Obviously, HP Thinks We Are Stupid

http://thesharklady.com/tech/business/obviously-hp-thinks-we-are-stupid

by revital9 • 16 years ago

169 97 16 years ago

wheels2• 16 years ago

One of the best investments that I made about 7 years ago was to buy a black and white laser printer for home:

http://www.okidata.com/mkt/downloads/B4250_B4350Series.pdf

I paid about €250 for it (which then was < $300) and not only does it print higher quality and faster, after printing thousands of pages (I'd guesstimate 5000 pages), it still hasn't run out of its initial toner cartridge, and the prices I've seen for when it does are about €25.

With printers, as with much in the electronics world, it makes sense to buy the lowest end professional device rather than futzing around with consumer-grade stuff.

bensummers• 16 years ago

I've got an HP 1015 laser, and have had a similar experience. Inkjets are too annoying, and while they do colour output the quality is not exactly great. So a cheap black and white laser is actually a far better buy: the printed output actually looks good.

pmjordan8• 16 years ago

Laser printers are great for many things, but when you do need good colour prints of photos, etc., you can apply the same advice to inkjets and get good results.

We got an HP Photosmart 8250 or so 3-4 years back. IIRC it was pretty much the most expensive A4 inkjet from HP at the time, but even that was only 2-3x as much as a mid-grade consumer printer. In any case, unlike most printers, it uses separate tanks for each colour of ink, and the print head isn't integrated into the cartridge. It makes a huge difference: the jets don't get blocked as they're designed to last. They also seem to be more precise, and you only replace the ink that's actually used up, and because the cartridges are "dumb", they're cheaper. Not quite cheap as such though, and bigger cartridges would be nice.

As for original manufacturer's ink vs third-party: in my experience, the HP stuff ages much better (especially when exposed to sunlight), everything else is probably subjective.

wheels2• 16 years ago

My compromise on color printing is in the rare case that I actually need it (I mostly print scientific papers, directections, etc.) I go to a local printshop and have them do it for a buck, eclipsing what I'd get even with a high-ish end home system. I prefer to think of ink-jet printers as dead to me. ;-)

mhb• 16 years ago

2.5 stars on Amazon with 48/109 1 star ratings and 25/109 5 stars.

theBobMcCormick• 16 years ago

Unless you print a lot of color photos and have a really good photo printer, it seems like it's hard to beat the cost-per-photo of just uploading your photo's to Walgreens, Walmart, or whatever other inexpensive photo printing place is near you.

krschultz• 16 years ago

Costco does photos for about 9 cents each at a higher quality than I can print at home, and I don't have to do it. And you can get up to 30x20" things for $3. I'm replacing my inkjet with a laser the next time my ink cartridge is out.

Not to mention I prefer the quality of laser for B&W and that's all I do anymore.

duncanj• 16 years ago

I find the Xerox (formerly Tektronix) Phaser solid ink color printers to be pretty awesome in this regard. They print fast and produce a glossy, professional-looking color print. I think the main problem is that they require more energy over the long term than a comparable laser.

revital92• 16 years ago

B&W laser printers are very good for small business. I use one myself and I haven't replaced the toner since I bought the printer - 2 years ago. I don't print much, but it's still better than inkjet.

rs• 16 years ago

Same here, Epson EPL-5800 for £150 about 8-9 years ago. Best investment ever. The toner is just about done, and I suspect that the drum is almost reaching its last few pages. I did replace the toner once in the past.

I'm just going to get another laser printer once its on its last legs.

petervandijck2• 16 years ago

I have a black and white laser too, a Brother. But even there do the cartridges not last long enough. I put a little tape over the 'eye' that 'reads' how full it is, and that gives me months of additional printing.

tumult3• 16 years ago

I have a Dell laser printer I bought off of woot.com for $99 years ago. Still on its initial toner cartridge. Still works 100% flawlessly. It plugs in via ethernet, uses zeroconf/Bonjour, and requires no drivers. I still can't believe what a ridiculously good deal it was.

