HP Ink COO: Sorry not sorry we bricked your otherwise totally fine printer cartridges HP Inc is trying to spin its way out of the mess it created when it decided it would be a fantastic idea to brick unofficial and refilled printer cartridges. Jon Flaxman, COO of the printers'n'PCs chunk of the former Hewlett Packard, confirmed on Wednesday his company really did in fact issue a firmware update in March that …
I was about to hit the 'add-to-basket' on a business HP laser. Now I am taking delivery of my first Brother printer instead. Vote with your wallet.
LOL - you changed a hardware problem into a software one. I will never allow Brother printer software near any of our machines again - whoever wrote it must be writing computer viruses in their spare time. It is nigh impossible to get rid of.
We've switched to Epson. Does the job, good quality and fast (and yes, we used to use HP too).
"LOL - you changed a hardware problem into a software one. I will never allow Brother printer software near any of our machines again - whoever wrote it must be writing computer viruses in their spare time. It is nigh impossible to get rid of."
Last Brother laser I used did PostScript as well as it's own BR language and since I don't use Windows, didn't use any Brother supplied driver packages. Does Windows not include a basic driver for most Brother printers? Must you install the full fat Brother package?
I took a look at the Epson EcoTanks, and sadly, they're multifunction units. I've been burned too many times by those. When I want a printer, I'll buy a nice printer. When I want a scanner, I'll buy a nice scanner.
I don't want to be stuck unable to print because a motor's not working in the scanner or something. I've been down that road already.
That's a good thing; it reduces both running cost and waste. Designjets have been like that since they appeared, it is n't limited to Epson.
The issue is "if you don't use them for a while". The solution is obvious. You could even put in a cron job to print a test page every few days. Inkjets are more environmentally friendly than lasers, even if you print a couple of test pages a week.
Inkjets are more environmentally friendly than lasers
Care to cite any evidence, preferably from a peer-reviewed publication or a report by a respectable, independent test lab?
At least for consumer-grade units (which typically have low duty cycle), most environmental damage is likely due to the manufacturing process of the printer itself and its subsequent disposal, not due to the making of ink/toner or the electricity consumed while in operation. If this is the case, then a good-quality inkjet, which is lighter and has less bulky parts is obviously a win. On the other hand, my personal experience with consumer-grade inkjets and lasers is that more often than not, cheap inkjets end up in a landfill within a year or two (hi, HP), while the similarly-prices lasers (hi, Brother) on a light duty cycle continue plodding for many years with no real issues.
Anecdotal experience aside, I am genuinely interested in unbiased studies if such exist.
This is true, but it's very easy to unclog them. A wet wipe of the kitchen, rather than baby, variety can be used to dissolve the dried ink. On most Epsons this can be done by raising the print head (as if for printing on carboard) and then lowering it onto the wet wipe. Wait a few minutes, raise the head, remove the wipe.
I took a look at the Epson EcoTanks, and sadly, they're multifunction units. I've been burned too many times by those. When I want a printer, I'll buy a nice printer. When I want a scanner, I'll buy a nice scanner.
I'm actually quite happy with my MF unit, but especially the wider format EcoTank models are all "just" printers - have a look again. They're worth the money IMHO.
HP has guaranteed that all those people affected, and many others who hear about this, will never buy an HP inkjet printer again.
Indeed. I've gone from swearing by HP to swearing at it :).
That Epson EcoTank line looks better every day.
That's the funny thing. The decision of Epson to let me use replacement ink (it'll whinge at you on installation, but then gets back to work) has more or less directly led to the decision to buy "official" EcoTank A3 format versions for some of our offices (we use them to run brochure drafts) as soon as they become more available (the ET-16500 is still too new to be easily available, but we're not in a hurry).
Original ink gives you the best colour rendition and print quality, but the ink price was simply unacceptable. The EcoTank approach fixes that - it appears Epson saw the printing on the wall a bit earlier than HP..
And you can buy ink by the freaking gallon if you want. I found places selling ink by the pint, or by the liter.
The original tanks lasted 2 years on mine, good for 4,000 A4 pages or more, with barely no clogging.
Total cost of each CMYK tank: under 25 $LocalCurrency. The larger bottles were even cheaper.
Even bananas aren't that cheap.
Speaks of total lack of confidence in the part of HP - we know we are inferior and more money, so we will just screw you over. Canon has been selling superior ink for photo enthusiast, and they seem to be doing just fine on the loyalty side.
Could you imagine how Heinz would be viewed if they were somehow able to, and actually acted on preventing restaurants from refilling their bottles? All these places that do not actually buy Heinz would not be advertising for them, and those that want to use Heinz but refill the bottles from a lower cost can would find a less expensive option over buying new bottles all the time.
HP had been a dead stick in my book for years. They seem to be about what tricks they can come up with to generate revenue rather than innovation and quality. They should do their employees a favor and act responsible.
