[HN Gopher] HP fails to derail claims that it bricks scanners on...
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HP fails to derail claims that it bricks scanners on printers when
ink runs low
Author : thunderbong
Score : 129 points
Date : 2023-10-05 18:03 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (abcnews.go.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (abcnews.go.com)
| ajb wrote:
| Because of this kind of thing I haven't actually replaced my
| printer, since it broke, and have been actively looking for ways
| to avoid doing so.
|
| - In the UK, Royal mail will now print the label for you, when
| you order a collection. DPD claims to do so when you drop off but
| the shops often turn out not to have a printer
|
| - Libraries print more cheaply than shops, neither are suitable
| for printing where confidentiality is required (your doc is
| likely to hang round on some random insecure PC)
|
| - They don't advertise it, but some print-to-mail companies (eg
| CFH docmail) will do print runs down to a single copy. This is
| considerably cheaper than your local shop, for more than a couple
| of sheets at least, but has a latency of 5 days. It's suitable
| for confidential prints (for most plausible threat models), due
| to their scale. Also, if you intended to mail the doc anyway, you
| can send it direct from them.
| kibwen wrote:
| _> Libraries print more cheaply than shops_
|
| Highlighting this. My local library lets you print 100 pages
| per month for free (color printing counts for three pages),
| which is more than enough for my needs these days.
| Justsignedup wrote:
| Buy a brother laser printer. Anything that's not a laser
| printer is not worth it except for very very very specific use
| cases.
|
| Because of this laser printers are actually profitable to sell.
| So they don't have to loss leader their income from you.
| historyTeach123 wrote:
| I have a Brother HL-2170W that's almost old enough to drive.
| johnnyworker wrote:
| I have mine since 2006 or 2007, easily one of the most
| perfect purchases in my life. I used it rather extensively
| for a while, had to change toner then, but by now I print
| maybe a bunch of sheets per year, and can't even remember the
| last time I had to change toner. Before that I used ink
| printers which broke all the time, not to mention ink getting
| dry.
|
| Anyone who hasn't had the pleasure yet, there is a reason
| this gets brought up without fail when talking about
| printers. I have no idea if it's particular to laser
| printers, Brother laser printers or both, because that was
| the last printer I bought so far, I have no other experience
| other than the horrors of ink printers.
| ajb wrote:
| CHF docmail is actually competitive with a laser on cost - if
| you're posting too, of course. Which is usually the case for
| me - I very rarely print anything to keep.
| compiler-guy wrote:
| Firmware updates for Brother laser printers routinely brick
| third-party toner cartridges. Downgrading is possible only if
| you download old firmware from sketchy sites in languages you
| don't read.
|
| They work great when they work, but you can never update your
| firmware.
| perfectstorm wrote:
| +1 to Brother laser printer. i had mine for over 5 years and
| it still works great (i had to replace the original toner
| cartridge once). i recently had some smudges on printed paper
| and a quick chatGPT search later i was following Brother's
| troubleshooting guide which helped me get rid of the smudge
| (essentially showed me how to clean the print header). i even
| bought an updated printer for my parents whose old hp laser
| printer died after a firmware update (there are posts about
| it in their support forum).
| contravariant wrote:
| I also find that laser printers are somewhat better at not
| printing. They're less reliant on daily print jobs to keep
| their insides from clogging up.
| seanhunter wrote:
| As I sit here I look at my HP-35S and HP-12C calculators that I
| have on my desk. My 12-C in particular is about 15 years old and
| still on its original battery. I remember fondly the HP-85a that
| I learned programming on when I was 8 years old or so. HP used to
| make amazingly great hardware. The first HP laserjet printers
| were an absolute marvel. It makes me so sad what has happened to
| HP.
| bitwize wrote:
| Back in the days when HP was a scientific-equipment company,
| everything they made was built like a tank. Still have fond
| memories of the HP-7475A plotter.