Like some other commenters here, if I need a color print, I just walk down the street and have a professional printer do it for one or two dollars for a huge glossy or matte high-resolution print. If you do the math, it's cheaper to do this regardless of how much you print -- per page, a consumer inkjet is more expensive than a professional print, and looks worse. There is no point.

(I can even just send it online, and walk over and get it sometime later when it's already done.)

thorax• 16 years ago

What is your model of Dell laser printer, if you don't mind me asking?

wendroid3• 16 years ago

Same here with an HP4000+ from eBay. Full duplex, network, two full ream bins, $150. I expected it to die pretty quick but two years later (and 1000s of pages) the spare toner is still on the shelf.

oops• 16 years ago

For color inkjet printing, these systems can save you a lot of money (if you can get past the look of them):

http://www.rihac.com.au/ciss-systems-c-26.html

We have a couple in our co-working space.

mumrah• 16 years ago

Brother makes some nice cheap laser printers. I picked up one with wifi for 100 USD two or three years ago

Dove• 16 years ago

I'll second that. I have a Brother HL-4040CN. I use it for cardstock modeling (www.worldworksgames.com). As in, printing lots of full, dense pages in vivid color.

Several hundred pages in, I'm still on the original cartridges.

listic• 16 years ago

I have bought black and white hp LaserJet 1015 6 years ago and it works great; stock cartridge lasted me 5 years and then I refilled it and I am good to go.

It's all about the technology, but I wouldn't generalize to 'professional' and 'consumer'. The base technology, laser printing, allows for high speed, long life of cartridge and printer, and other benefits.

i.e. look at the ssd/flash drive manufacturers; some of them may advertise huge shock resistance. Sure, it is true, but they didn't have to do anything about it. It's all about the underlying technology of mounting solid state parts on the PCB, and surface-mounted parts even further, that provides the benefits we receive. It's all about the technology; the division into 'consumer' and 'professional' is superficial.

amalcon• 16 years ago

In some cases, it can still be worthwhile to buy ink, if certain circumstances are true:

- You can get an inkjet printer for free (not difficult, people throw working printers away all the time)

- You can invest the money conservatively at a high, but not extraordinarily high rate

- You print very rarely

My current inkjet cartridge cost $50. I've had it for two years, and it's about 60% full according to the display on the printer (which, admittedly, might be lying). That's a savings of about $250 over buying a cheap laser printer. Assuming that the laser printer will last indefinitely with no further expenses (hey, it very well might), I need to get about a 1/5 ROI on the $250 over the expected lifetime of the ink (5 years, but assume the software lies and call it 4) to break even. That takes about a 4.7% interest rate. If you can invest the money and make about 5%, it's actually cheaper to buy the ink. I could do this, by "investing" it in paying student loans more quickly, so it makes sense.

Of course, if you print a lot, it's absolutely silly to use an inkjet for it.

truebosko• 16 years ago

We use a Brother HL-5370DW at work and the first high yield cartridge didn't run out until about 10,000 pages. We do a LOT of printing and it was pretty impressive. The printer was around $250 and a high yield cartridge is about $130.

Although we did have to put tape on the sides so the printer would stop complaining. It ran on that "empty" cartridge for another 2 months ;-)

po2• 16 years ago

It's not about greed as the article states… people are stupid. We overvalue short term savings and undervalue long term savings.

When Apple let AT&T start to subsidize the iPhone the initial price dropped but the total cost over the lifetime of the phone was about the same or even a little higher. Sales went gangbusters! The media even went nuts reporting about how apple finally relented and responded to consumer pressure.

Apple tried to fight it: it didn't work. You can bitch about it: it doesn't matter. This is how consumers are. Collectively, they're "dumb"

pmjordan8• 16 years ago

The iPhone is a great example. People think I'm nuts when I say I bought the 3G for €500 (inc VAT, which I then claimed back). Why the hell would I pay that much? Oh, I say, because it's unlocked, I've only spent about €20 on data & calls so far (10 months), can swap the SIM out when abroad to avoid data roaming, and because the cheapest contract deal at the time worked out to a total of around €900 after the minimum 24 months.

