Morrigan Stark
Arrogant Smirk
Noted. Thanks!
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HP "software timebomb" disables 3rd party ink cartirdges
- Thread starter Jackpot
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Just like keurig I would LOVE to have footage and audio of the meetings that led up to these types of choices. In 2016 how the hell do you think this sort of thing is going to play? And in the printing world it's not like people do not have another choice!!
How long before an update "Fixes" the glitch.
How long before an update "Fixes" the glitch.
Freshmaker
I am Korean.
Hate to be one of those guys, but the Brothers I use now are night and day over the HP printers I've used.
I bought one color HP printer that would only print B&W.
I bought one that lasted a week before it broke. Then I have to RMA it and that one broke in a week as well. HP just sent me a completely different printer after that, which also broke.
In fact, no HP product I've ever bought worked out of the box properly.
Cant help that Brother printers have been better products at home and on the job. For years we always use to have laser printer issues at my job. We swapped out 3 units for Brother printers and things have working great. We even still have an old 90s xerox copier running that has always been more reliable than all of our HP Laserjets.
John Blade
Member
It's not that. It's just that Brother don't fuck around with their laser printer for the business line based on what the consumer want which is a very good printer which get the work done and also have some add on which is useful when we need it. Also, the ink cost isn't going to break the bank if you find them in bulk like mine. I guess if you do color print, then I don't know if Brother is good for you but for everyone who do B/W print, it's the best you can choose without something stupid which make you piss when you try to print stuff.
Dreams-Visions
Member
Why yes, GAF, I am happy with my Brother Workforce printer.
PopcornMegaphone
Banned
I'm also a former HP user who now enjoys the brother printing lifestyle
Can anyone help, here?
Ummm you said it yourself. The business model relies on selling expensive refills to be profitable which is why they sell the printers so cheap. There isn't much IP in ink but there definitely is IP in the printer and you are getting that IP cheaper than you otherwise would have.
One of my jobs at work is to refill ink cartridges, and we have to refuse 3rd party cartridges for this exact reason because corporate hates a high refund rate for when customers complain they don't work after a refill. We've even had to stop filling HP 940s because of their high fail rate.
People get pissed sometimes, but in my experience printer firmware is rubbish even if you use first party hardware. Meh.
People get pissed sometimes, but in my experience printer firmware is rubbish even if you use first party hardware. Meh.
I'm so out of the printer loop. We have a brother at work and it's great, but I really hadn't heard of them before we got ours. Now, after all this HP mess, anytime I need a new printer i'm going Brother.
In the past, I've owned HP printers. But that's not happening again after this, even if they do fix it. Gotta have strong principles on issues like this.
In the past, I've owned HP printers. But that's not happening again after this, even if they do fix it. Gotta have strong principles on issues like this.
Kwansu Dudes
Member
Huh, had my HP printer for a decade now but I guess I'll get a Hulk Hogan certified printer once this one dies. $70 for some ink is a rip-off and it seems that the copper/sleeve/whatever dies out faster than the ink runs out.
Old HP, before Carly Fiorina's hard-on for shit cheap consumer electronics and the spinning off of Agilent, produced some amazingly good work products. At work, we're still using their HP 35s and their old plotters for much of our black and white work because they refuse to die.
Its modern day HP. Literally every piece of consumer grade product they manufacture is designed to either break after the warranty period (buttons on the majority of their calculators, every consumer HP Pavilion laptop that exists, printers) or bleed you of money (printers). This has been HP's consumer electronics strategy for over a decade. They have such a huge presence in retail, business, and other sectors like education that they can get away with most of this shit.
They're pretty fortunate to have a huge mindshare/market share and pretty decent business products that most companies, like ours, just say "fuck it" and get everything from the single supplier. We've been with HP for so long that there's no chance for me switch to a calculator that isn't a HP 50g because I would need to find/re-write all of my programs (despite the buttons having only a lifespan of a year).
Its modern day HP. Literally every piece of consumer grade product they manufacture is designed to either break after the warranty period (buttons on the majority of their calculators, every consumer HP Pavilion laptop that exists, printers) or bleed you of money (printers). This has been HP's consumer electronics strategy for over a decade. They have such a huge presence in retail, business, and other sectors like education that they can get away with most of this shit.
They're pretty fortunate to have a huge mindshare/market share and pretty decent business products that most companies, like ours, just say "fuck it" and get everything from the single supplier. We've been with HP for so long that there's no chance for me switch to a calculator that isn't a HP 50g because I would need to find/re-write all of my programs (despite the buttons having only a lifespan of a year).
Xisiqomelir
Member
Mmm, printers are some bullshit.
I just bought that exact model a couple weeks ago. It's fantastic, I would highly recommend it.
Previously I had an old Canon inkjet (MP210), and man what an annoying piece of shit. I would always use refill cartridges to save money, and the printer would constantly give me errors saying that there was no cartridge detected. After screwing around a bit you could force the print through somehow, but it was always like a game to get it started, lol.
Ban Puncher
Member
WaterAstro
Member
Ink Cartridge DRM? holy crap
Can you at least refill them via Costco ink refill service or something? Ink is just a ripoff.