| PopePompus wrote:
| There is no sadder story in American capitalism than the
| decline of HP from a wonderful equipment engineering company
| to a racket for selling tiny little tubs of overpriced ink.
| Think a young Steve Jobs would be excited to get a job there
| now?
| sneak wrote:
| Boeing, perhaps. The same thing happened there, as I
| understand it.
|
| There's also a strong argument for post-Jobs Apple being an
| even more tragic arc (that's earlier on the curve). Time
| will tell. These things happen on the order of decades, not
| years.
|
| Brain drain is real.
| Simulacra wrote:
| It's like Mercedes trying to charge a monthly subscription fee
| for heated seats. When you do something like this to consumers,
| you lose their trust and you will never gain it back.
| gruez wrote:
| AFAIK they offered monthly, yearly, and "unlimited"
| subscription. In that case what's the issue? Heated seats are
| frequently an upgrade option. What's the problem with offering
| payments as an option?
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| And, in fact, if you're only going to keep the car for a few
| years, the subscription may be cheaper.
| SuperNinKenDo wrote:
| Well, let's use our imagination for a minute and consider why
| they'd be happy to sell and "unlimited subscription", but not
| a subscriptionless, permanent feature.
|
| Or rather than imagination, simply draw on experience with
| other companies and ither subscription models.
| Tomte wrote:
| Unfortunately, people will misremember and trash unrelated
| brands' reputations online.
|
| It was BMW.
| barbazoo wrote:
| Or maybe they just misremembered the exact shitty thing the
| brand did
|
| https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-63743597
|
| > Mercedes-Benz is to offer an online subscription service in
| the US to make its electric cars speed up quicker.
| throwaway20304 wrote:
| Mercedes did something similar, though:
| https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-63743597
| whartung wrote:
| I don't have a laser simply because I haven't seen an "all in
| one" full color laser that's as compact as the Epson inkjet I'm
| using. I can't speak to the color quality of lasers really vs
| inkjet, but I've printed a bunch of photos that come out "good
| enough" on photo paper with my printer. Mind, if we need any
| volume, we ship 'em off to the drugstore, but that can actually
| be a bit of pot luck when it comes to framing and such.
|
| We use the scanner often enough to make it worthwhile, and we
| don't have the room for a second, compact B&W laser.
|
| The only real thing I need to do is replace this with a tank
| version. Ink is still crazy, but momentum keeps us going with it.
| A full set of ink cartridges cost about 1/2 of a new printer.
|
| Other than that, I'm pretty content with this thing.
| Macha wrote:
| You probably won't find one as compact, colour laser printers
| are basically 4 monochrome laser printers in a row with
| different colour toners loaded, the process doesn't lead itself
| to having small toner catridges on a moving head like how
| inkjet work. This is a plus and a minus. The minus you've
| found, they're pretty bulky, but reducing moving parts also has
| pluses for durability and lifespan.
| snitzr wrote:
| My in-laws needed a printer scanner because they are getting old
| and needed to scan paperwork to move to a retirement community.
| They went out and bought an HP printer scanner and asked me to
| help them set it up. It took me multiple hours and I still
| couldn't figure everything out. It took them the next two days to
| really get it up and running. Poorly designed actively hostile
| software.
| pierat wrote:
| "Ill help you take that shit back to the store. Its junk. Dont
| buy HP."
| mattlondon wrote:
| Canon 100% does this on my printer/scanner if the ink dries up
| (long time without printing) or it thinks you have pirate ink.
|
| It throws up some error message that you can't clear until you
| put in new ink cartridges. This is very annoying as I scan
| frequently but very, very rarely print.
|
| I'd readily replace it but I cannot find a laser printer with
| duplex scanner with ADF that isn't obscenely expensive and/or
| huge.
| distract8901 wrote:
| I had a Brother brand B&W laser printer with a duplex scanner
| many years ago. I had it for 10 years and it was still working
| when my ex took it. As far as I know its still going.
