I've singlehandedly caused hp to lose thousands of dollars. People trust my advice and I've lost all trust in hp so I tell people not to waste their money on it.
When I got hired to take charge of the IT department, the first thing I did was phase out ALL HP products and then implemented an "Unacceptable and Barred Brands for purchasing" policy with HP right at top.
Buy brother laser. It’s more expensive, but it’s worth it long term. They last a real long time and the cartridges last bananas and they don’t care about “official” ink
So far, on my 5 year old brother it annoys me to but toner from them but had a "do not show this message again" choice to click. Happened with two messages and no more so far. They also added a thing in status monitor when it tells you your toner levels wether it's official or not and that you should not official. So far it hasn't stopped me from using it, but like every corporation I fully expect them to go full stupid soon.
Yeah I tend to either not print anything for years, or print huge amounts in a short span of time. Lasers are brilliant for this use case, because they also print really really quickly when they are printing, in addition to not drying up.
It's not even more expensive. You can get a full duplex wifi printer for under $200. I want one, but my 20 year old Brother printer is still going strong.
And this is why things like pirating are not only acceptable but necessary. When companies lock services behind paywalls for products we should legally own, we are left with no recourse but to obtain the services we are owed illegally.
That's the issue, people won't stop buying these things and then complain - selling a scam calling it a feature should be illegal and all these practices should be called out as much as possible.
I bought an HP Envy, one of these convertible laptop thingies, when I didn't know any better. The hinge broke about a month after the warranty expired. Repair costs (at a local repair shop, but still) were like 200€ because apparently I had to buy a whole new top cover for the damn repair to work
Anyways, I'm gonna buy a Framework laptop next because fuck going through that again
Repair technician here. Yes we get a lot of hps with bad hinges, because they screw that super stiff hinge into the most floppy wet newspaper like piece of plastic possible. 200$ is reasonable because depending which side it's one you have to completely gut the screen assembly or the keyboard assembly (you use to be able to replace keyboards by themselves now you need to completely gut the whole computer)
Fuck HP but also fuck a lot of other brands cause they all pull this bullshit (dell, apple, Lenovo, Acer, Asus)
Why nobody has made an open source ink jet printer design like reprap, I will never understand. The printer industry seems primed for disruption with all their bullshit and their half century old technology.
Right? Why buy a paper printer for less than $100 when you can spend $2000 on a 3D printer + materials and time spent learning and fucking up! Wish I thought of that!
I made the mistake of buying an HP printer. Fortunately I only spent $70 on it.
Then the ink cartridge ran out as I used all the ink up. So instead of buying more ink I purchased a new printer. This time it was a color inkjet from Brother that will last me years on the first ink cartridge.
I've been radicalized against HP for a decade now. I bought an HP printer with the guarantee of a sizeable rebate. Of course, the rebate never showed up and every time I called about it, the customer service person would read their script, "Oh we sent that out just a few days ago should be arriving soon." Uh huh. Here it is 15 years later, no rebate check and I'm sure they never intended to send one at all. I'm not a fan of HP at all.
I recently had to set up an HP printer that literally would not function without being activated via Internet connection first, but was received with a dead NIC and no way to activate through USB connection so just another piece of plastic for the landfill due to greed 🤷🏻♂️
That's the same as the printer I recently bought, and the problem is, my Internet connection is very spotty at best, and my computer doesn't support the needed software. SIGH. My printer's a paper weight until I can afford a new computer system and better internet.
I've had good results using them, but the company you're complaining against has to care about the rating they're. I've even gotten Scamazon to replace valid reviews they removed. If the business isn't a member and doesn't care there's nothing they can do but send a letter to be ignored. Not endorsing them, but just sharing my experience so far.
HP reached its pinnacle in 1993 with the 4L laser printer. They were practically indestructible. I bought one and it took 15 years of heavy use to kill it.
I have an HP printer now, Epson before that. Both are dogshit. When the HP eventually kills itself, as they tend to do, should I buy a Brother? I heard a lot of good stuff about it but have 0 experience with it.
