Are Printers What They Used To Be? 1025
Fifster asks: "Has anyone noticed any trends in terms of printer quality nowadays? Perhaps it's just me being nostalgic, but I used to have an old HP Deskjet 500 maybe...ten years ago, and it worked for years. Sure, it wasn't colour, and it was noisy and somewhat slow, but it never died. After I decided to retire it and buy a fancy new colour printer with features I don't really need, I've gone through about a printer a year. I finally decided to get a Brother HL-1440 laser printer to avoid the cost of cartridges after my last HP died after I replaced an expensive cartridge. Has anyone else noticed this trend of poorer and poorer quality printers, at least in terms of life expectancy?"
what do you expect (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:what do you expect (Score:5, Interesting)
--CTH
I expect my printer to work (Score:4, Insightful)
> Printer manufacturers realized -maybe 10 years ago- the same thing that game manufacturers realized more recently; that far greater proffits await those who seek out continuous revenue streams.
That may be true, but it still doesn't explain the drop in quality of printers. I can't buy your cartridges if my printer doesn't work, and if I have a bad experience I am likely to take my cartridge business to various competitors until I find one that sucks the least.
> As I recall, some would-be cartridge vendors have sued printer manufactuters claimin that this practice is anti-competitive.
It's Lexmark, who manufactures Dell's rebranded printers as well.
Printer Issues... (And solutions!) (Score:3, Insightful)
In other words quality is at an all time high,, it's longevity that's the problem.. I think there is some connection between complexity and problems (think Murphy's law). But there are other issues that are plain stupidity. A great example is the current line of Epson photo printers, I've owned three of their models over the last three years (yikes! one per year..) All of the printers had a common flaw, the printhead is built into the carrier for the cartri
Re:Printer Issues... (And solutions!) (Score:5, Funny)
??!! Sounds like you've been snorting toner, too...
Re:Printer Issues... (And solutions!) (Score:5, Funny)
> suck a bit of ink through the printhead, but it
> doesn't taste too good
You know that "Post Anonymously" feature? This is one of times when you should have used it. I'm not sure if fellating your printer is anything you want to admit with a traceable user name.
On the other hand, you might be able to take pictures of yourself in the said act, post them on the Internet, and use the membership revenue to offset some of the cost of buying new cartridges!
Well now I'm going to have to go (Score:3, Funny)
1. Find some lamer willing to do sick things with printer cartidges.
2. Photograph said process.
3. Post on the net.
4. ????
5. Profit.
Re:I expect my printer to work (Score:5, Interesting)
> That may be true, but it still doesn't explain the drop in quality of printers. I can't buy your cartridges if my printer doesn't work, and if I have a bad experience I am likely to take my cartridge business to various competitors until I find one that sucks the least.
Yes it does. The printer manufacturers wants you to buy a new printer every few years, even if they sell them at a loss. Why? Because when you have a new printer you have no choice but to buy your ink from the original manufacturer since there are no 3rd party cartridges yet. If you have an old printer, chances are that you can find cheaper third party cartridges.
This scheme works extremely well in order to keep the heavy users to buy your cartridges. Their printers break down quicker, thus giving them a quicker upgrade cycle, probably ahead of the 3rd party ink suppliers, making them buy only your cartridges. These are otherwise the clientel that is most inclined to put in the effort to find and buy good, cheap 3rd party cartridges.
So I guess that the most lucrative "point of failure"-setting for the printer manufacturers would be so they make the printers break down for the heavy users around the same time as the 3rd party ink cartridges gets available.
The best way to remedy this sick and wasteful situation would be for some government-, industry- or consumer-organization with a lot of clout to set a simple, patent free standard for ink cartridges and strongly encourage the use of it. If a large enough share of the user base gets behind it, the printer manufacturers are forced to accept it. The same goes for many other product groups, including wacum cleaner bags.
Re:I expect my printer to work (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem with this kind of reasoning, though, is that people like me exist. :) Heh, okay, let me clarify.
I bought an Epson Stylus Photo 890 recently, for a number of reasons, ranging from full-on (i.e. better print quality than Windows) Linux support (over USB, even!), printer resolution and speed, 6-color cartridge and separate black cartridge, low price ($300 list, $240-ish on pricegrabber), and a $100 rebate.
It is not Epson's newest printer. It was among their cheapest (after rebates and shopping around). It's one of the best supported inkjets in Linux land. It handles lots of media types, including cardstock and glossy paper on rolls (heh; I still want to find 8.5" wide rolls of paper ... like a hundred feet of the stuff! Imagine the obscene high-quality pornobanners! :), and prints fast.
Oh, and the aftermarket cartridges for the damned thing are five bucks a piece including shipping. Let my cats dye themselves black (or cyan, yellow, red, whatever) by stumbling upon my spare cartridges and sharpening their teeth; I'll laugh at them and consider it five bucks well spent :)
So this idea won't work with people like me. I only paid $140 for this thing after the rebate check arrived, but if it dies after only going through 25 cartridges or so, I'm still going to be pissed, and I'll switch to another brand (if I still need to print anything when/if this happens).
It seems another "best" solution to this problem doesn't involve the government at all, but people just refusing to buy the latest and greatest model because the front facade looks cute and it can bake cookies. At least wait until aftermarket cartridges are available.
Re:what do you expect (Score:5, Informative)
Then there's this: I've repaired printers for more than a decade as one of the side jobs I do. I don't do electronics, but the mechanical side is fairly simple to do.
I charge $15/hour with a cap of $75 on repairs. For most office quality printers that's not a big deal. However for most consumer/home printers with severe problems (dust accumulation, pet hair, and cigarette smoke being among the worst ones) it rapidly climbs to the cost of a new printer.
What most people don't realize, however, is that good quality older printers, especially HPs, Xerox, and Canons, are often worth keeping around and repairing if they do the job you want to do. Most newer printers, especially those under $150 or so, are simply built to last maybe a year or so. Lexmark particularly comes to mind.
So often, for most home users, it's cheaper simply to replace it (hey, what's new?
I have two printers - a HP870cSE and a Xerox laserjet. Both, I suspect, will continue to give me great service for years to come. Too bad the HP cartridges cost me more than the printer is worth. The Xerox toner cartridge has a lot of life on it yet, tho.
Just my shave and a haircut worth.
SB
Re:what do you expect (Score:3, Interesting)
The economics of this is that the manufacturers don't quite dump the printers out at cost; they do make a profi
Re:what do you expect (Score:3, Interesting)
Both these occur over time and might not be directly attributed to the fan/paper feeder/whatever failure. Just a contributing factor.
Re:what do you expect (Score:4, Interesting)
Testify, brother.
