Steven P. Administrators Posted January 9 Administrators Share Posted January 9 I myself am a Instant Ink subscriber. I don't even manage to print the minimum 15 pages per month, but at €0.99 a month, it was worth it versus expensive printer cartridges drying up within a year. For me €12 a year seems like a great deal with always working cartridges. Now I received an email this morning saying that my subscription has been hiked to €1.49 per month, that's a 50% increase!! HP proving once again that ink is more expensive than human blood. Full article: https://www.forbes.com/sites/marksparrow/2024/01/03/hp-announces-steep-price-hikes-for-its-instant-ink-subscriptions/ I only have an AIO to scan and print the odd shipping label, sometimes I have to print return documents and stuff relating to the U.S. (Neowin) business but I feel like my hands are tied with this BS. What alternatives are there? hellowalkman and Yonah 1 1 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goretsky Supervisor Posted January 10 Supervisor Share Posted January 10 Hello, I have a separate image scanner and a printer. The latter is a black and white laser printer from Brother. Seems to work well, but obviously there is no color. Regards, Aryeh Goretsky satukoro 1 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim K Global Moderator Posted January 10 Global Moderator Share Posted January 10 Friends don't let friends purchase HP printers. Isn't there some issue that with HP all-in-ones where if you don't have ink it won't let you scan? Edit: Oh, Canon too... https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/08/the-printers-that-require-ink-to-scan-and-fax/ I simply refuse to buy any printer that locks out third party cartridges and/or has some subscription plan. I spend maybe 10 bucks every two years on my MX892 using third party cartridges (EZ-Ink) which do my limited printing needs just fine. Steven P., Sikh and Ghostdraconi 3 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cycomiko Posted January 10 Share Posted January 10 (edited) Epson ECO Tank printers are the way to go... at least for non-laser printers. The ink seems to last forever and AFAIK non-genuine inks have no bearing on printer function. No subscription necessary and you will not need to take out a loan to buy inks. Steven P. 1 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Warwagon MVC Posted January 10 MVC Share Posted January 10 Haven't used an inkjet in 15 years. Black and white laser all the way. The canon I use downstairs I got new for $100 10 years ago. A few years ago I purchased a 2 pack of tonner for $20 and I just opened the 2nd tonner. I print a lot. Usually invoices. The one upstairs is a CUTE little HP laser that I got off Facebook swap for $35 A couple of months later from the same guy I bought a COLOR HP laser for around the same price. It's slow as ###### but does print great color. If I need color I do plug him in but since i got him 3 years ago I think I've used him 5 times. I didn't have to have the stuff printed in color but since I could, I wanted to. The BW HP, He is so adorbs! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Warwagon MVC Posted January 10 MVC Share Posted January 10 On 10/01/2024 at 05:28, cycomiko said: Epson ECO Tank printers are the way to go... at least for non-laser printers. The ink seems to last forever and AFAIK non-genuine inks have no bearing on printer function. No subscription necessary and you will not need to take out a loan to buy inks. But I do hear they have those damn ink sponges inside that at some point will need to be serviced. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mockingbird Posted January 10 Share Posted January 10 On 10/01/2024 at 03:28, cycomiko said: Epson ECO Tank printers are the way to go... at least for non-laser printers. The ink seems to last forever and AFAIK non-genuine inks have no bearing on printer function. No subscription necessary and you will not need to take out a loan to buy inks. I have the EPSON EcoTank ET-2800. The printhead gets clogged regularly and I have to pump printhead cleaning solution into the printhead to unclog it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steven P. Administrators Posted January 10 Author Administrators Share Posted January 10 On 10/01/2024 at 23:34, Mockingbird said: I have the EPSON EcoTank ET-2800. The printhead gets clogged regularly and I have to pump printhead cleaning solution into the printhead to unclog it. It seems like there is no good solution for casual printer like me. When I was buying cartridges they would become useless after little more than a year or so. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZakO Posted January 10 Share Posted January 10 I'm an infrequent printer like you, I just buy compatible inks for my HP printer, £6 for a set and they last about 18 months printing 10-15 pages per month. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mockingbird Posted January 10 Share Posted January 10 On 10/01/2024 at 14:44, Steven P. said: It seems like there is no good solution for casual printer like me. When I was buying cartridges they would become useless after little more than a year or so. Cleaning the print head is doable but not ideal Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steven P. Administrators Posted January 10 Author Administrators Share Posted January 10 On 10/01/2024 at 23:57, ZakO said: I'm an infrequent printer like you, I just buy compatible inks for my HP printer, £6 for a set and they last about 18 months printing 10-15 pages per month. Exactly this, any longer and they dry out! Maybe I can find a cheap 3rd party cartridge and way to install and use it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slugsie Posted January 11 Share Posted January 11 I'm also on the HP subscription, but I opted for the 50pages plan for some unknown reason. I rarely print more than 10 pages a month so it's a complete waste of time for me. In fact I used so little ink that my cartridges dried up at one point and I had to beg HP to send me some replacements. This price increase (going up from £3 to £4 for me) is too much so I'm out. Just going to buy the cartridges and use as and when. However, in the meantime I have 200 pages saved up (50 from this month and 150 roll over). I'm not going to waste them. I've got 200 pages of full colour A4 photographs to print off. You can bet I'll be getting my money's worth before I cancel. I'm hoping to get through at least 4 sets of cartridges, maybe 5. I looked at the Epson EcoTank system, looks good but the upfront price is too much. At around £160 it'll take many years before it pays off if ever. For 75% of my use I can probably live with a basic B/W laser printer, so I may just end up looking for a second hand one. Hopefully my current HP will still scan even without ink, I should probably check. Steven P. 1 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steven P. Administrators Posted January 11 Author Administrators Share Posted January 11 On 11/01/2024 at 02:20, Slugsie said: Hopefully my current HP will still scan even without ink, I should probably check. There are workarounds afaik. With my last HP printer I had to do something with the software to trick it not to check so that I could use a 3rd party cartridge. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dipsylalapo Supervisor Posted January 11 Supervisor Share Posted January 11 Yeah had this as well. Have opted to down the plan to the 99p one with a 30 page rollover. I've been using my printer a little more (colouring for the children and actually printing off pictures) so will have to see how it fares. Big increase though! Like Steve said for infrequent printers it's a little crappy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FloatingFatMan Posted January 27 Share Posted January 27 (edited) I have a Samsung B/W laser printer/scanner combo unit and honestly, I can't actually remember the last time I used it. I *do* however, remember that the last time I DID use it, it had been so long since it previous use that the toner had settled and the output was suffering from banding... I can't even remember the last I used the scanner function, either... After a quick survey around a bunch of my friends, none of them use their printers anymore either... Are they even really necessary these days? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dipsylalapo Supervisor Posted January 27 Supervisor Share Posted January 27 On 27/01/2024 at 20:36, FloatingFatMan said: I have a Samsung B/W laser printer/scanner combo unit and honestly, I can't actually remember the last time I used it. I *do* however, remember that the last time I DID use it, it had been so long since it previous use that the toner had settled and the output was suffering from banding... I can't even remember the last I used the scanner function, either... After a quick survey around a bunch of my friends, none of them use their printers anymore either... Are they even really necessary these days? Probably some specific use cases but ours is still used for printing return labels, colouring/activity sheets for children and sometimes with work I prefer to scribble Steven P. 1 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Warwagon MVC Posted January 27 MVC Share Posted January 27 On 27/01/2024 at 14:36, FloatingFatMan said: I have a Samsung B/W laser printer/scanner combo unit and honestly, I can't actually remember the last time I used it. I *do* however, remember that the last time I DID use it, it had been so long since it previous use that the toner had settled and the output was suffering from banding... I can't even remember the last I used the scanner function, either... After a quick survey around a bunch of my friends, none of them use their printers anymore either... Are they even really necessary these days? I use mine for printing invoices, deposit statements, envelopes, and info to put in my safety deposit box, to name a few things. I use my printers all the time. I'm probably just the odd man out. JayZJay 1 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FloatingFatMan Posted January 27 Share Posted January 27 On 27/01/2024 at 22:43, Warwagon said: I use mine for printing invoices, deposit statements, envelopes, and info to put in my safety deposit box, to name a few things. I use my printers all the time. I'm probably just the odd man out. I'm not saying they're totally useless tech, but it seems pretty clear that their need is becoming less and less in our increasingly cloud based world... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
i_was_here Posted January 28 Share Posted January 28 (edited) I am fortunate to work in the printing repair business so they let me keep a small B&W laser that was not being used. Otherwise I can just print the documents at work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andy_3_913 Posted January 28 Share Posted January 28 I will never buy an HP product Xenon, FloatingFatMan and +hedleigh 3 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skyfrog Posted January 28 Share Posted January 28 On 10/01/2024 at 17:44, Steven P. said: It seems like there is no good solution for casual printer like me. When I was buying cartridges they would become useless after little more than a year or so. This is one of the many great things about laser printers, there's nothing to dry out or clog up. I've been using the same toner cartridge for over five years now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+InsaneNutter MVC Posted January 28 MVC Share Posted January 28 The price will only keep going up I suspect, HP's long-term objective is to make printing a subscription: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/01/hp-ceo-blocking-third-party-ink-from-printers-fights-viruses/ Interestingly HP CEO Enrique Lores also justifies blocking third-party ink cartridges because: "We have seen that you can embed viruses in the cartridges. Through the cartridge, [the virus can] go to the printer, [and then] from the printer, go to the network." So really that is a self created problem... if printer ink didn't have chips in to lockout third party cartridges, their would be no potential security risks. Steven P. and +hedleigh 1 1 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slugsie Posted January 28 Share Posted January 28 Not only that, why is there any route for code to come from the chip on the cartridge to becoming code that is executed on the hosting PC. That should not be plausible in any world where even the most basic security has been implemented. Yeah, sorry HP, you completely ###### the bed right there. I won't be buying a HP product again until you change your ways. I definitely won't be buying into a Print As A Service model ever again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steven P. Administrators Posted January 28 Author Administrators Share Posted January 28 Yeah I definitely will not be buying a HP again. +hedleigh and goretsky 2 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FloatingFatMan Posted March 19 Share Posted March 19 (edited) If you ever need a printer, buy a Brother... You'll never need to buy another one again. andy_3_913 and Xenon 2 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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