How important to you is color printing? I use Brother brand B&W laser printers and the per-page cost is super-low.
I used to recommend HP printers without hesitation to my clients, and now I'm not so sure. They're skimping terribly on build quality and eat through in like nobody's business.
I suppose ink-thirst and cheapo construction are how HP can afford 24+ million departure packages for the likes of Carly Fiorina and Mark Hurd.
The Epson I use as a photo printer, so color is pretty important. It's terrific for that. The HP was just conveniently small and fits on the desk in the reloading room. Unfortunately, it SUCKS!!!
Indeed there is a reason they're free. I always buy laser printers. They're ridiculously cheap compared to historical prices and you'll replace the toner cartridge once a year, if that. I've had an old HP LaserJet 1200 for five years and I've replaced the toner carttidge only three times.
It's the same marketing schtick as razor blades; the printers are cheap, but the cost of ink never ends, and it's high. What is amazing is that people will keep on paying for more ink, complaining all the while, instead of replacing the cheap printer.
It's the cost per page net that is important, and that's where laser printers win. My LaserJet 6MP dates from 1997 and has given faultless service.
My brother has an all-in-one color laser printer, scanner, copier, and fax machine, with automatic document feed, and he paid about 300 bucks for it brand new. So far, it has performed flawlessly.
It's the cost per page net that is important, and that's where laser printers win.
Exactly. I used to fix these things for a living, and at the time the choices were laser toner, inkjet ink, or a mylar film roll that transferred pigment from the roll to the page.
Film roll printers were cheap, and even the film roll itself wasn't that bad ($25-30). However, one single dot on the page uses an entire page worth of film roll, so you only got 33 pages out of a film roll regardless of print density. That's nearly a buck per freakin page.
Inkjet printers at the time cost $40-50 for an ink cartridge. A noticeable improvement however, because you could get a few hundred pages from a cartridge, especially if you're doing things with a low print density (lots of blank space on the sheet) because, unlike the film printers, if your page is only one dot you only used a dot worth of ink supply. That by itself drops the price per sheet down below .50.
Laser printers at the time were middlin expensive. A film printer was under $100, an inkjet was under $250, and lasers tended to run $500 and up. Likewise the toner cartridge was likely to run over $100 all by its lonesome. However, one toner cartridge would give you 40-50 thousand printed sheets, too. Net cost ends up being a nickle a sheet or less.
Other printer companies may be similar to razor blades, but HP is soooo much worse. HP has expiration dates on their ink. So, even if the ink works just fine, the printer will eventually stop working unless you set the date back on your computer (and no, it's not that I was using refills. I just don't print many things to actual paper.)
After this last printer I got from them, I'm never going to buy another thing from HP again.
Boxer? Hardly. But there were other good candidates.
But the Stupid Party rallied behind Carly, for her "business expertise".
Well, you're living it right now. This is it. When Carly started, HP was a highly respected company known for extreme quality, and specifically targeting the science and engineering fields. Customer Service wasn't just a buzzword.
Now? Now they're known for building ripoff inkjets and shitty customer service. Google "V40 OfficeJet". Or any of a number of things that HP knows full well is a problem and couldn't be bothered to schedule to fix.
From some lights, yes, Boxer is better. At least she's tarring the Democrats with her brush.
My bitch wasn't that Boxer's the alternative, it's that the established R's picked Carly a year ago, and then supported her (against better candidates) through the early stages. For much the same reason I remember those gushing exposes of Carly, how she was going to "Transform HP". Well, she did, and now there's not so much PR about the results.
But there's a reason why they're the stupid party.
Guy I used to work for went to school with Carley (Gunn HS) and said while she was pretty bright (which is average for this region/that school) she really had to work hard to get her AP A's - she was a grind more than an intuitive scholar.
She's made a few gaffes lately and done some backpedaling - however she IS good on gun rights, she believes in the absolute right to own guns, and that the no-fly list is mismanaged and you can not bar gun sales based on it.
I'm assuming you supported Campbell? Tom Campbell was beating Boxer handilly in all the pre-primary polls, and was a known solid fiscal conservative, with a solid record.
Thus of course the stupid party picked Carly instead
Inkjet of any type are a problem if you have long periods of time where you are not printing. The jets dry up and clog.
If you need color and do lots of printer get a color laser - one that has separate black from color cartridges. You get thousands of pages from them.
My HP laserjet 5 is 10-15 years old and still works fantastically well and a print cartridge lasts years. The drums are expensive but for home use you will almost never have to replace that.