Doesn't matter. They can't get past the fact that I spent €500 on a phone. And proceed to sign up for that contract.

retube3• 16 years ago

one of my big gripes is (in the UK) all these FREE IPHONE! FREE LAPTOP! on a £30 - £40 / month contract. in small print: contract is 24 months. That's 960 quid. The laptop is a shitty bargain-basement dell that you get for £200. And on top of that you got data charges, 0845 numbers etc etc.

revital92• 16 years ago

People are stupid - but not all of them. Look at the comments around you :)

oscardelben• 16 years ago

Unfortunately collectively means that if you are the only one intelligent around stupid people, then your group is still considered stupid.

stavrianos• 16 years ago

Being smart does not protect you from being stupid.

po2• 16 years ago

How many cognitive biases can you list? Because there are a lot of them:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases

They might not get you on this one, but at some point you will be part of the stupid crowd. I don't think about all of these every time I make a decision. When I said people are stupid, I was including myself. :-)

wendroid3• 16 years ago

1) buy inkjet printer

2) install continuous ink system

3) ???

4) reduce the baseline

dhimes2• 16 years ago

Does the continuous system work ok? I have one for an epson, and when I run out of ink I intend to install it. I'm also preparing to buy an emergency backup printer, just in case...

wendroid3• 16 years ago

The only problem I had was the usual - leave it for 6 weeks without printing and it gums up a bit.

I've also had some feed problems where it dumps ink into the printer.

The guys I share an office with got one and didn't read the instructions properly and we stood their (me laughing) as the ink unloaded into the thing.

But when it's all working you get 6+ months of reliable printing.

And for the price of an inkjet, a spare one is cheap, though I'm lucky - my local retailer is 5 mins away by foot and when my dried up I just went and got another one - the dried up one is under my desk waiting for me to clean it!

snom370• 16 years ago

I got a big, used HP LaserJet for cheap and I love it. One cartridge will last 10K-15K pages, prints 24 ppm, and it prints duplex, even on A3 paper.

ErrantX• 16 years ago

Great article.

The prices of printers and other electronic products are constantly dropping, so the companies need to make a buck in other ways

Just as a point of note; this isn't a new phenomena like that line appears to suggest. This has been their business model for a goodly number of years now. Any cash they make on the printers has been, for the most part, a bonus.

JoeAltmaier• 16 years ago

thesharklady was certainly bitter about ink prices, but why? She mentioned other choices - why get upset about it? HP marketing works great and good for them. BTW the cartridge matters lightyears more than the printer regarding print quality. The printer price is almost irrelevant. It only relates to durability/mtbf of the paper path. Its like razors vs blades.

derekj• 16 years ago

Agree. If she doesn't use HP products, why does she care what they charge? That Excel-generated graph is terrible too.

Like others, I bought a cheap wireless Brother B&W laser for around $125 over a year ago and I'm still on the included freebie toner. Got a replacement as I thought it was getting low but the tape-over-the-hole trick has made it last months longer. I love being able to print from any laptop around the house.

kevinelliott• 16 years ago

Ok, I agree. So what are we to do? Refills are notoriously messy, and the quality is often so low, it's even unacceptable for my recipes. And knockoff cartridges suffer from similar outcomes and strange fates (one time a printer I had failed to even recognize it since the circuitry in the knockoff failed to identify itself properly)... How can we buy decent quality carts without paying these ripoff prices?

petervandijck2• 16 years ago

A lot of printers let you hack the cartridges so they last longer (often just a little piece of tape). Search the internet for your model.

edw519• 16 years ago

"Give 'em the razors, sell 'em the blades." - King Gillette

ramidarigaz• 16 years ago

No joke. A 6-pack of blades in Perth ran me $50. Ridiculous. I bought the handle for maybe $10.

viraptor2• 16 years ago

I was doing that for a long time. But switching to the rotary electric shaver was a great decision. It works perfectly and you don't need to change the heads for months / years.

hugh34• 16 years ago

Y'know, I use a Gillette Fusion. The blades cost about four dollars each and consist of six tiny wedges of high-strength steel sharpened to sub-micron precision and coated with a layer of tetrahedral amorphous carbon.

