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HP Must Defend Half-Empty "Economy" Ink Cartridges
An Anonymous Coward excerpts this short Detroit News story, which begins "PALO ALTO, Calif. -- Hewlett-Packard Co. must defend the sale of half-full ink cartridges with its printers after a Minnesota appellate court reinstated a lawsuit against the world's largest maker of printers.
Three Minnesota women claim that the company doesn't reveal that the 'economy cartridges' installed on new printers are only half full of ink." The cost of refills is why I've given up on inkjet printers entirely (for now) -- guess which division of HP made more money than the other four combined?
99% of the stuff you're printing is going to be black and white anyway, so why not fork out the extra $100 or so and get a budget laserprinter? Considering ink cartridges cost, what, about $50 these days anyway, you'll find the laser option more affordable in the long run.
"Why did they cancel my favorite Sci-Fi show? I downloaded ALL the episodes!"
Cost of new black ink cartridge for my printer: $40
Cost of laser printer with toner on eBay: $50
Maybe they should just sell disposable printers instead.
--Kevin
I did wonder why I could never find that HP cartridge number when I went to replace it the first time, just different cart which would replace it. Seems to me, we all got what we paid for, even if we think we should have got full cartridges. I see no deceit, to be honest, even if I think it smells like the fresh dead skunk on Highway 17 this morning.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
When I used to have a laser I would print out like a maniac. Whenever I wanted to read something. But ever since Ink Jets began to cost so much I have kicked the habit of printing. These I usually read everything on the computer and only print when absolutely necessary.
So the good part of this message is less dead trees. Of course now my hard disks are the mess (oodles and oodles of files)
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
Becuase refilts are so much cheaper it always made me think the cost was in the catridge ... not the ink.
Which gives the question : How must did they actually save from each printer ?
Cruise TT
guess which division of HP made more money than the other four combined?
Compaq?
See, some people only see the negative. I see the ink cartritge as half full.
If you look at the cart. it lists the amount of ink.. in Canada it is marked in ml. If you have one of the Office class printers the black cartrige costs about $50 and contain about 40ml of ink If you hav one of the cheap sub $100 printers it still costs about $50 for the cart but it only contains about 20ml of ink.. Its clearly marked on the cart and on the box.. I ALWAYS check how much ink is in the cart before deciding on wich printer I get. By the way the Canon BCI-21 Black contains only about 5 - 10 ml of ink.
EA David Gardner -"... but the consumers have proven that actually what they want is fun."
HP Must Defend Half-Empty "Economy" Ink Cartidges
Apparently. These "cartidges" also seem to have half as many R's.
"Twice half-assed makes an ass whole." --Solomon K. Chang
I saw a new Lexmark printer on sale the other day for just over 50 bucks. With some ink refills running in the $30 range, it almost seems feasable to eventually have use-once, throw-away (recycle!) printers... much like those cardboard cameras.
My sig sucks.
Come on, be fair. Deceptive packaging is just that - packaging designed to give a false impression. People who bought based on this false impression have been defrauded. The cartridges are not "economy", as they are falsely represented.
Companies have been doing this with laser printers too - the first toner cartridge is less than half full, always.
Mind you, this reminds me of the ongoing fight I'm having with a coffee maker who sold me 2 12-cup coffee makers that make only 6 8-ounce cups. Nothing in the fine print, nothing in the packaging, nothing in the manual.
We'll see who blinks first - or whether I'm going to have to take them to small claims court.
Geez, vote with your dollars! If you don't like the fact that you get a crappy product (in this case half empty ink cartridges) then go buy something else.
crazy dynamite monkey
Back in the day of the Laserjet II, we had a joke around my job that HP was just a toner company, with very fancy toner delivery packaging - printers.
It's just a heck of a lot more noticable now, you're paying $60 and $40 instead of $3000 and $200 (plus $ungodly when you need to replace the other parts). With the inkjet, you get a new head every time, and that's the part that gums up and goes bad.
Perhaps somebody has some price-per-page figures, that I'd like to see. I suspect that even with the exorbitant replacement cost of the heads, it should still come out really cheap per page.
This idea is, or was at one point, common in the food industry as well. They maintain the same size of packaging, yet futz with the amount of food inside it (usually reducing it some small amount) so you're essentially paying the same price for less.
Of course they never label it as "economy", they would just sneak it in without telling anyone.
It ends up being a backhanded way of raising prices. In HP's situation it seems more like a way to motivate people into buying the real profit makers sooner, but it all borrows from the same mode of thinking. Wish the story or court case was further along, be interesting to see what the eventual conclusion is because I doubt the finding would apply to only HP.
