Comments on: More about printer ink rip-offs

PC World tests a bunch of printers and finds that some left almost half of their ink unused.

[sparrowhyperion]

Nothing ticks me off more than spending a couple of hundred dollars for a new ink printer, only to have to chuck out another $50-$60 in a month for new cartridges. Late in august of this year, I replaced my cartridges, only to have the printer suddenly start dropping big gobs of ink on the paper, on a printer that is not even a year old. It took over a week, about twenty emails and several phone calls to get Epson to honor their warranty and replace the printer. And yes, I only used the exorbitantly overpriced Epson ink cartridges in that printer. I once heard of a program which will reset the printers ink sensor, but I can't remember the name of it. I think the printer and ink people should be charged with price gouging. Especially when they tell you that using less expensive third party ink will void your warranty.

[mssoot]

try searching for SSI utility
works with some Epson printers. There is also chip restters for a few bucks that will reset the chip on ink carts to make the printer think there new and start with a full indication even though they are not. I have used these on after market carts when the printer wont recognize them and then they do most times

[agsGeoff]

I have an EPSON R220 printer. The printer told the computer that the yellow ink cartridge was empty and it would no longer print, even though I was trying to print a black and white text document. When I took the ink cartridge out there was obviously ink still in it, as you could hear it sloshing around inside. At $15 per cartridge and 6 cartridges per printer, I was understandably annoyed.

[nouser]

I have an HP PhotoSmart inkjet. When any of the ink cartridges gets low it give me a warning stating that this low ink cartridge will need to be replaced soon. When the ink cartridge actually runs dry it stops printing and ask me to replace the cartridge or continue to print without this color.

Nice!

I also appreciate the fact that I don't recall ever needing to re-prime the cartridges like I did with another major brand of inkjet printer. Every time I would leave the printer idle for a week the jets would clog. That just doesn't happen with my HP. In fact at one point this printer sat unused for 3 months while I was out of the country and when I returned it just worked. With my other inkjets I would use up close to 30% of the ink just priming and re-priming the thing to open clogged jets.

This inkjet uses the 02 series of Vivera inks which can last for over a century. The ink cartridge set (6 cartridges) typically costs $35 delivered next morning direct from HP. They also throw in 150 sheets of 4x6 Advanced Photo Paper.

For this HP inkjet, ink cost, one of the major hidden costs for inkjets, is the lowest I've encountered on any inkjets I've owned in the past.

I really like my HP and will definitely purchase another.

[DigitalFrog]

Yes, I also have been very happy with the way my older HP All-in-one printer handles ink. I do not mind at all being warned early that ink is running low, as long as it allows me to continue.

[Galaxy5]

"This inkjet uses the 02 series of Vivera inks which can last for over a century. "

I would not believe this figure if I were you. Vivera is not archival in any real sense of the word.

[nouser]

Galaxy5

Here is data from Wilhelm Imaging Research [Wilheim-research.com], an acknowledged authority on the longivity of digital images, on the Vivera dye-based inks. As you can see they can last for over a century.
http://www.wilhelm-research.com/hp/WIR_HP_8450_2005_06_29.pdf

According to Wilhelm Imaging Research "HP's recently released Vivera inks are predicted to withstand fading for up to 108 years when printed with six or eight color cartridges on HP's premium papers."

[Galaxy5]

I apologize; I was basing my conclusion on how most people print with Vivera - on plain paper - which doesn't get very good marks from Henry Wilhelm. 108 years under glass in display conditions is quite good!

It's worth noting that no inks perform well over time when used with uncoated "copier paper"-style white bond. The sizing (coating) and anti-wicking design of fine art papers are the best way to preserve your investment in inks.

[pjcamp]

This seems like a significant design "feature" and one that is pretty easy to test. So why isn't it a regular feature of cNet's printer reviews?

[mhinnewyork]

Excellent point! That's just the sort of role a company like CNET should play, telling consumers things the printer manufacturer wont - things like whether a printer shuts down to force you to replace a cartridge with lots of ink left in it.

[DatabaseDoctor]

Does anyone else pine for the days of the dot matrix printers? Not the quality but the ease of use, speed and low maintenance. I share the displeasure you all feel regarding the huge expense of replacing these half filled cartridges. Now for the next issue...

