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Obviously, HP Thinks We Are Stupid

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Re: Obviously, HP Thinks We Are Stupid

#61

Post by jonknee »

pmjordan wrote: post #51
theBobMcCormick wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless you print a lot of color photos and have a really good photo printer, it seems like it's hard to beat the cost-per-photo of just uploading your photo's to Walgreens, Walmart, or whatever other inexpensive photo printing place is near you.

Actually, it's more the opposite - if you just want to print a few at a time to send to relatives, it's a lot cheaper to print your own, as the delivery charges dwarf the price of the prints themselves.

But you don't have to buy the printer and the ridiculously priced ink. Most of the time you can just do it in the store too, no delivery.

Re: Obviously, HP Thinks We Are Stupid

#62

Post by artlogic »

The first major purchase I made on eBay was a HP LaserJet 5P purchased in 2000 for $200. I still use that printer today, I think I've replaced the toner cartridge 3 times in the last 10 years. At $75/cartridge, it's been a bargain. On top of that, I purchased memory upgrades, the postscript SIM, and a used JetDirect external box for around $50. Now I have a network printer that doesn't even need drivers to work. On top of that, it's built like a tank. I'll be surprised if it breaks down in the next 10 years, given my relatively low usage.

Despite all the personal experience I have indicating a quality laser printer is a better long term deal, I still have yet to convince anyone else they should use this solution. Most folks believe color is too important. Even with the advent of cheap color lasers, most people aren't willing to make the upfront investment. Then they complain when their ink costs nearly $100 to replace.

If anything, one of the largest problems I've seen in modern society in the inability to think in the long term, and by extension make short term sacrifices for long term gain.

Re: Obviously, HP Thinks We Are Stupid

#63

Post by midnightmonster »

For me, it's Linux support, ease of use, features, and economy.

When my little Samsung laser printer finally died, I bought an HP inkjet (OfficeJet Pro 8000 Wireless) for a bit over $100. I got home and took off all the tape, stuck in the large individual-color, separate-from-print-head ink tanks, plugged it in to power and my network, and printed the network settings page (which I turned out not to need). Then click-click-click on my Ubuntu system, and I was printing. Download driver click-click-click on my wife's macbook, and she was printing. One of the easiest setups I've ever done for network printing, and even easier on Linux than on Mac.

And it duplexes automatically.

My 6 year old is thrilled to be able to print in color, and I'm happy not smelling ozone.

So I'm happy with razors and razorblades inkjet, albeit with HP's most economical cartridges. (And there's a little part of me that is bothered by the lack of perfectly-sharp text printing that I've always missed when not using a laser.)

Re: Obviously, HP Thinks We Are Stupid

#64

Post by tumult »

qeorge wrote: post #38
tumult wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1700n. It was new, not refurbished, and came with a toner.

Wow, that is wild. I bought that same deal off woot.com (although I think I paid $120). We've been using it for about 4 years now, and are also still on the initial half-filled cartridge. Probably the best woot I've ever bought.

You're right, I think I did pay $120 for it, not $99. Maybe I unconsciously factored out the shipping, even though shipping was free.

Re: Obviously, HP Thinks We Are Stupid

#65

Post by barrkel »

mattmaroon wrote: post #50

HP's article was pretty good. I doubt they're lying about spending $1b a year on R&D for it. They're a publicly traded company so that should be verifiable. Calling them greedy is just silly. Again, they're a company. It's their job to maximize revenues. That's what they exist for. They wouldn't be able to charge as much as they do for ink if people weren't willing to pay for it. People wouldn't be willing to pay for…

There are two halves to price: supply and demand. The investment is a sunk cost. Competition in an efficient market should reduce the price to the marginal cost of production. And if the marginal cost of production was genuinely so high, why would printer manufacturers be putting in all kinds of validation electronics? Why not leave it at caveat emptor?