You live in Arizona. Arizona (and our 5% humidity) are death on ink-jet printers. I gave up on inkjets long ago since usually the ink would dry up into a hard crusty block before I even got halfway through the cartridge.
Laserjet is the way to go. I'd never buy anything but an HP laserjet for a dry climate.
Walmart and CVS Pharmacy do it cheap. Just take any memory device with the files you want printed, such as memory cards, thumb drives, CD's, or DVD's. You can see what you will print, and you can crop it, rotate it, and so on, and have it in your hands in a few minutes, all self-serve. Tastes great, less filling.
The last HP all in one I had (I don't recall the model) would print just fine, as long as I was willing to hand feed the pages in one at a time. If I just put a stack of paper in the input tray, it wouldn't feed, even if I used HP's recommended paper (which was, of course, HP). It was a good thing I didn't print very often. But the fourth time I got fed up with it (still within the warranty period), I demanded my money back rather than a replacement (as I said to them, I didn't want a FOURTH defective printer). They refused. I'll never buy another HP product of any type again.
I've had good luck with my Canon Pixma MP610 (which uses ink tanks, rather than cartridges, so new ink is cheaper), and MX700. For serious photos, we use an Epson R1800, which also uses ink tanks rather than cartridges.
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JS-Kit/Echo comments for article at http://smallestminority.blogspot.com/2010/09/hp-deskjet-d2680-sucks.html (24 comments)
Tentative mapping of comments to original article, corrections solicited.
On the other hand my used Laserjet 4p just keeps a going........Proabaly why they stopped making them!
Inkjet printers are for suckers. That's why they suck. Seriously, why go inkjet when laser is affordable and kicks ass. Like broadband vs. dialup.
How important to you is color printing? I use Brother brand B&W laser printers and the per-page cost is super-low.
I used to recommend HP printers without hesitation to my clients, and now I'm not so sure. They're skimping terribly on build quality and eat through in like nobody's business.
I suppose ink-thirst and cheapo construction are how HP can afford 24+ million departure packages for the likes of Carly Fiorina and Mark Hurd.
Always look at the price of ink first, that's the price you'll keep paying.
HP hasn't sold actual printers in a while, what they sell (or give away, the first one's free) today are Ink Expenders.
My Konica Minolta magiColor color laser printer has treated me well for upwards of 10 years now. We have a inkjet 3-in-1 we use for copies and faxing.
The Epson I use as a photo printer, so color is pretty important. It's terrific for that. The HP was just conveniently small and fits on the desk in the reloading room. Unfortunately, it SUCKS!!!
Indeed there is a reason they're free. I always buy laser printers. They're ridiculously cheap compared to historical prices and you'll replace the toner cartridge once a year, if that. I've had an old HP LaserJet 1200 for five years and I've replaced the toner carttidge only three times.
"Indeed there is a reason they're free."
It's the same marketing schtick as razor blades; the printers are cheap, but the cost of ink never ends, and it's high. What is amazing is that people will keep on paying for more ink, complaining all the while, instead of replacing the cheap printer.
It's the cost per page net that is important, and that's where laser printers win. My LaserJet 6MP dates from 1997 and has given faultless service.
My brother has an all-in-one color laser printer, scanner, copier, and fax machine, with automatic document feed, and he paid about 300 bucks for it brand new. So far, it has performed flawlessly.
It's the cost per page net that is important, and that's where laser printers win.
Exactly. I used to fix these things for a living, and at the time the choices were laser toner, inkjet ink, or a mylar film roll that transferred pigment from the roll to the page.
Film roll printers were cheap, and even the film roll itself wasn't that bad ($25-30). However, one single dot on the page uses an entire page worth of film roll, so you only got 33 pages out of a film roll regardless of print density. That's nearly a buck per freakin page.
Inkjet printers at the time cost $40-50 for an ink cartridge. A noticeable improvement however, because you could get a few hundred pages from a cartridge, especially if you're doing things with a low print density (lots of blank space on the sheet) because, unlike the film printers, if your page is only one dot you only used a dot worth of ink supply. That by itself drops the price per sheet down below .50.
Laser printers at the time were middlin expensive. A film printer was under $100, an inkjet was under $250, and lasers tended to run $500 and up. Likewise the toner cartridge was likely to run over $100 all by its lonesome. However, one toner cartridge would give you 40-50 thousand printed sheets, too. Net cost ends up being a nickle a sheet or less.
Other printer companies may be similar to razor blades, but HP is soooo much worse. HP has expiration dates on their ink. So, even if the ink works just fine, the printer will eventually stop working unless you set the date back on your computer (and no, it's not that I was using refills. I just don't print many things to actual paper.)