Does anyone else get furious when you own a perfectly good inkjet/laser printer and you can't use it with Vista? Your printer works fine, you have plenty of spare ink but now its a hunk of scrap because the vendor decided not to make a vista driver for this machine. How convenient! If there were any other way to print a document, say a blue and yellow striped turtle that magically spit out your print job when you rubbed its back, I would jump on that technology in a heartbeat...as long as it wasn't from HP or Canon or Epson or lexmark(dell).

We're tired and we're not going to take this anymore!

[btljooz]

With Vista the venders have an "excuse" for not providing drivers right off the bat since the code for Vista, as with all M$ products, is closed source. On the other hand they have absolutely NO "excuse" what-so-ever for not providing drivers for OSS like Linux (especially since Ubuntu is becoming more popular) except it takes a bit of time to compile the drivers....

I'd love to easily be able to find drivers for my periferals for my chosen Linux distro (it's not *buntu). But nooooooo, the hardware companies are too busy li$tening to M$ and other closed source venders. For this reason I told Lexmarks "customer service" on the phone that I would NOT be buying a Lexmark when I needed a new printer last year. A friend gave me a (now) 3 yr old HP 4-in-1 and when I'm ready to use it with Linux (which is coming within the next few months) I hope I can find all the proper drivers for it rather than having to depend upon my LUG <(Linux User Group) to compile them for me.

[Galaxy5]

"Does anyone else get furious when you own a perfectly good inkjet/laser printer and you can't use it with Vista? "

No, I'm using a 13-year old LaserJet 5mx with Mac OS X 10.5.5. GimpPrint is built in, so I don't usually have trouble using any of my older printers if I need to.

[btljooz]

About Gimp-Print: It is now Gutenprint.

For the Unix/Linux community, find out about it here:

http://gimp-print.sourceforge.net/

if you don't already know.

[Spimby]

Rip-off???? I'd call it outright fraud. If auto manufacturers built cars that would just shut down when the check engine light came on (which would then force you to tow your car into the dealer for a "preventative" 60,000 check up), we'd quickly see a class-action lawsuit, a plaintiff's award and a change in automaker's behavior.

Hopefully, Canon, Epson, and Kodak will be served soon. I can only imagine the high dollar value of this fraud for a business that uses one or all of those brands of printers. Some enterprising class action attorney could make a name and a lot of money with this ridiculously easy case.

[sythara]

you mean if a car shut down when it ran out of gas you would sue the maker?


what?

[DigitalFrog]

I would if the car kept shutting down when the tank was still 1/4 full, and forced me to remove the old gas tank and buy a new prefilled one from the maker.

[sythara]

Then stop buying the printers that are the rip off ones. I own an HP printer I got about 10 years ago and it still works amazingly. Granted I don't print photo lab quality pictures or thousand page color presentations, but as an average consumer mine works well and ink lasts a long time.

Before buying anything you have to do your research. In the aquisition world its called Market Research. Look around, read reviews, do comparisons and figure out what you need for the money. I just don't understand why people whine about how the product they own operates when it was their choise to buy it and they agreed to its specifications by making the purchase.

Its called free market, and you're free to make your choice..

[AppleSuxLeo]

I have an HP 7960 and have no such problems. HP 4 me !

[gregrochedc]

actually, it would be if the car shut down when the gas tank was still half full......

[uptimejeff]

I use a continuous ink system (CIS) for my Epson printer.
It's one set of ink cartridges with a 6-tube umbilical which runs out to 6 tanks of ink..

I only buy ink in bottles now and simply pour the ink into the CIS tanks... the system keeps a constant flow.

You can find them on amazon, ebay etc at a cost of around $50 with prefilled tanks! Mine shipped with 6 completely full tanks, which would probably cost $500+ if the ink came in cartridges.


Of course, if you are doing fine photography prints- this may not be for you.
I print our family photos, and they look just fine.

Jeff

[thelastingozi]

Jeff,
Thank you for mentioning the continuous ink system. I'm kind of suprised I've never heard of it before, but thanks to you, I now have. It is going to save me a lot of money. I have an Epson 2200 that was given to me without the ink of course. And when I saw what I was going to pay for ink, I kind of set it to the side labeled under "someday". Now I can afford to actually make good use of it. Thank you very much!!

[Galaxy5]

Epson's professional printers have all this "replace the ink" business beat in spades.

Instead of the privilege of replacing only ink cartridges, Epson's professional wide-carriage inkjet printers for fine art require replacing the "tampon" or a chip-monitored _overflow bin_ filled with cotton. You can't clean this bin out and slide it back in; the same chip-based monitoring system that requires you to replace the cartridges does the job for the overflow drawer.