The "razor" cost ten dollars and is basically a plastic stick.

I'm not sure the old razor/blade analogy applies to razors and blades any more. Maybe it should be the old printer/cartridge analogy nowadays.

shpxnvz2• 16 years ago

The blades cost about four dollars each and consist of six tiny wedges of high-strength steel sharpened to sub-micron precision and coated with a layer of tetrahedral amorphous carbon.

However, double edged razor blades with the exact same characteristics (also made by Gillette, btw) go for less than 20 cents a piece.

ashbrahma• 16 years ago

Personally, I am looking forward to the Memjet printers. Video Demo of Memjet vs HP Inkjet.

http://www.memjethomeandoffice.com/technology/video_view/mem...

Memjet was founded by Kia Silverbrook, one of the leading inventors/patent filers in the world now.

krupan2• 16 years ago

The only difference between memjet and the other inkjet printers is that the print head doesn't move. It uses ink like all the others, and will probably still have the same razor/razor blade business model. If they ever productize it.

bjhacker• 16 years ago

Their partners have (within the last month) introduced a handful of products for commercial uses. I think the consumer/small office product is on the way.

zppx• 16 years ago

Just wondering about, how he estimated the price of human blood?

HeyLaughingBoy2• 16 years ago

My guess would be that it's the cost for a hospital to get it from a blood bank.

hugh34• 16 years ago

Seems rather nonlinear. Frinstance I'd be willing to sell you a pint of my blood for fifty bucks. Two pints will cost you five hundred. Four pints I'll give you for a hundred thousand, and eight pints I wouldn't sell for ten million.

Those prices may vary if you don't need it all today, of course.

source: http://askville.amazon.com/blood-person-lose-live/AnswerView...

blhack• 16 years ago

Sigh, printers. At my office, we have about 40 dell printers...all complete with little smart card readers on the inside that make sure the toner that we're using is "genuine".

The problem? Even if we are using toners directly from dell, they will get errors that say "Invalid Cartridge", meaning we have to take it out, shake it around, sacrifice something to michael dell, and hope it works when we put it back in.

Printers are the most frustrating part of any IT persons day (other than maybe, just maybe, fax machines).

jacquesm• 16 years ago

You forgot about scanners.

bitwize• 16 years ago

The most economical choice today is the combination printer/scanner/fax machine. Three frustrations in one!

btilly• 16 years ago

Why is this issue important to HP now? Looking at HP's latest SEC filing in http://www.faqs.org/sec-filings/100311/HEWLETT-PACKARD-CO_10... I find two interesting lawsuits, Baggett v. HP and Rich v. HP, which may explain why HP would want to change public opinion.

In Baggett v. HP it is alleged that HP prematurely claims its cartridges are empty, thus forcing people to buy ink prematurely. The lower district ruled against the plaintiff on the class action status, but that is under appeal. It is worth noting that Epson settled a similar lawsuit not that long ago (see http://www.inkjetcartridges.com/_epson-offers-credit-for-ina... for details), and another similar one has been filed against Dell.

More likely to be relevant is Rich v. HP, which alleged that HP unnecessarily uses color ink in black and white printing. The hearing for that was scheduled for May 7. I can't find any press about how that hearing went, but the judge is likely thinking the case over now.

HP advertising now could be a question of trying to influence the judge in that case, and/or it could be an attempt to preempt some anticipated bad publicity.

tjmaxal• 16 years ago

What suggestions do you guys have for printing photos? Is it still cheaper to go to a print shop or is there an low end professional device that is cheaper in the long run?

mattmaroon3• 16 years ago

HP's article was pretty good. I doubt they're lying about spending $1b a year on R&D for it. They're a publicly traded company so that should be verifiable.

Calling them greedy is just silly. Again, they're a company. It's their job to maximize revenues. That's what they exist for.