First job out of college involved h4x0r1ng print queueing software for a print farm of HP Laserjet IIISi printers. We killed trees all night - we bought the extra 1500-sheet "big-azz external tray" module, and the night operator had to refill them during the print jobs. Even with air conditioning and ventilation, the farm reeked of toner and ozone, and we probably filled a small pickup truck every day with unused reports on their way to the shredding company.
We conservatively estimated that these printers were doing 5000-7000 pages per night, 5 nights a week. No failures even under that kind of load, and the only maintenance we did was the preventative stuff every quarter-million-pages.
(For us, that was roughly every three months, but unless you own stock in a paper producing company, or just have a pathological hatred of trees, your mileage should vary :)
They sure as hell don't make 'em like they used to. But if you've got a chance to pick up a IIISi on the cheap, (and you have enough space to put it!), get one.
Ink spams (Score:5, Interesting)
The big profit stream eventually backfired as hundreds of companies have rushed into the printer cartridge refill and refurbish market.
Printer cartridges is one of the few markets that do well on the net. The cartidges are small and easy to ship. The field is information rich...that is, you buy according to the label..not the look of the cartridge. Why do you think you get 10 spams a day from people selling ink?
I've noticed the printer manufacturers have finally started to come down in price on the cartridges to match refillers.
Smart printer shoppers look at the cost of printing and not the cost of the printer. Personally, I would avoid Lexmark because of the chip. I also look for those brands that have the most ink per cartridge.
Good printers/bad printers (Score:4, Interesting)
I know Lexmark is currently using the DMCA to bludgeon their competition with regard to this.
Also, if I might make a recommendation, Canon seems to be the least obnoxious with the ink issues - their printers are a little more expensive, but the quality is a good bit higher, including a lower consumables cost. This even applies to their ~$150 printers. But that's just me.
Also, I think HP's entry level printers, even at a constant price point, have turned to crap. I've noticed a lot of DOA printers among my friends and family (I, like most of you, am the local "computer guy," so I have a decent sample size ;)), much more than they used to. Seems like they really are determined to quit doing what they did well and turn into Compaq.
The good, the bad and the brother (Score:4, Interesting)
Don't want something that will only last a year. Here's an idea, don't buy something that's only ment to last a year. Buy something from the business line.
As an aside. From my experience with Brother equipment. They're always a pain in the ass until you learn the secret trick. Every machine they make seems to have a special lever that has to be jiggled just so, or a spot that needs to be jabbed just right. After that, they tend more towards the simply annoying.
But hey, you get what you pay for. Don't expect the rolex you bought off the guy dealing three card monte to be suitable for circumnavigating the globe either. It's just one of those things.
Re:what do you expect (Score:5, Informative)
While we have had our share of problems with some of the older printers, as well as the cheapest of the bunch being nothing but junk we have had very good luck.
HP DeskJet 1120C - lasts longer than the energizer bunny!
HP DeskJet 1220C - fast, nice print quality, power supplies burn out all the time.
HP DeskJet 1000C - big paper weight!
HP DeskJet 960C - small, fast, quiet, very reliable.
HP DeskJet 990C - faster version of the 960C.
HP DeskJet 5550 - too new to comment on reliability, but good fast printing.
HP LaserJet 2100 - good printer, fuser lasts about 120,000 pages.
HP LaserJet 2200 - fast and quiet, few jams, no fuser trouble after 95,000 pages and still going.
HP LaserJet 5p/6p - slow, but VERY reliable.
Epson 777 - GARBAGE! 3 of 10 broke within 30 days. Others keep jamming.
Re:what do you expect (Score:5, Insightful)
This is an ongoing thing for me as I work for a non-profit. We have litterally hundreds of inkjets in use, 99% of them are HP.
Well, if you've got "hundreds of inkjets in use" and a dozen different kinds, maybe that's why you're a non-profit ;-) (just kidding, couldn't resist.) Seriously though, what a waste; you're flushing money down the toilet.
I see this all the time- nowadays, everyone wants a printer in their office; common excuses are "I don't want to walk down the hall", "I don't want to wait for another job to finish to get mine", "I print confidential docs", etc...despite the fact that most office printers can print the FIRST page faster than most people can walk the 30 feet to it, and a lot of them have keycode settings so it won't print the job until you enter the short code. So on etc.
So the company I worked for bought these cheap HP printers because gateway was giving them away with the laptops. They gave them to all the people who claimed to be important enough to get one; yet another way for them to show how important they are! Hoooo boy did we find out WHY the printers were being given away. They jammed incessantly. Of course, like I said, the printers went to the top people in the company. It was a disaster.
You can end most of your printer woes by buying more expensive, workhorse laser printers, and stationing them in strategic areas; don't buy anything smaller than something like the 4500 series laserjet(by the way, they're GREAT printers, I've bought several over the years, they've never let me down- they're fast as shit and you can even get a duplexer and lots of paper trays). Why do people buy these sorts of printers, over "inkjet on every desk" or "slightly-better-than-personal laser printers here and there"?
-supplies last longer and are MUCH, MUCH cheaper per-page
-built-in network cards, management utilities(HP makes a app that lets you see the toner+paper levels on your entire network, along with the message on the display) -if one goes down, people can immediately switch to another nearby unit- driver is the same etc. -6 different inkjet cartridges, 3-4 different toner cartridges in your company. Versus, oh, TWO toner cartridge types in my old company. Which makes more sense?
-FAST at spooling and printing
-they hold LOTS of paper/lots of different kinds
-they're usually 100% overhaul-able(ie, the wear items are available for replacement in a 100,000-page 'kit', that sort of thing- ie, you can keep the printer for years and print millions of pages)
-easily repaired
-service company contracts are available for them(and the parts are stocked) if it's used in a production-type environment
-corporations(which buy these printers, because they're smart) don't put up with printers that break constantly. I have never seen a workgroup-sized(or larger) printer 'bite the big one', while I've seen hundreds of inkjet and personal/"small workgroup" printers die horrible deaths of all sorts of different kinds.
At the very least, standardize on one or two models of printers so you can simplify your stock/supply, and buy supplies in larger bulk quantities for cheaper- as well as stock common repair parts if necessary, or just simply always have one in-box, brand-new spare ready to go.
Next, I suppose you'll tell me that your servers are a mish-mash of desktop/minitowers, from 5 different makers, 10 different models, different hard drive+memory types...none of them with support contracts, etc...
It's still possible to get what you want though. (Score:5, Insightful)
shop ^ you can get one of the HP 1200 personal lasers for less than that and they simply rock. I installed one in a large distributor's office as their main invoice printer; it's gone through a
couple thousand sheets a week for the past year and it's still doing a great job. So to answer the headline question, No, printers are much better than they used to be. But those that are, aren't much cheaper than they used to be.