|
| Unfortunately, laser printers are just bigger than inkjet. The
| paper route is more complicated and the mechanism has to be
| larger. That's the benefit of inkjet, it's an extremely simple
| mechanism that can be reduced to a very small footprint.
|
| IMO, laser is better in almost every way. It's well worth the
| drawbacks.
| subhro wrote:
| Xerox C315?
| sacnoradhq wrote:
| Even if you only print things once a month, a laser printer is
| far less wasteful in time, money, and bullshit than ink that's
| perpetually dry or consumed.
|
| Rather than an entry-level laser printer that cannot be
| economically repaired, a used mid-level enterprise printer is
| often the cheapest option long term and saves useful electronics
| from becoming e-waste. Office furniture rental/repo places and
| secondary markets like eBay have these.
|
| In large enterprises, a printer's cost per page tends to be
| inversely proportional to (increased) initial acquisition cost
| and availability of repair parts. Put another way, giving
| everyone an entry-level printer would be far more expensive in
| acquisition costs, per-page costs, and an inability to repair
| them. (hitting TCO 3 ways).
|
| I had a HP LaserJet 4 (released 1992, purchased new ~1994) until
| 2013 with a used JetDirect card. It had expansion options with
| cartridges and SIMM RAM and font options, but they weren't
| strictly needed.
| djaychela wrote:
| Absolutely. I have a laserjet 4000 I've had since I was given
| it in 2002 at an office clearance. It's printed about 10000
| pages while I've had it,and in that time I've had to change the
| toner once. And I was given two original HP cartridges with the
| printer,and installed the first one a full 17 years after
| getting it.
|
| Worked perfectly,and is still in there.
|
| Works with windows, mac os, chromebooks without issue, all over
| the network. I even got a duplexer from gumtree a few years ago
| as it was going for nothing. One day it will die and then I'll
| have to deal with all the current printer grief!
| ryandrake wrote:
| RIP my laserjet 4000. So many plastic pieces became brittle
| and finally broke, but it kept on working. Finally a few
| things went that could not be readily replaced/repaired and I
| finally gave up on it. It was a sad day. Of today's options,
| Brother is fine, but nothing compares to the GOAT.
| 2muchcoffeeman wrote:
| HP laser keys are still difficult to replace the transfer
| belt.
|
| Go brother if you want a laser. All the consumables are
| easily replaceable.
| cptskippy wrote:
| There's no belt in a Laser Jet, at least not modern ones.
| bgirard wrote:
| I followed this advice and it's been great. I have a $350 laser
| Brother printer, my iPhone can find the printer without
| fiddling with drivers, it wakes up, print, goes back to sleep.
| Works fine even if I go months without printing. After my last
| 'free ink forever' HP inkjet that never worked, a working
| printer is a blessing.
| esel2k wrote:
| Which brother do you have / recommend? I have been quiet
| happy with my OKI but the phone connection is the only
| letdown so far and I might change for a brother in the
| future.
| tivert wrote:
| > Which brother do you have / recommend? I have been quiet
| happy with my OKI but the phone connection is the only
| letdown so far and I might change for a brother in the
| future.
|
| I have a brother HL-2270dw that I've been using for more
| than 10 years that I'm happy with. I don't think they make
| that exact model anymore, but Wirecutter recommends the
| HL-2350dw (I don't know what you get for the extra $10 to
| get a HL-2370dw):
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/best-home-
| printer...
|
| I've got it hooked up to my wired network, and have never
| had an issue with it. I really like the duplex printing.
|
| I prefer my devices to do one thing, so I've avoided combo
| devices.
| bgirard wrote:
| For me, I ended up with the MFC-L3770CDW because there
| was a big sale on it, not from any particular research.