I've had a brother printer going on 10 years and it's never let me down. I've changed toner three times over that time and each cart has never cost me more than 20 ish quid. No DRM carts, no jamming, no subscriptions just a printer that does its job. Even when it's running low, it doesn't prevent me printing, it'll let me know it's low then keep on printing until you can't see the letters any more.
I swear, if it weren't for the fact that I've also had good experiences with Brother, I'd be thinking they have an insanely good astroturfing department. Every time there's a thread about printers, there are dozens of comments saying how good they are.
10 years ? Mine is around 20 years old. I slapped a Raspberry Pi on it to have it network-enabled and it still works like a champ.
Never ever will I buy another brand.
I have a Brother HL-2365DW. It's a home printer, or maybe at most a home-office printer. I've had it nearly a decade with only two toner replacements. Being laser and networked solve the two biggest problems I've had with inkjet printers in the past, and those two categories are the main things I would strongly recommend to people when choosing a printer.
edit: I initially wrote "it's not a home printer" (emphasis added here for demonstrative purposes). This was the exact opposite of what I intended to say.
I have had no trouble with my Brother printer in ~7-8 years of use. Of course, laser vs inkjet is not a particularly fair comparison, but I am still never going back to HP, Canon, and the like.
It was a long time ago, so I can't remember the specifics. But it was the ol' asking for ink when it was obviously still full, bad software, unresponsivness and gradually getting worse and worse prints as it aged.
I wish there was a cheap simple laser engraver that could just “burn” black the surface of generic bulk printer paper. As in an inklessmonochrome printer.
With the explosion of interest in 3D printing, machining and laser cutters, I'm just eager to get hold of a printer like that and forever give up on liquid ink and toners of all sorts.
No he clearly says no ink and no toner. Toner is melted onto the paper after a laser (now mostly LEDs) heat up a drum. He's talking about burning the paper with a laser.... Which would be interesting but really hard to do where a top layer is burned black without toasting the rest of the layers.
HP execs seething every time I use my old ass HP printer that takes refills and doesn't complain. The ink never dries out either. This thing got no internet access, they can't disable anything without literally breaking down first my door and then the printer itself. I hope they use sleep over this.
Shoutout to the real OGs doing those refills, they fill them more than new ones and sell them for half the price.
Radicalized by Cory Doctorow, the first story there called "Authorized Bread" is VERY relevant to this topic. Thats the future we might be heading into. Ugh.
They've got their own issues (at least the first few gens had an ink sponge that would become full and was not replaceable at all so you had to throw it out and buy a new one), they are definitely better than any HP inkjet, especially the "instant ink" ones. The best option, especially if you can avoid color prints, is a b&w Brother (or similar) laser printer. They are built like tanks.
not defending hp at all, but it's a sub service and not any different than the cable company shutting off your internet (think: ink) for not paying. the modem (think: printer) is still there, but doesn't 'work' until the bill is squared-away, even if it's your modem-not theirs......
printer is enrolled in "instant ink". those instant ink cartridges they send out are custom, ultra-high capacity ones you can't buy retail (decreases costs of shipping by greatly reducing the frequency of those shipments). of course they're gonna shut it down if you fail to respond to the barrage of emails and popups that preceded that point.
No, because they charge a subscription per number of pages you print. Yes, even when you have physical possession of the ink. It’s like going to the store to get something printed, only from the comfort of your own home!
But in this analogy, instead of disabling the ink/internet, they disabled your entire printer/computer. They didn't withold further service, they actively made something this person already owns useless through a malicious backdoor.
the signing up for an account and needing to give a payment method isn't enough? hp even warns you that the requisite automatic firmware updates will disable the ability to use 'non genuine' consumables with the printer.
But it doesn't cost HP anything to just let you keep using the stuff that you already own. ISPs are at least actively providing a service. They suck for plenty of other reasons, but it it does cost money to provide someone with internet, so it makes sense they'd shut off your internet if you don't pay. HP is just being blatantly evil by bricking products you own to extort you for more subscription money