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About LinkBacksRead more.A US customer filed the class action as his Pixma MG2522 refuses to scan when ink is low.
Read more.A US customer filed the class action as his Pixma MG2522 refuses to scan when ink is low.
I hope more lawsuits like this happen, the printing sector is a wild west for whether printers do everything they should at the times they need to as they are advertised.
CAT-THE-FIFTH (18-10-2021),Iota (18-10-2021),kompukare (18-10-2021),Output (18-10-2021),Pleiades (18-10-2021)
I'd like to see lawsuits on the environmental damage of forcing people to keep buying new kit that is no better than what it replaces. Printers and scanners have not changed in capabilities for over 10 years, yet the price of ink and parts keeps creeping up so it gets to the point that you need to spend more on a single part than it costs to buy an entire new MFP.Originally Posted by Tabbykatze
Case in point - The print head on my Officejet 8600 series got bunged up irreversibly. Probably due to me using "cheapo" ink. Why? A full set of HP ink tanks costs over £100! They don't even make the print heads any more and a second hand one is £90-£130!
I paid £170 for the damn thing new.
This practice is unbelievably, deliberately wasteful and its only purpose is is to immorally boost profits. The entire business model needs to change from loss leader+rip off Ink to "appropriately priced printer and reasonably priced ink"
The solution is to regulate the industry into submission.
"In a perfect world... spammers would get caught, go to jail, and share a cell with many men who have enlarged their penises, taken Viagra and are looking for a new relationship."
CAT-THE-FIFTH (18-10-2021),Iota (18-10-2021),kompukare (18-10-2021),Pleiades (18-10-2021)
Disgusting. I did a bit of reading on printers a while ago, and Canon are currently on my short list as I think you can fill up the colours individually on some models, and not have to insert a disposable plastic cartridge.
Arguably, if you never intended to use the print function, you could fill this with any liquid (although cheap after-market ink probably makes sense).
All the bigger manufacturers (at least) do some variation of that. My most recent AiO (Epson) has what is effectively a built-in CIS (continuous ink system). I don't buy cartridges at all. Instead, I buy bottles of ink and top up the tanks, which are connected to the heads via tubing.
CIS solutions have been around due to cost/ml of ink, for a couple of decades, at least, especially on 'photo' printers that drink ink, but until relatively recently, were 3rd-party devices and warranty-risking. Major manufacturers have effectively jumpe on the bandwagon.
As for the cost of inks being high, that's self-evidently true but .... again, for a couple of decades, you've been able to buy printers that are far cheaper to run in ink cost/ml but you'll pay a lot more for the printer. All you needed to do was look at the high pagecount business machines. Ink cartridges were much larger and cost per ml comparatively (and that word is important) cheap.
It boils down to a choice - expensive printer, cheaper ink, or cheaper machine, very expensive ink. The optimum choice depends on how much per month, or per year, you print.
The practice that does wuind me up, unless it's very clearly stated in marketing/advertising, is "starter" cartridges. That's borderline deceitful, if not very clearly explained.
A lesson learned from PeterB about dignity in adversity, so Peter, In Memorium, "Onwards and Upwards".
Its crazy isn't it. I deliberately went for a cheap black and white laser this time as I got fed up always finding my printer gummed up after not using it for a few months. At least lasers seem to be more resistant to this sort of BS (but still not perfect).I'd like to see lawsuits on the environmental damage of forcing people to keep buying new kit that is no better than what it replaces. Printers and scanners have not changed in capabilities for over 10 years, yet the price of ink and parts keeps creeping up so it gets to the point that you need to spend more on a single part than it costs to buy an entire new MFP.
Case in point - The print head on my Officejet 8600 series got bunged up irreversibly. Probably due to me using "cheapo" ink. Why? A full set of HP ink tanks costs over £100! They don't even make the print heads any more and a second hand one is £90-£130!
I paid £170 for the damn thing new.
This practice is unbelievably, deliberately wasteful and its only purpose is is to immorally boost profits. The entire business model needs to change from loss leader+rip off Ink to "appropriately priced printer and reasonably priced ink"
The solution is to regulate the industry into submission.
I sometimes feel the same at the mobile phone industry but at least the phones are still improving year on year. With phones I'd like to purchase a few years OS support and new battery sometimes!
The printer cartridge is the biggest robbery of the 21st century, its a subscription in hardware form. The cartridge AIO printers are remarkably cheap to buy but behind the scenes these cartridges fail halfway, barely print 1000 pages and expensive to buy. The refillable ink tank printers is 'the best' tech to ever revolutionize the PC sector, costs $150 more but those things are bullet proof.
I hope it goes through, as others have said, this is disgusting practice, a total rip off and creates a huge amount of e waste.
Well, yeah, but those cheap ink manufacturers don't face anything like the development costs the printer manufacturers do, to develop and manufacture both inks and print heads. They can afford to charge much less.
There is a LOT more than most people suspect goes into printer design and development.