| snuxoll wrote:
| Also have a MFC-L3770CDW, it's perfectly fine but you
| really have to pay attention to consumable cost when
| selecting laser MFC. A cartridge of TN227BK (high-yield
| black toner) for the MFC-L3770CDW is ~$80 for a ~3000
| page yield, while a TN433BK cartridge that fits a
| MFC-L8900CDW is $85 for a ~4500 page yield. That's a
| (toner-only) cost per page of ~2.5c vs ~1.8c, or nearly a
| 30% reduction in toner cost; the difference between which
| is amplified for the color cartridges (TN227 color is
| $100/ea for ~2300 pages, TN433 color is $136/ea for ~4000
| pages or ~4.3c/page vs ~3.4c/page).
|
| Considering the price difference between these units, I
| opted for the MFC-L3770CDW because I do not print _that_
| often and I 've spent far more over years on wasted ink
| from dried out cartridges and destroyed print heads; but
| it's still an important factor to keep in mind.
| sundvor wrote:
| Can confirm the Brother series is great. I have the
| HL-L2375DW.
|
| I got accused of being a shill last time I posted about
| it, so I'm preempting this by calling it out. :-)
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37006705#37007593
|
| However it just sits there asleep at an extremely low
| wattage most of the time, then pops instantly to life the
| moment a page is sent to it - as bgirard pointed out,
| without even needing to install a driver - and then back
| to sleep. And this is on wifi.
|
| Loved it enough to buy another one when the first one
| went to my ex.
|
| I'll use the full duplex occasionally, it's worth having
| years down the track from purchase time for the tiny
| price bump over the base.
| politelemon wrote:
| I don't think you can go wrong with any Brother (or laser
| printer) as long as you don't need color printing. I have a
| DCP 1612W only for light printing. It works with Ubuntu, no
| special drivers required. I've had it for a few years now
| and I'm still on the toner the printer came with.
|
| If you need color printing, it tends to be expensive.
| vel0city wrote:
| I've got a Brother DCP-L2540DW. The only feature I wish it
| had was duplex scanning from the auto document feeder.
| Otherwise its been an immensely solid printer.
|
| I gave up doing photo printing at home. These days I'll
| just order prints online. If I want it quick or save on
| postage I'll just pick it up at a convenience store close
| by. The break even on a new high end photo printer is after
| thousands of photos by comparison, and even then its only
| marginally cheaper per print. Once my last photo printer
| had some assembly fall apart inside from brittle plastic
| cracking I moved on to this Brother.
| somehnguy wrote:
| Not a Brother printer but I would like to recommend the
| Canon MF240. I bought it at Walmart for $99 - and it feels
| like I practically stole it with how good it's been to me.
| Has both Wifi & ethernet, automatically wakes when sent a
| print job, scanner works great, etc. Works perfect with
| generic toner cartridges from Amazon, no funny business
| with DRM.
|
| Canon in general have been good printers in my experience.
| I recently bought one of their low end inkjets because I
| needed to print some photos. That printer also works great
| & has a highly customizable web interface built in - I
| didn't expect it to be that feature complete for $45.
|
| I've had 2 brother printers over the years & they were fine
| - for whatever reason though one of them would refuse to
| print from a Chromebook. Every other printer I've used in
| the last 10 years has essentially 'just worked' with any
| device capable of speaking to it except this Brother. Known
| issue & they never released a firmware update to fix it.
| kevmarsden wrote:
| We've had the Brother HL-L2340D for a few years. It's been
| rock solid. It's so much better than the HP inkjet printers
| we had in the past.
| solarmist wrote:
| Agreed. I have an HP Color LaserJet Pro and the toner is
| expensive, but lasts forever if I don't print and the quality
| is fantastic as well. Plus, they have automatic duplexing which
| is a must have feature for me.
|
| Newish ones like mine even support AirPrint and NFC printing.
| sacnoradhq wrote:
| Buy color toner refill kits. Melt a hole in the cartridge
| with a soldering iron, refill it, and seal it with aluminum
| tape.
|
| Better to spend $70-150 than $300-1200 on new cartridges.