Re: Obviously, HP Thinks We Are Stupid

#66

Post by mattmaroon »

barrkel wrote: post #65
mattmaroon wrote: post #50

HP's article was pretty good. I doubt they're lying about spending $1b a year on R&D for it. They're a publicly traded company so that should be verifiable. Calling them greedy is just silly. Again, they're a company. It's their job to maximize revenues. That's what they exist for. They wouldn't be able to charge as much as they do for ink if people weren't willing to pay for it. People wouldn't be willing to pay for…

There are two halves to price: supply and demand. The investment is a sunk cost. Competition in an efficient market should reduce the price to the marginal cost of production. And if the marginal cost of production was genuinely so high, why would printer manufacturers be putting in all kinds of validation electronics? Why not leave it at caveat emptor?

The investment required keeps the supply relatively low. It's not fair to call it a sunk cost when it's an annual $1b. Keeping up with the state of the art in printers (note the disparity in quality even over the last few years) is a significant ongoing expense.

And the reason not to leave it caveat emptor is obvious: your brand suffers. When someone's printer goes bad they don't blame the manufacturer of the ink, they blame the manufacturer of the printer. This is part of why Steve Jobs doesn't want Flash on the iPad. He spent enough years denigrating Windows for crashing due to third party programs to not want the same thing done to him.

Re: Obviously, HP Thinks We Are Stupid

#67

Post by krupan »

ashbrahma wrote: post #25

Personally, I am looking forward to the Memjet printers. Video Demo of Memjet vs HP Inkjet. http://www.memjethomeandoffice.com/technology/video_view/mem... Memjet was founded by Kia Silverbrook, one of the leading inventors/patent filers in the world now.

The only difference between memjet and the other inkjet printers is that the print head doesn't move. It uses ink like all the others, and will probably still have the same razor/razor blade business model. If they ever productize it.

Re: Obviously, HP Thinks We Are Stupid

#68

Post by duncanj »

pmjordan wrote: post #5
wheels wrote: post #2

One of the best investments that I made about 7 years ago was to buy a black and white laser printer for home: http://www.okidata.com/mkt/downloads/B4250_B4350Series.pdf I paid about €250 for it (which then was thousands of pages (I'd guesstimate 5000 pages), it still hasn't run out of its initial toner cartridge, and the prices I've seen for when it does are about €25. With printers, as with much in the electronics…

Laser printers are great for many things, but when you do need good colour prints of photos, etc., you can apply the same advice to inkjets and get good results. We got an HP Photosmart 8250 or so 3-4 years back. IIRC it was pretty much the most expensive A4 inkjet from HP at the time, but even that was only 2-3x as much as a mid-grade consumer printer. In any case, unlike most printers, it uses separate tanks for ea…

I find the Xerox (formerly Tektronix) Phaser solid ink color printers to be pretty awesome in this regard. They print fast and produce a glossy, professional-looking color print. I think the main problem is that they require more energy over the long term than a comparable laser.

Re: Obviously, HP Thinks We Are Stupid

#69

Post by krupan »

I used to work at HP in the inkjet division, and I just wanted to point out that, down at the individual engineer level of the organization, we all kinda hated the business model too. You could imagine what would happen though if HP decided to raise the cost of printers and reduce the cost of ink. Everyone at Best Buy would see HP printers that cost more than Epson, Cannon, or Lexmark and guess which printer they'd buy. Kodak tried to go that route and made a lot of noise about how much cheaper their ink was, but they haven't taken a whole lot of inkjet market share (yet?).

Re: Obviously, HP Thinks We Are Stupid

#70

Post by mmagin »

artlogic wrote: post #62

The first major purchase I made on eBay was a HP LaserJet 5P purchased in 2000 for $200. I still use that printer today, I think I've replaced the toner cartridge 3 times in the last 10 years. At $75/cartridge, it's been a bargain. On top of that, I purchased memory upgrades, the postscript SIM, and a used JetDirect external box for around $50. Now I have a network printer that doesn't even need drivers to work. On t…

I bought a LaserJet 6MP on ebay about 5 years ago and upgraded the memory to the maximum. It's served me well since for general text printing.
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