Not quite the same thing. If there's a bottle of red sauce on a restaurant table with a Heinz label on, then it damn well better contain Heinz red sauce. If they've refilled it from a bumper 25 litre drum, fine, so long as it's a Heinz drum. Ifit isn't then the cafe owner is booking a painful and expensive session with Trading Standards. Many pubs have been done for refilling branded vodka and whisky optics with some cheap stuff from the cash-and-carry.
The HP compatible cartridges are very different. They don't claim to be HP ink, merely ink in a dispenser that will fit an HP printer. Bit like getting wiper blades from Halfords for the Porsche. They do the job.
> refilling branded vodka and whisky
Been there, drank that[1]. Pub got hit by a big fine from Trading Standards and ended up closing down.
[1] Had a shot of what was supposed to be Lagavulin - which as anyone knows is an Islay malt with a very distinctive taste. Not only was what I was given not Lagavulin, it wasn't even an Islay single malt. It didn't taste like a single malt at all. What annoyed me even more was the total contempt of the customer in assuming that they were stupid enough not to notice such an obvious thing.
Fan of Mr O - Sarson's have done it. You can still buy 5l containers of Sarson's vinegar but you can't get the tops off the plastic shakers to refill them (well, you can, but with some difficulty and a pretty poor success rate).
Sarson's reason? "We were aware that other vinegars were being decanted into our recognisable, tear shaped bottle and so the expected Sarson’s taste was not being delivered to our consumers when they used the iconic bottle."
There wasn't much of an outcry as far as I remember, although I've never bought Sarson's vinegar since I broke the last shaker and I never will again.
As for HP - I gave up on them after I bought my first laptop - which was HP - and a PoS.
As I hurled it into the mixed waste skip, a feeling of liberation overcame me.
I have a sneaky suspicion that nobody actually *likes* the printer they have. It was something they've just learnt to tolerate, like the monthly connection charge for your landline.
My landline is still there due to the 'deals' in place to assist me in retaining it (don't pay it and you'll lose your landline and we'll take the discount off your internet bill and you'll end up with a 25p saving).
I can't help but feel when a load of HP users suddenly find their printer no longer works, they'll just follow my example, rather than rushing out to the shop with £50 they suddenly feel the need to give to HP.
Is "Resented Technology" a thing yet?
"I have a sneaky suspicion that nobody actually *likes* the printer they have. It was something they've just learnt to tolerate, like the monthly connection charge for your landline."
I'm actually quite happy with my Brother HL-3140 color laser printer. Which works absolutely fine with cheap third party cartridges, and if the printer thinks a cartridge is empty then it isn't, then Brother's website has instructions how to fix it.
If you have one of these HP printers and you are a consumer in the EU, you take it back to the shop and ask for the problem to be fixed or a refund.
And I have a brother All In One. It replaced a brother printer. I've been very happy with these brother devices. I used to work for HP. I tried to be a dedicated HP employee who only bought HP products. I ended up buying a sledge hammer to take out my frustrations on HP printers. HP Printer Angst motivated me to buy Brother hardware.
Best combination is 2 printers.
1) Brother laser as above. Cheap to run, nice output
2) For those just-got-to-be-inkjet moments - an HP multifunction (4502). Why? It prints only a few pages a month, so the price of the cartridges is not an issue. Plus, when it dries up, I can just put fresh ones in. HP seem to reduced the head-drying-up problem.
I'm actually rather happy with my old Brother DCP-9040 colour laser multifunction. It's been working fine for several years, and it was even better when I found out that I could reset the toner levels with a few button pushes. The current set of toners are on about their third reset and still seem to be going strong!
Unfortunately I found this out a little late and have disposed of a couple of sets previously without realising that they were probably still two thirds full!
I have a sneaky suspicion that nobody actually *likes* the printer they have. It was something they've just learnt to tolerate
True. But for real annoyance you have to have a wireless printer. The stupid thing sulks in the corner waiting for opportunities to go offline and disconnect from the network.
"I thought every sensible person gave up of HP crap after their first 100Meg printer driver download."
You're free to complain but you didn't offer any solutions. Name you printer mfgr of choice and I'll show their 100MB driver download section. Lexmark, Epson, Samsung etc -- they're all in the same boat.
"You can easily get a decent (Non HP) laser printer these days for next to nothing"
Which make/model are you suggesting?
I've a cheap Samsung I bought several years ago. Use 3rd party toners, which were hit and miss depending on the brand. Then there were a load lot of genuine ones on Amazon (guess getting rid of end of line stock) for £10 each, so bought five, which should last me a few years.
No they don't. They are selling ink. The printers are only a necessary means of empting the ink cartridges as soon as possible.
For me HP printers are dead for several reasons. One of them is county coding the cartridges. In the last 15 years I changes my country of residence 4 times and shipped my complete household including IT equipment overseas. I bought an HP printer specifically because it was specified to work with both 100 and 240V. And then I realized that the only way to get refill ink is either to ship it in from overseas or to buy hacked refill cartridges at EBay.