|
| PS: I'm currently in the market for an 5-15 year old HP Color
| LaserJet but still assessing which model tends to be more
| reliable. There were a lot of lemon SMB Color LaserJet
| models. Suggestions welcomed especially by staff IT people
| who support these things.
| solarmist wrote:
| It's expensive, but like $295 to replace all the color
| toners (high capacity), not $1200 or $300 each.
| Tepix wrote:
| Nowadays there are inkjet printers that are cheaper (cost per
| page) than laser printers. I would only get one if i were to
| print regularly, however.
|
| And never again HP of course.
| Retric wrote:
| Examples?
|
| My research showed some inexpensive inkjets had reasonable
| cost per pages, but when you're talking 10+k pages per month
| lasers easily win. They also win at the ultra low, 1 page per
| month side of things.
| throwaway234524 wrote:
| [dead]
| TheLoafOfBread wrote:
| Same thing. I have laser Xerox B230 for printing, because
| constantly dried up ink, especially when you need that printer
| NOW, was driving me crazy.
| r00fus wrote:
| Most inexpensive (ie, $200 or less) AirPrint (or google/MS
| equivalent) enabled BW laser printers are good solutions. I
| have a Canon that's lasted me several years of moderate
| printing (I hardly print but my kids love to print stuff out).
|
| Every year I buy a 2-pack of off-brand toner from Amazon for
| $30. When the printer complains, before replacing toner, I just
| pull out the existing toner, shake it, and get probably 10-50
| more (faded but usable) prints.
| temporallobe wrote:
| This. About 5 years ago when my wife started her doctoral
| program, she started printing a ton of resources (and still
| does). We were constantly buying expensive ink monthly. I did
| some research and bought her a Brother laser printer for
| something like $300 and never looked back. You do have to buy
| toner about once a year, but it's far more cost effective and
| efficient. Now if I could somehow convince her to use PDFs
| instead!
| yieldcrv wrote:
| yeah same, I ditched inkjets for a canon laserjet
|
| you just have to value your time and then it all makes sense
| wly_cdgr wrote:
| It's just so low and shabby. How can anyone work for a company
| that does this and not feel constant shame? Any decent person
| should and would.
| smeej wrote:
| I'm surprised how many people are writing about their solutions
| for printing. I thought by now most people had done what I've
| done and just set things up not to need to print.
|
| Xournal allows me to fill out anything I could print from PDF
| with a stylus on my touch screen. If I want to read and highlight
| something, I convert it to PDF and read it in Logseq with the
| same stylus. I can highlight in four colors and it automatically
| collects my notes!
|
| If I need to mail/ship something, I just have the ship shop print
| it.
|
| What are people intentionally printing to paper for, often enough
| that it's worth having a printer?
| mattlondon wrote:
| Many places still ask you to physically sign and then scan/post
| back things. E.g fill in a pdf with a computer then print and
| manually sign with a pen.
|
| It is not every day, but frequently enough that not having a
| printer is a pain.
| Macha wrote:
| 1. Shipping labels
|
| 2. Boarding passes (yes, I suppose I could pay the airline $30
| for the privilege, but it doesn't take _that_ many flights to
| break even on a basic laser printer. I could also use mobile
| passes, but airlines are sometimes weird in not supporting
| those for specific flight/booking combination, and they need
| power).
| snuxoll wrote:
| > What are people intentionally printing to paper for, often
| enough that it's worth having a printer?
|
| If I'm being honest, mine is a mid-range document scanner that
| also happens to have a color laserjet attached for the
| occasional form or whatever that _has_ to be on paper and will
| still be cheaper for me to print at home then get it from the
| print shop.
|
| 50 page ADF with duplex scanning is something you get in the
| ~$200+ price range of standalone document scanners, and they
| tend to not have a flatbed either for the occasional photo or
| copy of a page from a book. I'd love to be 100% paperless, but
| even for my very digital life I haven't managed to get that far
| yet.
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(page generated 2023-10-05 23:00 UTC)