One of the things I found out ages ago was the degree of thermal stress some printers go through in printing. On 'thermal' inkjets (including almost every but Epson) the ink is heated to something like 330 degrees, each droplet. Imagine how many times per second that is. And the stress it puts not just on the ink, but the printer heads. For printers that were designed to have new cartridges when ink runs out, part of the reason was the wear on the nozzle heads from all that thermal stress. If the nozzles wear excessively, ink can dry faster, and clog faster. Mix that with ink not tested to withstand the stresses either, and ....
There are reasons why Epson machines had fixed heads, and the heads were built in to (most) HP and Canon cartridges, and Epson's 'cold' piezo-electric techynology was one of them.
A lesson learned from PeterB about dignity in adversity, so Peter, In Memorium, "Onwards and Upwards".
Tbh, a lot of that is sounding like over engineering so it can lead to failure, therefore replacement and more RoI. That's the cynical side of myself, obviously there could be an extremely valid reason (quality etc) that they are heating the ink up that excessively without an easy way to replace the print heads and therefore require a complete replacement of the unit...Well, yeah, but those cheap ink manufacturers don't face anything like the development costs the printer manufacturers do, to develop and manufacture both inks and print heads. They can afford to charge much less.
There is a LOT more than most people suspect goes into printer design and development.
One of the things I found out ages ago was the degree of thermal stress some printers go through in printing. On 'thermal' inkjets (including almost every but Epson) the ink is heated to something like 330 degrees, each droplet. Imagine how many times per second that is. And the stress it puts not just on the ink, but the printer heads. For printers that were designed to have new cartridges when ink runs out, part of the reason was the wear on the nozzle heads from all that thermal stress. If the nozzles wear excessively, ink can dry faster, and clog faster. Mix that with ink not tested to withstand the stresses either, and ....
There are reasons why Epson machines had fixed heads, and the heads were built in to (most) HP and Canon cartridges, and Epson's 'cold' piezo-electric techynology was one of them.
But with the way engineered obsolescence, big techs need to have everything unrepair-able except by them and protecting their bottom lin..."Intellectual property", it's an easy hop and skip to going "why?"
There are perfectly good, high quality inkjets in my attic that were bought almost 20 years ago and still function today. But a company bought Epson WF series for a WFH employee had it completely fail within 3 months of decent printing with a head failure. *strokes beard critically*
Epson AiO printers did the exact same thing - All functions get locked out when a cartridge runs out of ink.
That and the constant problem of the print head gumming up every few weeks is why I moved to colour laser printers.
Wow! And I thought being unable to print black when the printer is out of yellow was dumb!
Yes but.....how does that explain the Genuine HP inks going from £35 to over £100 yet ink tanks for newer printers still being half the price?
The business model is the problem. If genuine HP cartridges were the same price as genuine HP cartridges for newer models then I would only buy genuine HP cartridges. If HP still made the heads and they were less than £80 I would have bought new heads. The argument about development costs is moot IMHO. Inkjet tech has completely stagnated and is pretty much the same as it was 10/15/20 years ago.
The current model is nothing more than a tweaked built in obsolescence except that it's done by bumping up the costs of consumables until the "old" model is non viable.
In fact, the development costs argument loses strength when those R&D costs could be amortised over a longer period by not pointlessly replacing older models with newer ones that have bits of plastic in different places and more colours on their touchscreens!
My problem with this is simply the huge waste. There are ways for them to continue to make the same profits with less waste but none will do so unless forced to. The market is consolidated into just giant players so regulating them into submission makes sense. I say that as a generally more anti regulation person.....
"In a perfect world... spammers would get caught, go to jail, and share a cell with many men who have enlarged their penises, taken Viagra and are looking for a new relationship."
Wonderful news and good on them, how an ink cartridge can stop a printer from scanning is blatant money grabbing.
Ah yes “significant development costs” - we have dismissed this claim.Well, yeah, but those cheap ink manufacturers don't face anything like the development costs the printer manufacturers do, to develop and manufacture both inks and print heads. They can afford to charge much less.
There is a LOT more than most people suspect goes into printer design and development.
One of the things I found out ages ago was the degree of thermal stress some printers go through in printing. On 'thermal' inkjets (including almost every but Epson) the ink is heated to something like 330 degrees, each droplet. Imagine how many times per second that is. And the stress it puts not just on the ink, but the printer heads. For printers that were designed to have new cartridges when ink runs out, part of the reason was the wear on the nozzle heads from all that thermal stress. If the nozzles wear excessively, ink can dry faster, and clog faster. Mix that with ink not tested to withstand the stresses either, and ....
There are reasons why Epson machines had fixed heads, and the heads were built in to (most) HP and Canon cartridges, and Epson's 'cold' piezo-electric techynology was one of them.
I stopped using inkjets ages ago now, I make do with a laser, yes it's only black and white but it cost so much less to run and if you don't use it for a year ...... it still works.
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