This is always the trend when non-techy consumers start buying a new technology. There basic formula is:
if (features_on_the_box ~= features_on_the_other_box) {
Buy((box_price < other_box_price) ? box : other_box);
}
This decision doesn't incorporate variables like manufacturer_reputation and price_per_page. The Darwinian forces that shape the market obviously shift the manufacturers emphasis away from these variables.
The people spending +$300 on a printer are still evaluating these factors though, and if you're willing to pay the price, you can still purchase a buy-it-and-rely-on-it kind of printer.
Personally, I have a LaserJet 4 for day to day printing and a fancy disposable inkjet (HP960c) for pretty pictures (2-4 a month), and this seems to work out well.
In another 150,000 pages the LaserJet will be ready for retirement. I wonder what printers will be like in 2009
the flaw in their logic (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, I know Epson has circuitry to prevent that, but it's just another reason the next printer would not be Epson, so they would be far better off in spending a few cents more and making sure that the printer lasted long enough for them to gouge me on the ink to make up the loss on the printer.
New customers (Score:3, Insightful)
$40 at Walmart (Score:3, Informative)
Exactly why printers suck (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is that today, most people are comparing devices based on price and nothing else. So, if a manufacturer can undercut its competitors prices by reducing the quality a few notches they'll do it every time. Until consumers, in general, prioritize things like quality and customer service over price, you can expect devices to continue to suck.
Re:Exactly why printers suck (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Exactly why printers suck (Score:3)
You realise, I hope, that RCA doesn't own RCA anymore. Consumer electronics that say RCA or GE are really from the French company Thomson, although there's no telling from one model to the next who they actually get to do the manufacturing, but you can be pretty sure that they're Japanese, Chinese, or Korean.""
Yup Thomson owns them. RCA, GE, Sylvania, and a few others are all the same. They are almost a GM of home electronics. Stick a
Re:$40 at Walmart (Score:4, Informative)
I don't have time to write a HOWTO here, but basically the way that it works is that you have lpd pass your print jobs to ghostscript which passes the ps to the proprietary Lexmark printer binary (for lack of a better term) which takes the postscript and transforms it into printer commands which are passed to the printer through the parallel port or USB port (both work).
Sucks up a ton of CPU time while printing, but since everything understands postscript under Linux (or could easily be converted to ps with ghostscript), all you have to do is choose "lpd" as your printer in all gnome, kde, cli, etc apps.
It is not for the faint of heart (have to mess with printcap, conversion scripts in
Attempting to set up that printer made me understand UNIX printing pretty damn well -- but then, too, I am one of those Linux masochists that always chooses the toughest way to set things up so that I can learn more about UNIX internals. As the saying goes, it is not the destination that is the most fun, but the trip.
Then, too, most people are not like me and want "plug and play". In that case, I can see your disappointment.
Printers, feh! (Score:5, Insightful)
The real question would be, what's a decent quality printer these days?
Stashed in my closet is an Alps ALQ-224e, one mighty printer. You don't find them made like that anymore. It's got to weigh 30 lbs, but it could whip off draft copy fast, and best of all on fan-fold paper. Ever try to debug with your code scattered across several sheets of laser printer paper? Ugh! I'll probably keep this beast as long as it runs. I've still got two ribbons for it and they're still for sale (apparently these things were more popular outside the US, as in Europe) and ribbons are still for sale for it.
Re:Printers, feh! (Score:5, Informative)
Unfortunately, the printer itself is not capable of "losing quality." The particular printer you have is basically a simple processor that moves a carriage back and forth and tells the cartridges (which are actually pens) when to shoot ink. The cost of "cartridges" (read: pens with ink resevoirs) is a little ridiculous...however, you are paying for the actual PEN itself (the unit which is responsible for laying down the ink). Next time you are in the printer aisle, look at the cost of the pens BY THEMSELVES (for the printers which need them--OfficeJet D Series, for example)...
The point of this: each time you replace your ink, you are actually getting a brand new pen as well, so the quality is exactly the same as when you bought the unit (unless they are misaligned, or need to be cleaned). This changes with newer printers which use lasers to self-align.....
Re:Printers, feh! (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm quite familiar with how they work. The issues I have are more along the remaining mechanics responsible for paperfeed, alignment, sensors (got paper?) etc.
Images used to look beautiful, now they regularly have bars, even with a new premium HP cart., due to the paper feed being less precise. I've wasted a number of envelopes, too, as it seems to be getting cranky about how it wants to handle them, i.e. how far does it advance the form before it decides it actually has been moving a form rather than trying to load it.
And slow doesn't begin to describe it. The way it appears to recalibrate every time I start a new print job appears to indicate they knew it would run into problems eventually and try to correct itself.
Then there are the messy jams. And I haven't even run mailing labels through it. :-) Anyone who has ever had to disect, clean and reassemble a printer a user has reversed mailing labels through, I appologise for recalling that memory and making you cringe.
This was ~$300 printer when I bought it. An equivilent printer off the shelf is about $124 now. Total cost of a set of carts, from a discount seller, $55-$60, YMMV.
Printers Suck (Score:5, Funny)
Printer vs. Cartridge False Economics (Score:3, Insightful)
Quite a few of the posts mention the logic of a $50 printer with a $25 mail in rebate being cheaper than a $35 ink cartridge. So buy a new printer not a cartridge, right?
Wrong. That $50 printer comes with a "sample" cartridge. What that means is you get a cartridge that's deliberately only 25% or whatever full.
It's enough to make you think you're getting a deal, buy the printer, install the drivers, print may
Quality is job N (Score:5, Insightful)
I had a conversation about toasters a little while ago that went the same way. Ya know - your parents toaster that they got when they were married still works, but you go through one every year or two?
Try spending 5x the money on a good toaster and see how long it lasts you.
Re:Quality is job N (Score:4, Interesting)
Yep, generally speaking, you still get what you pay for. That's a lesson my parents drilled into my head from the time I was a child -- you're better off spending more at the outset for a higher quality item than buying a cheaper item with earlier obsolescence.
Case in point, the Nakamichi amplifier I bought 12 years ago for $600 is still cranking along just fine, and I've gotten that many years of superior sound quality from it compared to say, a $200 Technics. My dad's is even older and is only soon to be retired because it predates too many audio-video advances.
Re:Quality is job N (Score:4, Interesting)
$500 laser printer? Have you looked at the $300 - $500 laser printers lately. These "low-end" products have adopted the cheap manufacturing typically associated with $90 inkjets. No benefit there, either.
So how do you get a decent printer?