The cost of this bin? $75.00. That's right - you pay $75.00 for the privilege of buying a plastic drawer full of cotton batting that exists to sop up all the extra (expensive!) ink the printer spills in the course of making prints.

But what are you going to do? Ultrachrome printers from Epson are some of the best for printing fine art - the gamut and longevity of the inks is fantastic. So you shut up and take it. What lawyer is going to up against Epson, Canon, HP, etc. for "lying to customers" when it is plainly evident that the printers have high per-page costs to subsidize the low buy-in prices?

Trust me, if there was a class action here, it would be underway.

[pgp_protector]

I found a wonderful gizmo on E-Bay (don't have it with me so I can't give it's name) but it resets the chip in the ink cartridges telling the printer that it's full.

Works for getting that last bit of ink out of it, also for if you're refilling your own cartridges.

[dwinks]

This is EXACTLY why I wholeheartedly recommend to everyone I know to get a B/W Laser printer, such as a HP 1020 (around $70, $0.01 per page printed) and to NEVER buy a piece of **** ink-jet.

Ink-Jets last only a few months if you don't print regularly. Buy pretty much any ink-jet, print 1 picture and then let the printer sit a few months and then try printing again, and more likely than not the jets will be clogged, and either need replaced to "cleaned" which ends up using a quarter or more of the ink.

Just ditch the stupid ink-jet, and pay $0.10 a picture to have MUCH MUCH better quality prints made at the local photo-shop. If you use a decent print shop, they will be using printers that cost thousands of dollars and the prints will not only look much better, but they will almost certainly last much longer, they are also VERY MUCH cheaper.

I highly doubt anyone (that isn't professional and buys a dye-sublimation printer) has ANY reason to use a crappy ink-jet other than "I'm lazy and don't want to run to the corner shop". Why spend $100 or more to buy a printer, then spend $60 or more every few months just to print out what would cost maybe $50 a YEAR (that's 500 photo prints!) if you had the corner shop do it better? Just seems stupid to me.

[TimGray--2008]

http://www.ssclg.com/epsone.shtml

reset your epson printer waste tray and even reset the cartridges. This program has been around for a long time now.

[mel_inc]

When will this rip-off stop! Can you imagine paying for a pint of beer and actually only getting 3/4's of a pint! Printer manufacturers are knowingly producing a product with a massive flaw and from the sounds of it, this is a well documented complaint by consumers!

Save all your print cartridge purchase receipts because there has to be a class action suit here somewhere.

[danidani81-2]

I also see it more as fraud than a rip-off! An example...I have a color laser Okidata printer...and after the light goes to alert me that the toner (1 of 4) is low i can print another 300 color pages, and after the final warning light comes on i can print another 200 pages is how far i've gotten(the printer actually stops working)... so 500 pages on an empty cartridge... very frustrating...funny thing about my hp fax/printer..i kept ignoring the light, but the fax/printer kept working which i love...and i actually went to the end of the toner which was very satisfying but on the negative side i had 5 blank "faxes" sitting in printer!

[lixpaulian]

Although I understand your points, apparently everybody around forget a simple fact: that an inkjet printer is a relatively complicated piece of equipment (both its mechanics and electronics), and that no company could sell it with say, $60. At these prices they can't possibly make any money out of the printers themselves.

Not very long ago (15 years or so), a B/W inkjet printer cost over $1000, and a colour one double or triple this price! So this is the strategy that the ink jet printer manufacturers stumbled upon: sell the printer cheap and make money out of the consumables.

If you want to fight them in court, then good luck to you, but we may end up either paying again hundreds of dollars for a printer, or the big guys will get altogether out of this business -- thus no more inkjet printers to buy!

[Heebee Jeebies]

Maybe its time we stop buying printers and ink. A year without customers could be just the thing to get printer makers in line. Maybe they don't realize that if they don't rape their customers with ink costs that we will print more. I have had an Epson R2400 since they came out, I am still on the original ink cartridges. Because of the waste of ink and the cost of ink I don't print.

My suggestion is if you need prints of your images then send them out to someplace like mPix. It is time to throw the bone to the printer makers for a change.

Robert

[gggg sssss]

Ok this time I am all for some lawyer taking on a class action. Count me in.

[john55440]

My ancient HP LaserJet 4P doesn't even have a "toner low" sensor.

When that printer can no longer be used, I will probably get an HP color laser printer. Among other nice things, laser printers don't have any ink to clog.