The whole ink jet printer industry reminds me of the razor/blade industry. They sell you the printer cheap, then screw you hard for the inks making sure you run out fast on the first set of cartridges just like the razor folks only give you one or two "starter" blades. But then again, Carly didn't put a gun to my head and forced me to buy the printer. It works well but is expensive to operate in the long run.
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
I see the cartridge as too dang big.
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
- Refill kits. Many vendors offer kits that will allow you to add
more ink to an empty cartridge several times over. With the proper use of
plugs and caution, this may save you hundreds of dollars a year.
- Buy from Pricewatch. Pricewatch allows you to find the
cheapest vendors worldwide of most computer hardware, and you can usually
find ink cartridges there for about 60% off retail prices.
- Warranty service. Most cartridges are sold with a (n albeit
poor) warranty. Use about half the cartridge, then apply a small quantity
of glycerin or sugar water to the jets to clog them. Send the cartridge
back to HP and wait a week to get your replacement.
- Return it. When you've got a dead cartridge in your hand and
you're trying to print out that last minute book report, don't despair.
Head over to Best Buy and pick up a new cartridge. Then, spray a bottle of
typewriter ink liberally all over the old cartridge and (optionally) your
hands and arms. Head back to the store and accuse them of selling you a
defective cartridge, which exploded (and thus drained all of its ink) when
you installed it. Voila! You will have a new cartridge for free.
- File a complaint with the BBB. The majority of inkjet
cartridges clog irreparably between the time when the warranty expires, and
the time when the ink runs out. Make the manufacturer accountable for
selling you a shoddy product by complaining to the BBB, your Attorney
General, and the IFCC.
In summary, there are things you can do about this situation. You don't need to be a sheep.Throw off the shackles of copyright law.
One problem with laser is that it spikes the hell out of your power supply, will kill a UPS, and if not on aseperate circuit can wreak havoc with your other equipment. Inkjets are much tamer, and while a pain in the ass and slower, are safer for beginning/home lUsers for this reason. Since they're also cheaper to make than lasers and better than dot-matrix, inkjet will probably have a lock on consumers for some time.
You are not the customer.
A laser printer I bought several (8, I'd guess) years ago came with a toner cartridge that would only print 1/3 as many pages as a new replacement cartridge, this was explained deep in the manual somewhere...
I believe it was a Canon, but i'm not sure.
--
Benjamin Coates
My girlfriend bought a HP (900 or 1000 something) inkjet printer last year and it came with what the sales rep called "starter" cartridges that weren't completely full. This was at a Circuit City store and of course he really really wanted us to buy replacement cartridges with it anyways. We did buy them because I knew we'd need them shortly anyways.
In any case, when I got home I looked at the printer box and at the replacement cartridge box, and both stated the same milliliters (or whatever inkjet ink is measured in).
So did HP state the wrong thing on the box, or did the Circuit City salesman lie through his teeth in an attempt to get an extra $50 sale?
yea i think someone recently said that gillette practically gives away the Mach3 razors, but charge and arm and leg for the blades. its where they make their money. i've had the same razor since 1998.
I use alot of large format plotters. Right now regarding inkjet Encad and HP seem to be the favorites. Even bulk ink plotters like HP1050 series requires you to purchase an inktank instead of just pouring in more ink. Encad on the other hand sells jugs of milk that you can pour in on the fly even while printing.
I worked for a company making high end thermal printers and the trick to their sales were to force customers to use their inks and substrate. one by placing wierd punch patterns on the paper then patenting it. ofcourse this was played off as a superior punch pattern for accuracy. funny enough when the pattent ran out they left the patter behind. Secondly they constantly changed the firing patterns on the head of the printer so other films wouldn't work or last as long. When customers called up who used other products it was standard to blaim the non brand name film or substrate. It's no secrets companies strong arm customers into buying their peripherals and materials at a higher cost.
Not only are the OEM cartridges that come with the printers are half full. So are most of the refill cartridges people buy.
See this link for the 'refil' cartridge at 34 bucks.
See this link for the 'large' cartridge at a 'bargain' 55 bucks.
They're the same size.
-- rob
Heidi Klum might sue Slashdot forcing them to guarantee that you won't mention fake pictures of your vacation with her.
Mmmm.. Donuts
but I do not think of HP as a sleazeball company. They make high quality products for fair prices, treat their employees reasonably well, and you never hear about Chinese 6-year-olds assembling LJ4100's in a sweatshop someplace.
So, why are they pulling this scam? Is it a change in corporate culture? Is HP actually evil, with a thin chocolaty covering? Is it actually a fair tactic? Is it a manufacturing or shipping issue?
Insight please...
Actually they do sell half empty refills with the razor. Most of the time you get one blade in the razor, one or two more in the refill cartridge that comes with it. Then have to buy the 5 or 10 pack of replacement blades to keep going.