My rule of thumb is to either buy something that resembles a photocopier - I like HP 4000-series printers - these are printers that it's probably worth keeping up a service contract (I have a Phaser 850 at home. The service guy has been out twice since January to fix minor problems with it), or a LaserJet 1 - 4 that isn't an "L" or "M" model. Those things will take a bullet and keep printing.
Re: Not true (Score:5, Interesting)
I disagree with you on the assertion that low end laser printers are just as crappy as the low end ink jets. This is what I thought originally but was proven wrong. The reason inkjets suck so much is because the ink is low grade and dries out on the ink heads. Or dust from paper clogs the nozzles when passing through. Also the mechanics wear down and are not designed to handle more then 5k copies.
A laser is different because the vast majority of parts are in the cartidge itself. Only the laser writer, transfer corona, feed tires, and the loading mechanism are left. The drum, toner, charge corona, developing unit, and recycling unit are in the actual cartridge.
This means the same manufactoring which takes in account that the el-cheapo gears that brake every 3k copies will be replaced whenever you change the ink!
This makes them extremely reliable. The technology also insures jams are next to zero and even dirty paper will never smudge. The ink lasts for a long time because it is already a powder and is melting into the paper. It is not a liquid that can dry out. And last the majority of customers who buy laser printers are bussiness users who will not tolerate downtime and have requirements about pages printed per month. Inkjets are made for the consumer who printers something every once in a while.
It is true what your saying with built in obscelence. I have seen it with coffee makers. My mother decided only to buy the top of the line coffee makers because of breakage. No luck. She now uses an old MR Coffee bought when I was born because it works. However laser printers are not built like this and even if a problem arises you can always replace the toner cartridge which takes care of %90 of the problems since this is where most of the mechanisms are.
Sign of the times (Score:2)
The death of Postscript? (Score:5, Interesting)
The point is, yeah, these cheap printers work great, but they don't have postscript, which does bring down the print quality in my opinion.
Re:The death of Postscript? (Score:2)
Oh, the Lexmark printer I have had for like 6 years is built like a truck. Think is really durable, and I've done about 40,000 pages on it. Great printer.
Re:The death of Postscript? (Score:3, Interesting)
Deskjet? (Score:5, Informative)
The happiest day in the life of those printers was when I sent 2 of them down the garbage chute and listened for the crash at the bottom. Deskjet, a quality device? I think not.
Re:Deskjet? (Score:5, Informative)
Early HP Laser Printers are the same way. I have a laserjet III that's rolled it's page counter three times (probably 3.4 million pages at this point), and the only service that has been done to it is usual maintenence kit stuff. The thing is sitting in a closet now, but if I ever need a printer, I know it's there and that it'll still work.
Me? I blame a management shift at HP. Sometime, probably in the last seven years or so, HP went from a company of well-engineered products and fairly high standards to a company that seems to be all about shiny plastic and marketing.
For a long time I had an IBM 3812 page printer. It had an RS232 interface but at load it could probably spit out 15 pages per minute. Not bad for something that was made in 1982. I finally got rid of it in 2002 because I couldn't find a fuser kit for it. I don't think there's a printer being made today that will be able to print 20 years from now.
No, they are disposable and priced accordingly (Score:3, Interesting)
LaserJet Series II with Adobe Postscript cartridge (Score:2, Interesting)
Regarding HP (Score:2)
Personally, I bought a Canon BJC-8200, which has six colors (Black, Dark Cyan, Dark Magenta, Yellow, Light Cyan, and Light Magenta) and uses individually replacable ink tanks. It has proven to be quite reliable and the ink is cheap. The additional colors make for much better photo prints.
Personally, I don't plan on buying another HP printer ever. (Or lexmark for th
Re:HP makes great laser printers (Score:4, Interesting)
THe problem is not the manufactors but the technology. They all blow. I do not know of 1 inkjet that is reliable. Not one!
Epson is bad, cannon is worse, hp is ok, and lexmark makes medicore ones.
Since I upgarded to laser for the same price as a high end inkjet my problems went away. No streaking, paper jams, unexplained errors. Ok in a year I did have a single paper jam when I feed it dusty paper.
In an inkjet, dusty paper would cause the ink to streak and the printer heads to clog. With a laser printer it just james on ocasion. The text is always clear and it always works.
Inkjet vs laser is like modem vs cable modem/dsl. Its not the speed but the reliability of it always on and working.
You get what you pay for.. (Score:2)
Never owned one, never will (Score:4, Interesting)
I've never owned a printer and I never plan on owning one. On the very rare occasions when I HAVE to print something (Usually once a year at tax time) I take the file to work and print it there.
I've never understood the need to print stuff out. It's hard to grep a dead tree.
Re:Never owned one, never will (Score:5, Funny)
It's also hard to balance that notebook on your knees while you take a shit.
Re:Never owned one, never will (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Never owned one, never will (Score:3)
It's also hard to mail a business letter over email. Most businesses a person must interact with in normal day-to-day life still want you to write a letter on physical paper and sign it with your hand.
Stunning! (Score:2)
It's all that British spelling (Score:5, Funny)
It's natural (Score:5, Insightful)
This trend is most evident in the market shift away from workgroup laser printers to high speed ink based printers that last far longer then laser units and don't have multiple parts that wear down (such as fusers and transfer drums). Ink printers have a purge unit, a print head, and an interpreter board. It is cheaper to avoid the costs of onsite service contracts and instead just ship out refurbished units. Both the consumaer and the manufacturer (and even the distributors) win. This is blatant when it comes to the "home office". Ever cheaper bubblejets are available while the cost of ink remains the same. It is more practical to buy a new set of $45 ink tanks then it is to replace the printer - ink that costs Canon, HP or Epson $5 to manufacture.
Strange... (Score:5, Insightful)
that explains (Score:2)
It's not just printers. (Score:4, Insightful)
Hard drives, scanners, printers, keyboards, all crap. Strangely enough, now that I think of it, there seems to be an exception: monitors. Back in the days when you could use a HP scanner to pound a LaserJet under a house (without damaging either one) to support a sagging foundation, monitors were really expensive, and it seemed like I had to replace them often. It's been a long time since I had to replace a monitor for any reason other than "I want to."
</nostalgia>
Perishable parts (Score:5, Informative)
Some bright spark[1] decided that once a person buys a printer, they are commited to it, so will have to buy the print cartridges for it. So if we make the cartridges expensive, we can still maintain our profit margins, and have continous profits rather than once off for each customer.
Now enter the business side of things. Our business customers don't want to keep buying the latest bubblejet/inkjet/crapjet every 3 months, so they produce a seperate business line of machines. Mostly these are laser based, however, there are some top-of-the-line inkjet systems that are mostly used in the printing industry (eg signs/cars/etc).