Another problem are the drivers. Over the years HP drivers evolved from simple drivers to a complex and bloated mess of crapware.
Finally their hardware seems to be carefully crafted for planned obsolescence. It was interesting to see the various parts fail one after another. The most messy story was the failure of the print head deflation. That was done by a plastic cogwheel, pushing up a spring via a lever. The force of the lever caused the cogwheel to crack and thus no deflation happened. Instead of air flowing in, ink spilled out from the print head into the printer and ultimately over my furniture, hands, clothes, ... Oh, and only this cogwheel that had to withstand the lever's forces was made of plastic. The rest was good solid metal. Interesting choice of material.
Ironically without these shenanigans they would not only have sold far more ink to me over the printer lifetime, but I would still use the printer and continue to buy their ink. As it is, some other company sold me my next printer. Back to evil school for HP management. Perhaps they'll learn something.
Our print quantities are small and primarily text, the previous inkjets were for ever drying up and any sizeable colour print had to be hung out to dry and then ironed flat (well almost.)
Consequently we've got two HPs, a 15 year old monochrome laserjet for draft use and a new multi function color laserjet for posh stuff. But Oh dear, the HP bloatware that comes to 'manage' your images etc is a complete nightmare.
Inkjets are great for photos but if I need any doing I'm going to a high street or online print service
You are only required to make my experience exceptional if I choose to use your ink. Once I have paid for it, the printer is MINE, not yours, and I'll stick it in what I please. If I choose to provide my own ink from my own source, my experience is of my own making. As long as you choose to view the sale of your company's printers as a life long ink jet or toner subscription from HP, then I'll buy some other vendor's printer.
Actually, thinking of subscriptions...
I was in PC world and they were offering HP subscriptions. Something like £2.99 for 50 pages/month up to £7.99 for 300 pages a month. What kind of headcase goes for that? £96 to print 3600 pages? I suspect even genuine HP cartridges work out cheaper.
My post above relates me "finally removing my printer from my life" - but £3 a month to be able to print what I need actually sounds pretty good to me, it would just join Netflix and Spotify on my DD list I don't bat an eye at.
What pissed me off with printers previously was the anger I felt towards the thing.
The £75 of spare carts I had to maintain, the over-eager squirting of ink to 'clean heads' when I turned it on every couple of weeks to print a couple of sides of A4. I looked at my printer, and it made me angry.
I've personally got no issue with chucking a few quid a month to have a 'printer available' and replacement carts proactively coming through my door to maintain this service.
Personally, I've got printers at work if I need a hardcopy of something and no shortage of excellent online services that will not only print out my photos, but send it directly to the ageing relative who demanded them without me having to bother with packaging/posting.
It was a tempting death-rattle, and nearly got me, but I do feel good that I resisted.
Actually.... I went for it.
It's £1.99 for 50 pages, which is all I print at home. The kids print the odd Wikipedia page to claim they've done homework, a few photos, sometimes work demand that I sign and return a Word document and the easiest way is to print then scan, a bit of craft stuff for the younger kids. I've only gone over the 50 pages once, when organising a scouting event.
Oh, and you get one month rollover, so I can print 100 pages for that monthly cost if I've been a bit slack on the turning-trees-into-documentation front for a while.
Now I get what you're saying. It's lucrative for them, all subscription services are, and I shouldn't be so silly to buy into it. But my experience pre-Instant Ink is that I'd spend £70 on a full set of cartridges, one would run out, the others look low so you just bite the bullet and buy the colours as a set. And then knowing you've spent £70 on a set, you get twitchy every time the kids send a full A4 photo to print knowing it's bleeding the tanks dry.
£2 a month is nearly three years if I'm paying £70 for a set of cartridges. My sets weren't lasting three years (hell, the printers don't last three years!). And a page is a page, whether it's a bit of text or an A4 photo.
It's really not that bad, compared to the extortionate price of doing it the other way....
Unpopular Opinion Alert:
Yes, you own the printer: A disposable piece of plastic, copper, and whatever they scraped off the hooves of dairy cows who've stood in wet pastures. It has little actual value, and even less if it doesn't print.
They can design it however they want, up to and including encoding that only accepts their refills. You may not like it, but HP has not a secret of their stance on refilling HP cartridges and third-party cartridges. Their manuals and documentation are quite clear that you are to use an HP replacement. Using a cheaper solution is a risk you take; it's unsupported and there is no promise by HP that it will work in the future. When they do disable it, all those previously purchased black ink cartridges from Bob's Discount HP Shoppe will become useless.
If HP was the only printer game in town, I might be more sympathetic to your plight; without other options, HP would be abusing their market position. But there are numerous other options (named earlier in this thread) that can do the job, and maybe even better. That you choose to stick with HP is an issue you'll have to come to terms with.
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