. I think they will refuse to print once their counter shows 0, no matter if there’s ink inside.

My dad used to be in the refill business selling parts, inks and all needed to get it done. Im not sure about this particular model but the DRM can be worked around in a couple of ways: swapping for a 3rd party drm chip, using a reset device or some older models just click “print anyway”.

Edit: typo

I’d imagine things could be worse nowadays.

He used to buy products from an American company so it should be available in the US too.

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

#46

Post by rwmj »

andai wrote: post #37
Neil44 wrote: post #31

HP printers are absolutely awful now in terms of their PITA setup, obtuse smart setup exe’s instead of drivers, stupid drm or subscription lock stuff like this. We do not supply or recommend them any more (IT company).

Can you recommend a printer or brand? Or else enumerate all the bad ones? ;)

I got one of those Epson ink tank printers which is pretty nice. Because it doesn't have (much of) a razors and blades ink model, you have to pay a significant amount of money up front however.

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

#47

Post by dnh44 »

Freak_NL wrote: post #42
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…

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…

Epson have a line called ecoTank that let allows you to refill from a bottle which are also economical.

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

#48

Post by greatgib »

HP products are now such crappy/broken products, it is incredible.

Their printers are probably the worst. All the ones I had to touch had problems: scan pages bent, adf adding a blue line on scanned documents, configuration messed up in windows because owning 2 times the same model or one of them being setup both by cable and wifi, huge software bloat on PC or android, thing that should connect but is not detected despite installing all their crappy software and resetting the stuff 10 times, printer refusing to start and scan because a cardridge is missing

That makes me totally crazy and I hate them.

I'm quite sure that they would have died a long time ago and not have this market share if they weren't so aggressive on prices. They are playing on the fact that they make you buy a lot of them. I think that some people should start to sue them.

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

#49

Post by mnw21cam »

Freak_NL wrote: post #42
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…

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…

I did buy a (Brother DCP-J4120DW) colour inkjet printer all-in-one device. And (surprisingly to me) it actually doesn't suck. The Linux drivers work. Sure, the ink is pricey, but it has generally been trouble-free. I left it for a couple of years without printing anything and it clogged up, but when the pandemic hit and I started having to print at home again, it cleared up with a couple of head-cleaning operations. I'm not printing much - maybe a double-sided sheet a week.

So yeah, the advice to never buy an inkjet - it's true but not disastrously true all the time.

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