So you either buy a business quality printer, preferably laser based, and you pay good money for it. Or you do what some of my customers do:
They buy a new printer when the old print cartridge runs out. However, they are being thwarted by the print manufactores who are now selling print cartridges half full on new printers, so they buy a new cartridge with the printer (usually at a discount, since they can wrangle one with the printer), and run it till it runs dry, and pick up the next latest and greatest model.
Ok, so thats a bit extreme, but I do have one customer doing that.
Basically, printers are becoming a consumable product.
[1] Reminds me of the quote: May a bright spark grow into a flaming idiot.
Re:Perishable parts (Score:4, Insightful)
The HPLJ 4 and relatives (Score:4, Insightful)
Unfortunately they are no longer being made but many can be found on eBay [ebay.com]. Yay HP!
- Ben
Re:The HPLJ 4 and relatives (Score:4, Insightful)
The printer I like working on next are the old HP II's and III's (yes, there are some still floating around). Yes, they weight about as much as tanks, but the two most common problems (fusers burning up and gear assemblies chipping teeth) are easy to replace.
InkJets are simply a pain in the ass to fix (if you can find parts for them!!). It's usually not cost effective to even try to fix them (the repair parts tend to cost more than a new printer!!). If you can find repair parts for them and insist on trying to fix them, it usually doens't work anyways. The technical manuals are a joke so you are left to guessing what is wrong. And you have a large chance of breaking the printer even more trying to open it up because of all the cheap plastic parts.
As much as I like the HP4's, HP's new laserjets are going down hill a little. They are not as easy to fix and the technical manuals are not as good. The first large color laserjet that I worked on had a toner cartridge explode inside of it (that was a mess!!). Well, something else was taken out in the process. The troubleshooting steps in the manual went along the lines of, replace this several hundred dollar part first, and if that doesn't work, replace a different several hundred dollar part next, and if that didn't work, replace this thousand dollar controller card. Needless to say, the newer HP printers can be expensive to fix.
Dot Matrix baby. (Score:2, Funny)
bah (Score:2)
I go through a lot of printers too, but considering how cheap they are I don't mind too much.
Re:Back in my day... (Score:3, Funny)
In my day we had to go out and hunt squids for their ink armed with nothing but a spoon!
And for the paper we had to hunt down wild Rancours and skin them!
Then we had to hold the ink in our mouths and spit the letters on!
POORER quality? (Score:2, Funny)
"Has anyone else noticed this trend of poorer and poorer quality printers, at least in terms of life expectancy?"
No. I've never had one that worked well. Ever.
I still have mine, and it works like new... (Score:2)
It has never required servicing, ever (knock on wood).
It's an incredibly well built printer by any standard, and espeically now-a-days.
Most printers seem to be made out of dent/scratch/etc. prone plastics....
Experiences with a Lexmark Z65 (Score:5, Informative)
The thing that caught my eye the most about this particular model is that it's got a built-in Ethernet port, so it can be in a spot other than taking up space on my desk.
Otherwise, the printer is very poorly designed. The manual feed tray is BEHIND the primary tray, so it's difficult to load media and adjust paper width, etc. Also, this supposed "top of the line" printer uses combined ink tank/printheads, so you have to blow $40 every time it runs out of ink, even though the printhead is still fine. Yes i know about refill kits but the inks typically suck. Finally, the color cartridge is of the combined CMY variety... you run out of magenta, the whole cart. is trash.
Color laser printers are available from Minolta-QMS and other manufacturers for as low as $600 new these days... I'm tempted.
Two words: Bubble Jet (Score:3, Informative)
I am sure these kinds of things vary and the bubblejet isn't the first choice if you need super quality or high volume, but it works well for the occasional color spreadsheet with charts.
That is just my experience, and since I am no expert on printers (that takes a special breed), that is all I have.
Inkjets are no good for occasional printing (Score:4, Insightful)
When the ribbons started running out you could even give them a squirt of WD40 to help the ink on the outer margins wick its way back into the printing area -- and they'd print like (near) new again for a few more weeks.
The cost of a new ribbon (which lasted several boxes of paper -- about 5,000 pages of program listings) was around 5% of the printer price so they were very cheap to run.
Then came the laser printers.
Much higher quality, much faster but a little harder on the pocket.
These days however, inkjets rule. Every computer store you go into has row upon row of these evil devices -- each with their little laminated samples of photo-quality printing attached.
When they're new, these printers do a great job. They're quiet, the quality is superb and they're pretty fast -- considering the previous two statements.
However -- thanks to big high resolution screens and better development tools I find that I seldom need to print program a listing and virtually all of my correspondence is done by email -- without a drop of ink being used.
This means that I might not fire up my inkjet printer for weeks or even months at a time.
But when I do -- the bloody thing is almost always suffering from clogged nozzles -- requiring (at best) a cleaning cycle (which wastes $$$ worth of ink) or, in the case of an Epson, the total junking of the printer.
So what's the answer for low-volume, very intermittent printer user?
The cost of a laser is hard to amortize over a hundred or so pages a year, inkjets hardly last a single cartridge of ink before clogging up, and dot-matrix printers are not only rare as hen's teeth but they're still noisy, slow and produce ugly print.
Anyone got any ideas.
Re:Inkjets are no good for occasional printing (Score:4, Insightful)
Use good paper. A ream of cheap paper is $3. A ream of good paper is $4. Spend the extra buck to not jam the thing up all the time.
If you can find one with a JetDirect (ethernet port) built in, that's a bonus. The JetDirect usually includes an lpd-compatible print server, so Linux likes it, and MacOS loves it. Windows even works mostly, as much as it ever does anyway.
Re:Inkjets are no good for occasional printing (Score:3, Insightful)
more info than you probably wanted (Score:5, Informative)
Printers, nowadays, are made to last about 2 months longer than the manufacturer's warranty period. Why? Because it gives meaning to the retail store's warranty. If you buy a machine with no extended warranty, and it breaks 2 months after the manufacturer's warranty is over, what do you do? You can't return it, it's been more than 30 days since purchase. You can't call the manufacturer, because their warranty is over, and they owe you nothing. Next time you buy a machine, though, you will (most likely) get that extended warranty for an additional $30.
But aside from that, here is a list of home use printer manufacturers to stay away from:
1) Lexmark
In terms of machine life span, expect no more than one year from Lexmark. And even then, they are riddled with problems such as drawing the paper in crooked. Also, companies such as Dell and Compaq bulk purchase Lexmark printers and rebrand them, so stay away from them as well.