They wouldn't be able to charge as much as they do for ink if people weren't willing to pay for it. People wouldn't be willing to pay for it if there were equal quality ink available at half the price. Which means that either HP is correct and the enormous investment required is what keeps competition from driving the price down, or they're doing a hell of a branding job by making people think that generic ink will ruin your printer. Either way HP is just doing what it's supposed to.

barrkel2• 16 years ago

There are two halves to price: supply and demand. The investment is a sunk cost. Competition in an efficient market should reduce the price to the marginal cost of production. And if the marginal cost of production was genuinely so high, why would printer manufacturers be putting in all kinds of validation electronics? Why not leave it at caveat emptor?

mattmaroon3• 16 years ago

The investment required keeps the supply relatively low. It's not fair to call it a sunk cost when it's an annual $1b. Keeping up with the state of the art in printers (note the disparity in quality even over the last few years) is a significant ongoing expense.

And the reason not to leave it caveat emptor is obvious: your brand suffers. When someone's printer goes bad they don't blame the manufacturer of the ink, they blame the manufacturer of the printer. This is part of why Steve Jobs doesn't want Flash on the iPad. He spent enough years denigrating Windows for crashing due to third party programs to not want the same thing done to him.

HeyLaughingBoy2• 16 years ago

I see not a whole lot has changed!

About 14 years ago I wrote the control software for a machine that used high performance inkjet heads and fast-drying ink. Inkjets were fairly new then and we went to a LOT of trouble (working directly with Canon) to get good print quality, and to keep the heads from clogging up with ink & paper dust while still making it easy for the user to replace ink cartridges. We even had to design a mechanism to periodically wipe the orifices clean or they would clog within minutes.

Anyway, the reason I mention that is that after that experience, I never trusted the reliability of inkjets and have always bought laser printers. I've owned two and the only reason I had to buy the second one is that after about 10 years of service it made more sense to replace my Canon LBP (Laser Beam Printer -- love that name!) than to buy a new toner cartridge.

I really can't believe that after all these years and millions of inkjet printers shipped, the consumables are still so expensive and replacing your printer's heads with cheaper ones is still a problem for some brands. Clearly it's in the best interests of some companies to not bother making it easier/cheaper for the user.

Yeah, I'll stick with lasers!

viraptor2• 16 years ago

> after that experience, I never trusted the reliability of inkjets

To me, that happened with almost every technology I touched. The more I work with VoIP, the more amazed I am that it works at all with our networks. When I was doing web development, seeing some pages made me think about the crazy data flow they have to handle. etc.

Sometimes, it's probably best not to know and just enjoy...

matwood2• 16 years ago

Look into the details of WIFI and/or cell technology sometime if you want to see something that's best not to know and just be glad it works ;)

artlogic• 16 years ago

The first major purchase I made on eBay was a HP LaserJet 5P purchased in 2000 for $200. I still use that printer today, I think I've replaced the toner cartridge 3 times in the last 10 years. At $75/cartridge, it's been a bargain. On top of that, I purchased memory upgrades, the postscript SIM, and a used JetDirect external box for around $50. Now I have a network printer that doesn't even need drivers to work. On top of that, it's built like a tank. I'll be surprised if it breaks down in the next 10 years, given my relatively low usage.

Despite all the personal experience I have indicating a quality laser printer is a better long term deal, I still have yet to convince anyone else they should use this solution. Most folks believe color is too important. Even with the advent of cheap color lasers, most people aren't willing to make the upfront investment. Then they complain when their ink costs nearly $100 to replace.

If anything, one of the largest problems I've seen in modern society in the inability to think in the long term, and by extension make short term sacrifices for long term gain.

mmagin• 16 years ago

I bought a LaserJet 6MP on ebay about 5 years ago and upgraded the memory to the maximum. It's served me well since for general text printing.

lesterbuck• 16 years ago

After two ultra low end Brother laser printers in a row cratered on me, I went back to my trusty LaserJet 5MP/6MP class printers. Two years ago I picked up a 40K page LaserJet 6MP for $10.49, plus $26 flat rate shipping. It works flawlessly. Lately, I buy genuine HP toner cartridges from Image-Warehouse on eBay for $18 with free shipping. They come in plain brown boxes, but the cartridge itself is either a real HP C3903 or the best fake I have ever seen. Whatever, they work great and I've given up refilling at these prices. I print from Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X through an old, cheap JetDirect print server on my network.

