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If you use HP printers
Rocky Raab
Member Posts: 14,433 ✭✭✭✭
You will soon discover (if you have not already) that HP will no longer work with aftermarket ink cartridges. They will work ONLY with genuine HP cartridges - which cost up to four times as much as substitute brands.
I can confirm this. My wife's HP printer gave her a warning message and ceased printing until she bought genuine HP ink. My own Brother printer, however, works perfectly with cartridges bought online at a great price. As soon as those go dry, she's dumping HP.
If you have an HP printer, you may wish to ashcan it and buy a Brother brand printer.
(Cue the dead horse) Don't worry, Linux Mint will automatically detect and configure a new printer. No driver download needed.
I may be a bit crazy - but I didn't drive myself.
Comments
When I used a HP printer, I found it pretty close to just buy an entire new printer every time I ran out of ink.
I now use a Canon printer that even takes cheap ink reloads. Refills. I must be in the gun mode today!
Just one of several hundred reasons to not use an HP printer.
And fiery auto crashes
Some will die in hot pursuit
While sifting through my ashes
Some will fall in love with life
And drink it from a fountain
That is pouring like an avalanche
Coming down the mountain
I avoid anything HP, they want to have you install apps that take over your life. I have a canon printer now and for as little printing as I do it is just fine.
Yes! But @austin20, how much have you spent on ink for all that printing?
My old HP's were always good running machines but the ink made them much too expensive for my budget.
That is apparently what keeps HP in business. Pretty sure that I have a few of those good working printers buried away in one of my closets here. I did a lot of photo printing back in the day and that took a LOT of ink.
Great value diminishes to near zero when you are forced to use ink that's 4X as expensive as otherwise identical aftermarket ink.
Life styles of the rich & famous! 😁
Sadly, I lost all my guns in a boating accident and all my money when the bank went broke! Sorry @austin20 🤣
You pays your money, you take your chances...
I will say the retirement from HP pays some of the bills...
This topic hits close to home. Just this morning, Judy and I were doing the weekly shopping for the gun club as well as the snack room in the medical building she volunteers at. One of the things on the list was ink cartridges for the HP printer at the club. Nobody locally has them in stock. Finally found some on Amazon that were $179 for a combo pack of b&w + 3 colors. That's an increase of about $50 since the last time we bought them. Unfortunately, my home printer takes the same size, so I'll get some for the club and then buy myself a new printer. I think you're right about HP making all their profit on the ink and selling the printer as a loss leader just to suck you in.😠 Bob
Is this just true for Ink Jet printers or Laser Jet also?
I don't know about that, Jeff. But HP is known for totally screwing their customers.
@cbxjeff Inkjet printers have always been sold as a loss leader, the money was in the ink and were made by a different division than the laser jets. If you are mostly text printing, up front cost are more for lasers, but overall less cost per page, Ink is better for color printing.
I don't print the internet. But I do print a few checks plus the tax and banking PDF forms that come to me instead of mailed paper. Almost all black ink. (I have to run a print clean routine most of the time if I want to run color, because the nozzles have dried.) For the very little that I do print, a low-end Brother serves me well, and I get high-cap black cartridges online for cheap. I get nearly a year's use from just one. My Brother also scans, copies, and would fax if I needed that.
I have subscribed to HP monthly ink program for three years., it’s $3.99/ month. They online monitor the cartridge’s and send a new one before I run out. I’ve had zero problems.
I had a couple of inkjet printers back 15 or so years ago. They worked fine and one would print on CD's. The problem I had was when I wanted to print a SolidWorks model. It drank ink faster than I can drink beer. The pages were a little soggy too.
I just bought a HP inkjet 4152e and it is wireless, this one i signed up for free ink cartridges and you pay 5.99 a month, and the 5.99 kicks in after 6 months. HP sent me free a back and color ink cartridges, and when my printer runs low on ink, it will send a message to HP to send me more ink cartridges. I am allowed 700 pages a month but i will never print that much and i can cancel my plan anytime if i wish. My printer costs 99.99 at wally world as it was on sale. My last HP printer was a 5100 and it just konked out, i really liked it but the cartridges were $70 a pair.
I wish you joy of it. Depending on your degree of paranoia, you might wonder if HP now knows not just how much you print but also what. How would you know if the ones and zeroes that go to your printer don't also go straight to HP?
My old hunting pal use to say.......HP printers are the rich man's Xerox machine. 😬
He was right. I even tried some ink cartridge "refill" kits..........messy.
After a few years of putting solid gold cartridges in our first printer.......an HP......it cratered.
Best Buy had the Brother MFC-240C printer on sale for 50 bucks each(we went back and bought two more........kids you know). It uses individual black, red, blue, yellow ink cartridges(note that colors are consumed at different rates). At the time, factory Brother cartridges cost about $15 each.
Well.......it didn't take long for me to find generic ink cartridges on ChinaBay. Fast forward a few years........and the last "ink" I bought consisted of 18........yeah.....that's EIGHTEEN cartridges.......for a TOTAL of $19.70......including TT&L......to my front door.
Our major cost now is........PAPER!! (note.....the wife and I print out many Sudoku puzzles)
It gets even better.........cause when the two kids FINALLY moved out......I "inherited" two printers. Can you say......Backups!!! 😁
Hope this helps.
I have an HP. Love it.
I hate computers with printers, or lunchbox hardware, with stardust virus installer.
We've gone through a bunch of printers through the years. Epson, Canon, a couple of HPs, and I'm sure I forgot a few. I used to print a lot when I had the camera business and would wear out a printer in about a year or two. Fast forward to today and my wife will go through a ream of paper in about 2 weeks as she makes a record of all her genealogy relatives.
I finally settled on an Epson ET-4760 printer with refillable wells in the printer. So far that has worked out fairly well.
the downside is that it is slow and noisy, but it works.
Joe
I've had a Canon PRO-10 13"x19" photo printer for several years. Info says I've printed over 2500 pages. I refill the cartridges using Precision Colors ink and resetter device. Takes about 15 minutes and may leave color stains on my fingers for a couple of days but I can afford to print big photos!
I have had the best luck with Brother printers also have a small Cannon. I kicked HP to the curb twenty years ago.