Epson is much better than Lexmark, however their newer printers are very picky about what paper and ink you use. In fact, if you use the name brand epson ink but not epson paper, chances are that the ink will run or absorb wrong and your print will look all sorts of bad. When you use all of their propriety stuff, it looks great, but you pay more for that great look. Much more.
HP makes high quality printers. The prints look great, they are fast, and they have all sorts of features like digital camera card readers and little color LCD screens that let you see what picture you are about to print out. With these toys comes a much higher price tag. Also, their ink system for their home line of printers sucks. The machines put much more ink on the paper than is needed and the cartridges cost quite a bit to replace. HP overall is a good brand to go with, but not for long-term usage. If you buy an HP, buy the warranty. Trust me, you will use it.
Canon is by far the best manufacturer in terms of home use machines right now. Their S series has machines that fit almost everybodys' needs, including the s750 which is great for small offices that need speed but not photo quality, and the s820 that prints beautiful photos but isn't the fastest. Canon is also the only company that is making inexpensive cartridges for their machines and using them as a standard for the entire model line. They are even cheaper if you get the generic brand, and have a much lower failure rate due to their simplicity.
Brother's laser machines are great and last a long time (if they work right out of the box, but that's another issue), but never, ever get one of their inkjet machines. Low print quality, leaky cartridges, over-charging for replacement ink, etc. Laser machines are great, inkjets suck.
Lastly, Sharp makes a copier that can be used as a laser printer. It's main use is a copier, but can be hooked up through the USB port to act as a color scanner and laser printer. It gets good quality and is pretty quick, but toner is a bit costly in these machines to use as a daily printer, so I wouldn't recommend it.
I believe that covers them all, so let's hear the flaming from Lexmark fanboys. If there are any real questions or requests for elaborations, I will reply to those.
Re:more info than you probably wanted (Score:5, Interesting)
> Epson is much better than Lexmark, however their newer printers are very picky about what paper and ink you use. In fact, if you use the name brand epson ink but not epson paper, chances are that the ink will run or absorb wrong and your print will look all sorts of bad. When you use all of their propriety stuff, it looks great, but you pay more for that great look. Much more.
I would recommend using one of Epson's printers that utilizes their DuraBrite [epson.com.au] technology (The C62 and C82 use it I think?). This ink is non-water soluable and is pigment based, which should prevent feathering on most plain papers. The best part of their DuraBrite inks is that photo prints on plain paper look almost as good ad a print on photo paper, so you don't necessarily need to buy expensive paper to get good prints.
When I sold printers, one of the tricks we would do is print out a demo on one of the DuraBrites and immediately run the results under a water fountain. No running or smearing! Most customers were impressed.
The one drawback to the DuraBrite line is that I don't think they have and 5-color models, only 3-color. Depending on what you are doing, this may not be a big deal. If you're looking for stunning photos, however, and don't need what the DuraBrite offers, I would recommend the Epson Stylus Photo 825. The photos are simply amazing.
No, I'm not affiliated with Epson in any way. I used to sell printers (HP, Lex, Epson, Canon) and fell in love with their (ink jet) printers.
Re:more info than you probably wanted (Score:3, Informative)
Nostalgia? (Score:5, Funny)
Nah, you're mistaken. A Deskjet isn't old enough for nostalgia.
Not even a dot matrix is.
No, it's not nostalgia until you've reached daisy wheel.
Re:Nostalgia? (Score:3, Funny)
Nostalgia is writing the output from your abacus in the sand at your feet using a stick you carved yourself during the 20 mile trip uphill to school into the wind through 5 feet of snow (sans shoes).
Deskjet service tip (Score:5, Interesting)
Sometimes a deskjet will just start freaking out while printing -- skipping lines, not printing to the edge of the page, weird stuff like that.
There is a clear plastic ribbon that runs horizontally from one side of the machine to the other. It is usually just above and behind the metal bar that the cartridge assembly is carried on. Look closely, and you'll notice that there are finely pitched vertical lines printed on this ribbon. As the printheads move across the paper, a sensor counts the number of lines and as a result the printer can determine where on the paper the printhead is.
Very often, this ribbon will be soiled by inks, dust, etc... Take a soft lint-free cloth, wet it lightly with isopropyl alcohol, pinch the ribbon between cloth-lined fingers, and wipe across the entire length of the ribbon. You might be surprised at the amount of crap that you pick up.
Anyway, someone out there might find this useful...
For a reliable printer, you just can't beat... (Score:5, Informative)
I can't find an exact release date on them after a few minutes of Googling, but they are all well over 10 years old and plenty of my clients still have a few of them around. They aren't the fastest printers, but they are built like tanks and the toner carts are fairly generic and still rather widely available.
I wanted something a little better, so in 1994 I bought a ~$1400 LaserWriter Select 360, IMHO one of the best printers Apple ever made. 600DPI, 10PPM, 16MB maximum RAM, and even an internal fax card option. My Select 360 will be 10 in February, and it shows no sign of its age.
The newer printers I work on just feel cheap and insubstantial to me, especially the inkjets. And if this DMCA crap they're pulling to keep third parties from making toner/ink carts continues, I will keep my older printer for as long as I possibly can, with the help of fixyourownprinter.com, [fixyourownprinter.com] if necessary.
~Philly
Re:For a reliable printer, you just can't beat... (Score:3, Interesting)
HP does not always use Canon engines for their laser printers, and when they don't, the printer sucks. The last good printer that HP manufactured that used a Canon engine was the LaserJet 5si. Bulletproof. The new models fare much worse in terms of build quality and reliabilty.
PrintING Quality Up, PrintER Quality Down (Score:5, Informative)
The first "real" printer I ever bought was an Epson FX-286 wide carriage dot matrix printer, 17 or 18 years ago. The print quality is typical crappy dot matrix, but the printer still works (although I haven't re-inked the ribbon now for several years), and it never missed a dot.
The next printer was an Epson EPL-7000 laser printer, purchased probably around 14 years ago when I needed better graphics capabilities and letter quality printing. The print quality of course was much better (300 dpi), and this printer also still works well and has never had any problems, although it tends to curl paper even more than most laser printers. The toner cartriges are very espensive in comparison to other small lasers, but they also last very long.
Then things started changing. I began buying inkjet printers for their color capability. I first bought an HP Deskjet 855C. This printer worked for about four or five years until it stopped printing properly in color. I still use it as a backup monochrome printer.
Still wanting color, I replaced the HP with an Epson Stylus Color 1520 wide format inkjet printer. By this time the print quality was quite good - 720x1440 and it did a pretty decent job printing photos even though it's only a four color printer. This printer still works; however, I have had constant paper feed problems with it, and the head nozzels clog occasionally if it goes more than three or four weeks without being used. Presumably this is due to the fine geometry print heads.