Whippet• 16 years ago

I bought a LaserJet 4P when it was new for about $1,000

I know it seems like a lot, but like many of HP's products back then, it is bullet proof. Sure it's not very fast, but it prints text well and I replace the toner cartridge every 2 to 3 years.

I've had friends and family go through several printers in a row due to cheaper built quality. When we returned one (a HP inkjet, iirc) to the store, I asked if they send them back to the manufacturer. I was told it was not cost effective to do. They threw it away and gave us a new one.

If I do ever decide to buy a color printer, I think I'd go with Canon as some of my more technical friends have had good experience with them and Canon is not so anally retentive about 3rd party ink.

midnightmonster• 16 years ago

For me, it's Linux support, ease of use, features, and economy.

When my little Samsung laser printer finally died, I bought an HP inkjet (OfficeJet Pro 8000 Wireless) for a bit over $100. I got home and took off all the tape, stuck in the large individual-color, separate-from-print-head ink tanks, plugged it in to power and my network, and printed the network settings page (which I turned out not to need). Then click-click-click on my Ubuntu system, and I was printing. Download driver click-click-click on my wife's macbook, and she was printing. One of the easiest setups I've ever done for network printing, and even easier on Linux than on Mac.

And it duplexes automatically.

My 6 year old is thrilled to be able to print in color, and I'm happy not smelling ozone.

So I'm happy with razors and razorblades inkjet, albeit with HP's most economical cartridges. (And there's a little part of me that is bothered by the lack of perfectly-sharp text printing that I've always missed when not using a laser.)

metageek• 16 years ago

For me, the big one is paper handling. Every non-HP printer I've owned mangled paper; no HP printer ever has.

krupan2• 16 years ago

I used to work at HP in the inkjet division, and I just wanted to point out that, down at the individual engineer level of the organization, we all kinda hated the business model too. You could imagine what would happen though if HP decided to raise the cost of printers and reduce the cost of ink. Everyone at Best Buy would see HP printers that cost more than Epson, Cannon, or Lexmark and guess which printer they'd buy. Kodak tried to go that route and made a lot of noise about how much cheaper their ink was, but they haven't taken a whole lot of inkjet market share (yet?).

westbywest• 16 years ago

People are stupid. That's been empirically proven, and the fact continues to demonstrate itself on a regular basis. This has more to do with the definition of 'stupid' being quite unrelenting w.r.t. to human nature.

That said, a comment to the original article, purportedly from an HP insider, described Carly Fiorina's zeal over profiting from HP's inkjet division, and how it caused some medical research being done by that division (cancer research?) to be axed because of insufficient profit potential.

The expectation that medical research should be profitable is an entirely different kind of stupid.

cpg• 16 years ago

I'm on my second FAILED HP printer. I got them for their better support for Linux drivers and network printing.

One was a higher end all-in-one and it eventually acted up as if the firmware actually failed on purpose (acting somewhat erratically!).

The other one failed, out of the blue, with some mechanical gears issue. Their phone line recognized quickly the issue ("jumped super quick to conclusions," I'd say) and said it was not covered. They would ship me a new one fast and cheap!

After seeing how fast the ink went, we did buy ink and refilled them. It was not too hard, though it was a hassle.

Needless to say, now we're going for some other brand!

sandGorgon• 16 years ago

Any recommendations about what is a good printer to buy TODAY ? -monochrome laser -zeroconf -separate print head -long lasting toner

whimsy• 16 years ago

There are a lot of good recommendations in the other comments, even though no one has responded directly to you - I recommend taking another look at this comments page if you haven't already.

Obviously, HP Thinks We Are Stupid

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