Can you at least refill them via Costco ink refill service or something? Ink is just a ripoff.
Jacksinthe
Banned
Keurig.
Fucking coffee DRM.
Also, I will reiterate my stance on Brother: no other printers exist. Best I've had.
Visualante2
Member
I had to take the battery out of our A3 deskjet to disable the clock. Really really well hidden in there. Trying to avoid HP products in the future because of it. The printer wasn't great anyway.
ArkhamFantasy
Member
I've been using HP ink and it still gives me the error message. (thankfully it still prints if you fight with it enough).
Chairman Yang
if he talks about books, you better damn well listen
The good news is that HP's printer business seems to be in pretty steep decline (http://www.wsj.com/articles/hp-reports-lower-earnings-revenue-1472069220), and Brother's equivalent business had been growing and doing well as of 2015.
stan423321
Member
This is actually what they targeted first I believe.
No, Brother just isn't a fuckstain of a company.
DeaconKnowledge
Member
Is that the DCP 7065DN? High Five! I have the same one!
Unknown Soldier
Member
You guys really need to move to laser printers.
AuthenticM
Member
This has got to be illegal in countries that don't bend backwards for corporations, right?
I have to print colour quite regularly, and print shops around here are overpriced, but I was convinced to go back to HP by people praising their PageWide printers. They're fantastic.
Inkjet photo quality, but at laser speeds. Replacing all the cartridges is expensive (about £200 for all 4), but like a laser, they last for thousands of pages.
Inkjet photo quality, but at laser speeds. Replacing all the cartridges is expensive (about £200 for all 4), but like a laser, they last for thousands of pages.
Doesn't surprise me. They're an awful company, and I loathe every time I have to use something made by them. Printers, laptops, whatever. Hopefully this accelerates their decline.
Patrick S.
Banned
What do they do the the cartridges that makes detection of a refill possible?
Absolutely. I used to worik for Wolverhampton City Council and they'd moved from buying printers to having massive Konica-Minolta "Multi-Function-Devices" installed. Every so often they phoned home for more toner and it just....turned up.
That's not quite what printer-as-a-service would be. Certainly in the modern context. You'd be talking more about having an on-site printer that's not owned by you, and is maintained by someone else but that you have full use of. Think like Office 365 where you pay an annual fee to use it....
Winterblink
Member
Likely just a chip in there that says it's printed this amount of ink and it's now done. You could try to refill it but unless that chip resets somehow you're still boned. It's not like it's detecting you putting a hole in the side or something.
I am working as a service admin for printer and notebook engineers and think the bulk of the sales for HP comes from business customers and big companies. Most of the time those will buy a service contract from HP/Lexmark/whomever and don't waste another thought where the cartridges may come from. Maybe some higher up took a long hard look at the numbers and thought about trying something to milk some more dollars out of the smaller private business part. I don't know why it has been done but I think it is telling, that I first hear on neogaf about it although I am talking to HP customers on a daily basis.
Pagusas
Elden Member
The business world and the consumer world are two very different things. I dont know any company, even small businesses, who doesnt rent their printers anymore. Even the large company I work at now has a service contract with canon and actually pays to have canon staffers run our print shop. All of our printers are on contract. No one thinks about ink at all, as its all built in to the per page cost of printing. When I worked at a small agency, we still had a service contract on the printers, something like .03 black and white, .05 color per color page (not sure on the exact detail)
Point is I could never imagine a business client complaining about not being able to use unofficial ink, everyone is too busy to be worrying about what ink is going into the machines.
Vlaphor
Member
I just use HP Instant Ink. I pay $5 a month to print 100 pages and what I don't use rolls over into the next month (up to 100 total). They also offer $3 a month for 50 pages and $10 a month for 300. The printer auto-orders more ink when I run low and all I have to do is send the old cartridges back in a prepaid envelope after the new ones come in. A page is a page and it doesn't matter what I print.
Even Brother won't save you from the terror of inkjet printer problems. I had a Brother inkjet for two years replaced the ink cartridges and it promptly emptied them cleaning and aligning itself.
Never again, bought a laser printer.
Well timed thread. I had been thinking of getting a laser printer. In my case, I print so rarely that I often have to do print head cleaning once or twice when I need to print something. Print, see issues, head clean, print... bah
Went to the page, read half a sentence and then a "How can we help you today?" chat thing took over the page on mobile. Not doing that would have been great, thanks, lol
Went to the page, read half a sentence and then a "How can we help you today?" chat thing took over the page on mobile. Not doing that would have been great, thanks, lol
Haven't owned a printer since 2004, at first I did my printing at school, now I do it at work (all 3 or 4 things I print for personal use a year). It's a dying business on the consumer end, I would imagine, so I can think of a few reasons why HP did this. I don't think it will ultimately save their business in the consumer market, though.
Tablets, e-tickets, digital contracts, it all spells the end for printing.
Tablets, e-tickets, digital contracts, it all spells the end for printing.
inkjets will always have issues since they have so many mechanical moving parts. At least Brother lets you just buy refill jugs, though.
Amusingly, Brother is pretty much a sewing machine company that happens to also make printers. In terms of revenue.
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