Wanting better photo quality, I recently purchased an Epson Stylus Photo 1280 about a year ago. This printer still works of course and seems to have fewer paper feed problmes than the 1520, but the head clogging problem is worse. At least a few nozzels clog almost every time that the printer goes unused for more than two weeks. The photographic output quality, however, is exceptional (although perhaps not quite as good as can be had today).
Clearly, the higher volumes and lower prices have brought about a reduction in quality and longevity of printers, but what do you expect - you get what you pay for. The flip side is that the quality of the output, particularly for photographs, is better than it has ever been, and you are paying much less for most newer printers, so they don't owe you much when they die after only a few years.
No, they're not what they used to be. (Score:5, Informative)
The best inkjet I had was the Canon BJC-4200. It had seperate ink tanks, so you could replace the blank tank for ~$7.00 and not have to replace the print head every time (though you could if you wanted to). It also had seperate black and color tanks, so if you didn't print color that often, and the color tank dried up, you weren't completely SOL - you could just buy a new color tank.
Linux support was great - it accepted plain ASCII input (ie: you could cat a text file to lp0), and once RedHat 4.2 came out, there were built-in ghostscript drivers to print PS. I never had a problem with it in 5 years - I only got rid of it when it physically broke (mainly because it got stepped on). The closest replacement I ever found was a BJC-2100, but it still didn't beat my 4200 for reliability. Recently, Canon's history of working with the free software community has sucked, but regardless the 4200 was the best printer ever.
However, I too gave up on inkjets and bought a LaserJet 1200, and I haven't looked back. I still have my BJC-2100 for when I need to print in color, which is rare. But HP's office/home-office printers have always been great and reliable, and if you can afford them, and don't care about color, there's no better laser printer. Just so long as you don't get the shitty "home" printers, like the 1000, which are basically big honking paperweights. But any of their entry-level printers that speaks postscript is a good deal.
It's far from just printers... (Score:5, Insightful)
1A2 Key Telephone Systems: Rugged as all get-out. Granted, they need one 25-pair cable per phone, but they just Kept On Going, and they had a nice balance of features perfect for small and medium-size businesses. My own has lasted over 25 years, and in all that time I've replaced maybe a couple of fuses and one bridge diode.
Their fate: All 1A2 equipment recalled by AT&T was destroyed by crusher and recycled. I guess it was TOO reliable to the point where it competed effectively with newer and cheaper crap. They're still made by ITT/Comdial, but their heyday passed with the death of the 'ever-better engineering' philosophy propagated by the original Bell System.
Tektronix: Used to be THE name in oscilloscopes, RF spectrum analyzers, and other gear. In the year 1998, they stopped including schematics and servicing info in their instrument manuals (and they used to have some of the best documentation in the business!) In 2000, they completely discontinued their entire analog 'scope line. Now, in 2K3, they're selling cheap crap that's made overseas and final-assembled in the U.S., and they couldn't care less about supporting older (and still very useful!) gear if it's over five years old.
Hewlett-Packard: Don't go there with me. They spun their entire test equipment division off into something called "Agilent." They used to have a most (older) IBM-ish attitude towards their gear, in that you could get manuals and parts for test gear up to at least ten years beyond its last production date. Not any more! Not with Crazy Foolerina at the top of the ladder. Now, what was once one of Silicon Valley's proudest achievements lies in ruins, fragmented into a company that doesn't seem to know what it wants to make, or what companies it wants to merge with next.
I could go on, but it's too depressing. Suffice to say that true "innovation," in my eyes, means taking the best lessons and techniques from older (and PROVEN!) technology, combining it with the best ideas from the new stuff, and watching what happens. It also, to my eyes, means finding better ways to build stuff that will LAST!
Does anyone have any real idea of how much of the planet's raw materials and resources have been wasted on "throwaway" technology that'll be polluting landfills for generations to come? No? I didn't think so. I doubt anyone really does know for sure (or care, to judge by today's corporate "ethics" -- or lack thereof).
Re:It's far from just printers... (Score:3, Insightful)
And we now have a whole generation of consumers who've never even SEEN better-quality consumer electronics, and to whom the flimsy current products look perfectly normal.
Not to mention the progressive managerial glut in most companies, where short-term savings to the bottom line (which l
Re:It's far from just printers... (Score:4, Insightful)
It's called a short attention span. By the time the doohickey breaks, they've forgotten when they bought it and a brand new model is already out.
We're getting tools that are unreliable and wear out quickly. The manufacturers have eliminated the work required to make a good quality piece of equipment. This work is then passed on to the customers, in the form of lost time, troubleshooting, ruined work, and tool replacement cost. Way to go! Cut off progress at the knees, will ya?
Think Different (Score:5, Interesting)
What I care about is the print, be it a proof or final image.
I shopped around for a very good quality inkjet that is reasonably economical to operate--however the value curve leans definitly towards quality.
I ended up buying an HP PSC 750 for about $175. It uses a multicolor (about $30) and a black cart (about $15).
Now, when I run prints, I have a good idea of what the per image cost is, and just keep it in mind. I don't worry that an extra proof will run the cost of an extra print--in the end its my work, and I just want it to look just so.
Many seem to worry about keeping the per print cost to an absolute minimum, but that just seems bass-ackward to me. I guess if you're doing thousands of prints that makes sense, but most home or even home-office users don't fall into that catagory.
When I'm reading a how-to, or some other form of documentation, I generally download it to my laptop and read it there, if I need to be able to take it with me. I don't waste a ream of paper.
Anyways, I know I'm not necessarily like most people. Just thought some would like to hear a different take on the subject.
-buf
PS. Some will undoubtably jump to the question of the permenance of most inkjet prints. For something that matters--like end product for a client, or show...I use a medium-to-high end service shop. There's plenty available online and the prices these days are fairly economical.
Of course they've gotten crappier (Score:5, Insightful)
Current printer: $30
I don't care how far technology has come, you can't cut the price of the average consumer printer that much without flushing quality down the crapper.
I haven't owned a printer since the old HP died my first year of college. I can't find one that I like as much that isn't huge and costs $1200. I don't really need a printer anyway. Paper is so passe`
yes.. my roomates HP (Score:3, Interesting)
16ppm Postscript Laser for $200 available in US (Score:5, Interesting)
It seems like it's hard these days to get your hands on a decent printer that doesn't need a new set of $50 ink cartriges every 300 pages or constantly clog, steak or jam. Added bonus if it has PostScript and expension capabilities without costing an arm and a leg. The new dispoable inkjets and GDI winprinters may occupy the best shelf space in the local office supply store, but there's still decent printers out there if you look around enough. You can bet I was a happy camper when I found a name brand 16ppm PostScript laser printer for under $200 at a local office supply store.