After this last printer I got from them, I'm never going to buy another thing from HP again.
Err, ahem. 426 Hemi.
Typo. Fixed. (Dammit.) Thanks for pointing that out.
Thanks, Carly!
Whoohoo, let's run her for the Senate!
Aaaand... Boxer is better?
Boxer? Hardly. But there were other good candidates.
But the Stupid Party rallied behind Carly, for her "business expertise".
Well, you're living it right now. This is it. When Carly started, HP was a highly respected company known for extreme quality, and specifically targeting the science and engineering fields. Customer Service wasn't just a buzzword.
Now? Now they're known for building ripoff inkjets and shitty customer service. Google "V40 OfficeJet". Or any of a number of things that HP knows full well is a problem and couldn't be bothered to schedule to fix.
From some lights, yes, Boxer is better. At least she's tarring the Democrats with her brush.
My bitch wasn't that Boxer's the alternative, it's that the established R's picked Carly a year ago, and then supported her (against better candidates) through the early stages. For much the same reason I remember those gushing exposes of Carly, how she was going to "Transform HP". Well, she did, and now there's not so much PR about the results.
But there's a reason why they're the stupid party.
Guy I used to work for went to school with Carley (Gunn HS) and said while she was pretty bright (which is average for this region/that school) she really had to work hard to get her AP A's - she was a grind more than an intuitive scholar.
She's made a few gaffes lately and done some backpedaling - however she IS good on gun rights, she believes in the absolute right to own guns, and that the no-fly list is mismanaged and you can not bar gun sales based on it.
I'm assuming you supported Campbell? Tom Campbell was beating Boxer handilly in all the pre-primary polls, and was a known solid fiscal conservative, with a solid record.
Thus of course the stupid party picked Carly instead
Campbell is JUST like a Boxer on guns and never met a "reasonable restriction" he didn't like. In his 1992 Senate race he supported gun restrictions during the wake of the L.A. riots, and opposed repeal of the gun-sale waiting period. Last year he came out with, "Yes, I currently support the CA "Assault Weapon Ban" and also "Yes, I do support the current CA high capacity magazine ban, the .50 ban and "Yes, I do support the current CA law that requires handguns to be on a "CA Approved" listing prior to being sold in state...
Recently he said that people on the government's no-fly list shouldn't be permitted to buy gun - that's letting the Obama administration decide who gets to buy a gun and who doesn't.
Inkjet of any type are a problem if you have long periods of time where you are not printing. The jets dry up and clog.
If you need color and do lots of printer get a color laser - one that has separate black from color cartridges. You get thousands of pages from them.
My HP laserjet 5 is 10-15 years old and still works fantastically well and a print cartridge lasts years. The drums are expensive but for home use you will almost never have to replace that.
You live in Arizona. Arizona (and our 5% humidity) are death on ink-jet printers. I gave up on inkjets long ago since usually the ink would dry up into a hard crusty block before I even got halfway through the cartridge.
Laserjet is the way to go. I'd never buy anything but an HP laserjet for a dry climate.
What everyone else said - unless you're doing photo-printing, buy a laser printer.
A color laser is fine for non-photo uses, if you need color printing at all (I find I don't, though I have a color laser).
If you do photo printing, you might want a separate printer, or just farm it out to Adorama or some other outfit that will print and mail for cheap.
Walmart and CVS Pharmacy do it cheap. Just take any memory device with the files you want printed, such as memory cards, thumb drives, CD's, or DVD's. You can see what you will print, and you can crop it, rotate it, and so on, and have it in your hands in a few minutes, all self-serve. Tastes great, less filling.
The last HP all in one I had (I don't recall the model) would print just fine, as long as I was willing to hand feed the pages in one at a time. If I just put a stack of paper in the input tray, it wouldn't feed, even if I used HP's recommended paper (which was, of course, HP). It was a good thing I didn't print very often. But the fourth time I got fed up with it (still within the warranty period), I demanded my money back rather than a replacement (as I said to them, I didn't want a FOURTH defective printer). They refused. I'll never buy another HP product of any type again.
I've had good luck with my Canon Pixma MP610 (which uses ink tanks, rather than cartridges, so new ink is cheaper), and MX700. For serious photos, we use an Epson R1800, which also uses ink tanks rather than cartridges.
Note: All avatars and any images or other media embedded in comments were hosted on the JS-Kit website and have been lost; references to haloscan comments have been partially automatically remapped, but accuracy is not guaranteed and corrections are solicited.
If you notice any problems with this page or wish to have your home page link updated, please contact John Hardin <jhardin@impsec.org>