[ale] Printers stink

[James P. Kinney III]

On Mon, 2007-04-30 at 00:44 -0400, Brian Pitts wrote:
> > I am just so fed up with HP products that I can't stand the thought of
> > using them. Between the ink cartridges that "expire", crappy server
> > hardware, non-existent support, over-priced consumable printer parts,
> > etc, I've just hit my limit on spending money on HP anything. They are
> > NOT the company the used to be.
> 
> Just to be contrary... I have an HP PSC 1315. Linux support for printing 
> and scanning is great, and in several years of (very light) usage I've 
> yet to replace the ink cartridge. When it's time, I'll just order a 
> remanufactured one from inksell.com. Perhaps their newer printers are of 
> lower quality, or maybe the models geared for businesses work 
> differently, but from my home-user perspective this printer/scanner was 
> a great purchase.
> 
Someone _would_ pop up with a <sneer> "My HP products work
great."</sneer> :)

I have been buying only HP business products now for the past 10 years.
I get them because they are supposed to be longer life and they all have
good to excellent Linux support. But the quality of these devices has
eroded substantially. I have clients who have had HP Laserjets in solid,
daily use for 15 years with no issues other than worn paper feeds and
replacing toner kits. When they add a second, newer version Laserjet
that is rated for 50,000 pages per month, the thing spends more time in
the shop than in use. They don't print anywhere _near_ 50k pages a
month. The printer has been replaced twice  under warranty and is
currently in the repair shop again. 

This experience has been mirrored by many of the clients and other
people I have run into over the past 2 years.

The decline in quality is good for business to a point. As the the
current printer "fails" a new one is bought that uses ink/toner at a
faster rate thus boosting the HP bottom line (Since that's about all
they do that make money now that the company has been nearly scuttled).

But companies like Brother and Samsung are noticing the disgust and are
currently ramping up production on business quality printers with lower
per page costs for operations. They don't requires a support contract to
use the hardware either (unlike the new HP printers).
-- 
James P. Kinney III          
CEO & Director of Engineering 
Local Net Solutions,LLC        
770-493-8244                    
http://www.localnetsolutions.com

GPG ID: 829C6CA7 James P. Kinney III (M.S. Physics)
<jkinney at localnetsolutions.com>
Fingerprint = 3C9E 6366 54FC A3FE BA4D 0659 6190 ADC3 829C 6CA7
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