This week, the national office supply chain OfficeMax was advertising the HP LaserJet 1200SE for $199.99. Bad news, it was sold out. But good news is that another national retailer, Staples, has plenty in stock and will match the OfficeMax price if you bring a copy of OfficeMax's advertisement. In my area, it appeared in the Sunday Lowell Sun and the Sunday Boston Globe. Check your area newspaper for the advertisement. I'm sure there's other national office supply chains which can match the OfficeMax price on this printer. According to HP, regular price is $399.
The printer is 15ppm at 1600x1600dpi with PostScript and 16MB of RAM. (The non-SE model has only 8mb of RAM. On both models there is a quasi-standard looking RAM expansion slot which can accommodate another 64MB of memory). Connectivity is via your choice of a bi-directional parallel port with standard centronics connector and a USB "B" connector. Printer works flawlessly with CUPS over the parallel port.
Reports indicate it works fine over USB too. See linuxprinting.org [linuxprinting.org] for more information.
The printer includes one C7115A toner/drum cartridge, which yields around 2500 pages. I found new prefilled cartridges for $60. Loose refill toner is $13. I found ferrous toner (for MICR printing on checks and so on) for $35.
brother HL-1440 (Score:5, Interesting)
(That said, Consumer Reports doesn't pay much attention to lasers, probably because most home users want to print color pictures. The only others they reviewed were the HP 1000 and 1200se, which both also got excellent marks.)
Former Computer Salesman (Score:5, Interesting)
Finally, the time came when my girlfriend's aging Apple Imagewriter died and I needed a new printer (for my PC). What did I get? An Okipage 6W, an LED printer - one step down from laser but it IS a toner based system (instead of ink) and I love it.
I've been counting the number of 500 page paper bundles I've fed into it (to see if the pages per toner cartridge numbers I would quote people were bullshit or not) and so far with two toner replacements I've printed around 8000 pages. Runs fine, print quality is great (black and white only) and the toner cartridge isn't even that expensive.
Moral of the story - skimp on the price now and you'll get crap. By an ink based system... well, read the rest of the posts for the various rants about how expensive, quality degradation, disposable they are. Go with a toner based system (laser or LED) and spend a little more. 8000 on an HP would have already cost me around $400-600 more than I've spent on my Oki including toner.
Planned obsolecence.. it happened to me! (Score:3, Informative)
Ok, we thought, it is still under warranty, no big deal... No such luck. The print head was "designed to wear out" and as such was a "disposable/renewable part," just like the printer cartridge. The company said we had to buy our own new one... which coincidentally cost more than the entire printer did in the first place. Grrr!
We now have an HP, they seem to be much better quality, and last much longer.
I'm late in the game but here's my .02 (Score:3, Interesting)
My younger brother went through 2 Epson printers (each seemed to last about a year... the first kept clogging and the 2nd died of an electronic failure) before finally switching to a HP 600 series printer about a year and a half ago - it's still working.
My HP 932C is over two years old and still works like the day I unpacked it - although I have already spent more in damned ink then the cost of the printer. The printer it replaced, a 660cse, is also still working, at my brother's girlfriend's house. On of my friends has had an 800 series HP printer for several years now and his father has a 500 series printer - all still working. While this is just anecdotal evidence, the HP printers seemed to just keep chugging along long after they've burned up their value in ink.
If you think about it, since HP makes their money off the ink - it's in their BEST INTERESTS to make printers that last. It seems the game lately isn't to make the printers break earlier, but to make the ink cartreges run out faster... If you look at my discontinued printer, the 932c, and then look at the printer HP's web site recommends as a replacement, you'll notice the new recommended printer holds almost HALF AS MUCH INK!
If you do a lot of printing, you're getting screwed using ink jets no matter what the reliability of your printer. If you need color, get a closeout printer (pricewatch and google are your friends) that is easy to use refill kits on and refill yourself. If you can live without color, laser is the only way to go.
Rental (Score:4, Insightful)
Not all Lexmarks suck (Score:3, Insightful)
I've used some of the Optra lasers as well with similar success at work and have nothing but good things to say about them.
I can't speak about Lexmark's newer stuff. I've never used their inkjets or low end lasers. They may be great or junk, I don't know. But some of what Lexmark makes (or did anyway) is genuinely good.
No they are not what they used to be. (Score:3, Insightful)
Just was thinking (Score:4, Insightful)
I'd be willing to bet the people who think they are 'okay' are much younger than the people who think they suck.
Obviously, there are always exceptions.
Personally - I'm 36 and have been do this crap for 25 years (yes - since I was 9). I think most of today's printers suck for multiple reasons -
At least for HP, quality is *way* down (Score:3, Interesting)
Unfortunately, there's not much connection between cost and quality - expensive workgroup laser printers seem to jam about as often as cheap deskjets. HP's firmware hasn't improved much, either - the newer printers don't hang if they get multiple simultaneous connections but they still go into
There are two new printers I rely on: a very expensive Canon ImageRunner copier which doubles as the uber-printer and a Xerox / Tektronix Phaser 8200, which is a color wax printer. Both have been rock-solid, handled all sorts of convoluted jobs and are *much* faster than the latest HPs - the ImageRunner is rated at 60 pages per minute and I've never seen much less, even with huge files containing truly vile postscript. This isn't surprising - it has an 800MHz PIII instead of the slow 300Mhz ARM/MIPS-class CPU which is all HP can afford to put in a $16,000 printer.
Have a a good joke about that.... (Score:3, Funny)
The one guys saying:
"Those were professionals at work. They only took the gold, the stockshares and the printer cartridges."
HP Thinks Older Printers Were Too Good (Score:5, Interesting)
Ink purge in epsons (Score:4, Interesting)
My girlfriend had a 740i and it went the way that epsons seem to go - colors progressively becoming weaker and eventually stopping completely so that repeated "cleaning cycles" did not fix the problem any longer. I took it apart and found what I expected to find - a mixture of dust and dried ink covering the print head cover area.
What was amazing, however, was the huge piece of blotter that filled the entire bottom of the printer, probably 4" x 14" and 1" thick, which was half saturated with ink! I have taken apart printers before, and have never seen anything like this. It was taking those $32 ink cartridges and pumping them into a piece of blotter!
Now, my brother has an old epson 24 pin dot matrix, and he has about the dustiest room I've ever seen and that thing still works beautifully. I am half tempted to buy one off of ebay just since I know that it has worked since 1992 and he's probably only bought about 2 ribbons for it as well!
Re:For the photographers out there... (Score:3, Informative)