7 ms·

Tell HP: Still a long way to go to make up for breaking our printers

44 points by dwaxe 10y ago

DougN7 10y ago
For the past 15 years I've been an "HP only" printer buyer and user for home and my business. They've changed. Quality (my original reason for sticking with them) has dropped noticably in the past 4 printers. This ink issue is the last straw. I'll never buy HP again.
- unclebucknasty 10y ago
  Ditto. I switched years ago, largely because the last two HP printers I'd bought were crap, right out of the box.
  - emp_zealoth 10y ago
    Yes, this, so much. I've got a HP LaserJet Proffesional for riddiculous price and the only thing "proffesional" about is that the cartridge costs as much as another laser printer 100$+! (what the hell) and the aftermarket ones cost as much as original ones for different printers. Doesnt work with Linux apart from basic stuff, wireless interface is broken, have to powercycle repeatedly after any amount of idle time. Great machine!
    - nickff 10y ago
      Many, if not most, printers come with partially-full cartridges, so buying a new printer instead of a new cartridge may cost less, but will get you less than half as many printed pages. The only printers that I am sure come with full cartridges are costly industrial inkjets ($5000+).
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
mikestew 10y ago
I already "told HP" (as prompt to do by the article) when I bought a Brother laser instead of new cartridges for the HP we already had. What HP does in the future is no concern of mine. The article tries to argue that it is my concern (armies of printer bots), but HP won't care what I think because I'm no longer a customer nor stand a chance of becoming one again.
rebootthesystem 10y ago
I go back to the HP LaserJet. As someone noted, quality has been on a constant downward spiral. This is particularly true when it comes to firmware/software. HP printer software has ranged from annoying to down-right stupid. And their firmware, at least the visible portions of it, nonsensical. For example, every single HP ink-jet I've owned refuses to print with black ink if any of the color cartridges are empty. My current HP is supposed to revert to black-and-white only if you run out of color ink but I'll be damned if I know how to make that work. And, of course, this always happens when someone is in a hurry to print. I ought to be able to print down to the last drop of ink, regardless of color. The user ought to have ultimate control of this, not the printer.
- krupan 10y ago
  I spent time working in Inkjet Land at HP. If you dry fire a thermal inkjet print head you will damage it. Some of these built-in restrictions really are there to protect you and your product. It's hard to tell where protecting you and your product from actual damage ends and protecting HP's ink business begins, and that's unfortunate.
  - u02sgb 10y ago
    Interesting, thanks for commenting. Anything else you might like to share?
  - nikanj 10y ago
    Don't HP cartidges have the print heads in them, i.e. the only thing you'll damage is the "empty" cartidge?
    - derobert 10y ago
      No, at least for the last Officejet I used. The cartridges are just ink tanks, the print heads are separate. I think that's fairly widespread now; e.g., it's also true on my Canon Pixma.
    - krupan 10y ago
5ilv3r 10y ago
So now that building a decent printer completely from scratch is possible, remind me again why we still need hp printers?
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

44 points by dwaxe 10y ago

For the past 15 years I've been an "HP only" printer buyer and user for home and my business. They've changed. Quality (my original reason for sticking with them) has dropped noticably in the past 4 printers. This ink issue is the last straw. I'll never buy HP again.

unclebucknasty 10y ago
Ditto. I switched years ago, largely because the last two HP printers I'd bought were crap, right out of the box.
- emp_zealoth 10y ago
  Yes, this, so much. I've got a HP LaserJet Proffesional for riddiculous price and the only thing "proffesional" about is that the cartridge costs as much as another laser printer 100$+! (what the hell) and the aftermarket ones cost as much as original ones for different printers. Doesnt work with Linux apart from basic stuff, wireless interface is broken, have to powercycle repeatedly after any amount of idle time. Great machine!
  - nickff 10y ago
    Many, if not most, printers come with partially-full cartridges, so buying a new printer instead of a new cartridge may cost less, but will get you less than half as many printed pages. The only printers that I am sure come with full cartridges are costly industrial inkjets ($5000+).
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

mikestew 10y ago

I already "told HP" (as prompt to do by the article) when I bought a Brother laser instead of new cartridges for the HP we already had. What HP does in the future is no concern of mine. The article tries to argue that it is my concern (armies of printer bots), but HP won't care what I think because I'm no longer a customer nor stand a chance of becoming one again.

rebootthesystem 10y ago

I go back to the HP LaserJet. As someone noted, quality has been on a constant downward spiral. This is particularly true when it comes to firmware/software. HP printer software has ranged from annoying to down-right stupid. And their firmware, at least the visible portions of it, nonsensical. For example, every single HP ink-jet I've owned refuses to print with black ink if any of the color cartridges are empty. My current HP is supposed to revert to black-and-white only if you run out of color ink but I'll be damned if I know how to make that work. And, of course, this always happens when someone is in a hurry to print. I ought to be able to print down to the last drop of ink, regardless of color. The user ought to have ultimate control of this, not the printer.

krupan 10y ago
I spent time working in Inkjet Land at HP. If you dry fire a thermal inkjet print head you will damage it. Some of these built-in restrictions really are there to protect you and your product. It's hard to tell where protecting you and your product from actual damage ends and protecting HP's ink business begins, and that's unfortunate.
- u02sgb 10y ago
  Interesting, thanks for commenting. Anything else you might like to share?
- nikanj 10y ago
  Don't HP cartidges have the print heads in them, i.e. the only thing you'll damage is the "empty" cartidge?
  - derobert 10y ago
    No, at least for the last Officejet I used. The cartridges are just ink tanks, the print heads are separate. I think that's fairly widespread now; e.g., it's also true on my Canon Pixma.
  - krupan 10y ago

5ilv3r 10y ago

So now that building a decent printer completely from scratch is possible, remind me again why we still need hp printers?

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]