We never agreed to only buy HP ink, say printer owners
We never agreed to only buy HP ink, say printer owners
Complainants smack back after hardware giant moves to dismiss lawsuit
After switching to laser, I truly don't understand how inkjets still sell. Is it purely for photo printing at home? Because outside of that specific use case, laser is far superior on every axis.
A toner cartridge lasts for years and years, even with limited use, and it nets you thousands of pages. Laser printers aren't even that expensive anymore, and I'd argue they're cheaper than inkjet after having to refill the latter just a single time.
Edit: and something I didn't know until I got one: toner doesn't run if pages get wet. There have been a few times where that has been handy.
82My wife has a cricut. It’s a little CNC plotter table that can make custom stickers, signs, and whatnot with a very clean UI. They are pretty popular with the stay-at-home mom crowd. If you know a better way to high quality color prints on specialty papers I’d love to hear it. I know that sounds sarcastic, but I mean that with absolutely zero sarcasm. Please tell me.
22That sounds like a legitimate use case, tbh.
Sometimes the complexity of a "better" system isn't worth it when a "lesser"-but-easier system exists that produces satisfactory results.I know PCB etching enthusiasts have developed a way to transfer laser toner onto copper PCBs.
I wonder if there is a similar system that could be done, but between print paper and product paper.19
A color laser printer costs $400+ where I live. That's why people still but inkjet, Cause you can buy those for $50.
To poorer people, that's always the grind. You know you're gonna pay more in the long run, but you can't afford the initial investment in order to make those savings
21Laser printers are literally the same price most likely. In the us market (atleast) you can get them for $60 from Dell / etc. you don’t have to spend $200+ on a laser typically.
Most people don’t need color. Monochrome lasers are dirt cheap.
That is of course unless there’s some issue with availability wherever you are
3Color laser printers basically need a full printer assembly for each color, which drives up the cost. I believe there's LED laser printers that can do everything in a single assembly so they're typically cheaper
2When I was in college I just bought new printers on sale when I ran out of ink because it was cheaper than buying refills.
1
Because on a shelf with inkjet printers, lasers cost 5* the upfront cost. Of course you make that back by not buying 50€ cartridges everytime you print because the ink is dry, but consumers don't think about the type of printer they're buying.
19https://www.theprinterpros.com/HP-Color-LaserJet-CP1518ni-Printer-Refurbished-p/ypc-cp1518ni-hp.htm
600 DPI and the toner refills are cheap as fuck. I have had 2 of these and they work great.
3
My dad prints a lot of schematics and diagrams on 11x17 to mark up and edit for his job, but color laserjets that can handle 11x17 don't seem to exist outside of the humongous office printers with 5 1000-sheet paper drawers. Probably because the toner cartridges need to be bigger.
He's got a Brother ink tank inkjet, though, which is pretty much the next best thing.
13Tabloid.
I freaking LOVE tabloid printers. Its such a niche printing need tho.
3
Yeah I've been using laser printers for years, fuck inkjet. I'm still on the starter cartridges from my current one and it's pushing 5 years old. Though I print very little. Unlike ink that dries out, toner is fine for a very long time.
6I'm more confused by the fact that anyone owns a printer at home tbh.
1
Yeah fuck HP. Not buying one of their products ever again, printer or otherwise.
33I’m sure they’ll think to include a small piece of paper that says something about mandatory binding arbitration and waiving all rights that can be legally waived, in the next version.
18When my printer runs out of ink I buy a new printer.
They make a loss on the printers and I rarely print
17Back when I was getting into electronics, I used to drive around during hard waste collections on the lookout for interesting devices to pull apart. (One man's trash is another man's treasure!)
Honestly, it was shocking how many printers and scanners were being thrown out. Every second hard waste pile had one. These were devices that looked 3-4 years old at most.
Clearly many people employ your strategy, and the companies are to blame. The volume of waste they're incentivising with their business model is criminal. I hope HP get everything that's coming to them.
26Colleges are a huge problem with this. They charge per page, it's reasonable... but a lot of the Laptops used to come with coupons for near free printers. So basically all of them get chucked at the end of graduation or even each year.
6If Greenpeace really cared every cannon and HP employee would be nailed to a cross lining the path to their headquarters.
1Supposedly you can convert some inkjets into resin 3d printers.
1
I dropped HP printers when I tried to use a new ink cartridge and it was out of date and wouldn't print. We have 2 Epson's with refillable ink cartridges now.
14Ever find yourself signing a Eula with dollars at a Walmart?
8This is the best summary I could come up with:
HP "sought to take advantage of customers' sunk costs," printer owners claimed this week in a class action lawsuit against the hardware giant.
Lawyers representing the aggrieved were responding [PDF] in an Illinois court to an earlier HP Inc motion to dismiss a January lawsuit.
Among other things, the plaintiffs' filing stated that the printer buyers "never entered into any contractual agreement to buy only HP-branded ink prior to receiving the firmware updates."
In the case, which began in January, the plaintiffs are arguing that HP issued a firmware update between late 2022 and early 2023 that they allege disabled their printers if they installed a replacement cartridge that was not HP-branded.
It added that the printer owners can't claim damages for being overcharged under federal antitrust laws because consumers who buy products from an intermediary can sue the manufacturer for injunctive relief under those laws, but they can't sue the manufacturer to recover damages resulting from an alleged overcharge.
HP CEO Enrique Lores has made no secret of the fact that it hopes to pull customers into a print subscription business model.
The original article contains 449 words, the summary contains 182 words. Saved 59%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
7Did you read the eula?
4yes you did its on page 382 of the eula
2Not legally binding. Companies can kick you off their services, but they can't legally make you do anything IRL like agree to arbitration or only buy their ink, etc.
1i was mostly joking, i hope hp gets fucked if thats at all possible.
1
Fuck hp, fuck brother, and fuck all of them, they all do it
-3Do Brother printers prevent you from using non Brother branded cartridges?
9Worse, they make printing in black only without colors anywhere from impossible to infuriating, depending on how much you're willing to put up with.
And yeah, you get one use of a non brother cartridge, then it's "empty" permanently.
1
Agreed. There's no such thing as a good printer anymore. Fuck them.
On the bright side, printers sucking so badly has led me to take extreme measures to avoid having to print much of anything, and on the rare occasion we need something printed, I just go to the library and do it there.
5