Do really dense people warp space more than others?
Some years ago I ran across a product that made refilling cartridges easy. I believe it was called KleanHands. It consisted of a reusable printhead and replaceable cartridges of ink. Much cheaper than HP cartridges. I found that the ink cartridges were easily refillable, too. We bought some where I work for an HP Officejet fax machine.
Unfortunatly that product seems to no longer be available and only worked on a limited number of HP printers. (not mine of course) Too bad someone doesn't make something similar today for color cartridges.
I've been refilling my HP cartridges for a couple of years, with mixed results. Sometimes it works well, sometimes the cartridge clogs up or worse, leaks all over. I'd say it works about 50% of the time. Still cheaper than paying HP's inflated prices.
Lately though, HP's changed the design of their cartridges making it harder to refill them. You either have to drill a hole in the black cartridges or use a vacuum method to refill them. It can be done, it's just a hassle and usually messy.
The color ones are easier, just crack the top off and fill the sponges with ink. At least that method still works. (for now)
I know some would say, why bother? Just get a laser printer, right? Well, I already have a laser printer, an HP LJ IIID with envelope feeder and duplex feeder that I got for free from a dumpster. (with a stack of toner carts) Some idiot got a wire hooked into the gears while changing the toner cartridge and shredded up some wiring. I patched them back together and have been using it ever since. It's great for black and white and I use it probably 90% of the time, but I still need color for some printouts so the HP stays attached to my network.
Beta sux! Join the Slashcott! http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=4760465&cid=46173047
It's well known within the company that HP's best revenue stream is it's ink business. They rigorously enforce their patents on the cartridges (thus why you never see "generic" cartridges) and go after refill companies as well. Anything goes to protect the ink revenue stream. It's been said internally that HP isn't a computer company, it's an INK company.
HP used to have a "print on demand" service where you subscribe to various printed journals or newsletters and they'd automatically print for you whenever there was a new issue. Of course, the motivation was to get you to use up more ink. (They canned it because apparently most people realized it was pretty silly.)
If you want a project to get good acceptance in the company, show how it can help people squirt out lots of ink and you'll definitely get the backing of the execs. It's been this way for years.
One other interesting bit: The one thing that was NOT mentioned publicly about why it was good for HP to merge with Compaq, and why they're keeping both lines of home PCs (rather than consolidate around one brand) is this: Instead of Compaq home PC package including Lexmark printer with a PC, they'll of course ship with an HP inkjet printer, which means more market share for home printers which means more ink. Of course, they didn't want to push this point for fear it would raise the eyebrows of those who needed to approve the deal, but don't think it wasn't part of their motivation and revenue forcasting.
-- an HP insider
If they were really concerned with driving down costs for customers and saving themselves money, they would adopt a standard size ink cartridge that fits all their printers. Epson is nutorious for this. They have as many sizes and shapes of ink carts. as they have printers. Actually, they have even more, since most require a color and a black. It makes no sense to me. They could cut their costs dramatically if they only went through the effort of coming up with a standard size cartridge. Using Epson as an example, their printers all can be grouped into catagories, either they are 720x720 dpi, 1440x720dpi or 2880x720 dpi. Why do they need to change the shape of the cartridge for every printer? Wouldn't it be much cheaper to only have to produce a few standard sizes instead of as many different ones as they have printers?
today is spelling optional day.
The joys and savings of cost of a dot-matrix. Not to mention the fact that there are pages out there designed specifically to create music while you print (for the speakerless/soundcardless of us out there).
Lemure, wtf! Don't you mean Lemur?
the QMS/Minolta "MagiColor" (I think that's the name) is sold for a pinch under $1000 at various retailers, both in stores and online.
...
Data points:
a) I dunno about Linux support, but the short answer is, I doubt it, since a Google search didn't turn up anything useful. If there *was* decent support under Linux without frustration, I might save up for one. Color printing is nice
b) Heavy. Very heavy. No, not heavy compared to a mainframe, a car, the Earth, a whale, or a very very fat person, but heavy. One strong person *could* move it, but it's not the best idea.
c) Yes, it does come with all 4 toners you need, something I was afraid it would not. (Thought it might come with only a black cart, for instance.)
d) The only example I've actually seen in use is the one my dad bought a few months ago, and I helped him set up. The quality he gets is good, bordering on outstanding for certain uses, but it is *not* a dye-sub or even a high-end inkjet when it comes to color photo printing. He says he gets a lot of printing errors, though, and tech support he called blamed the spooler software. It prints quite speedily when it fees like working, though.
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
A friend of mine who works for HP told me that on average, each deskjet cartridge costs $5 to make, and they are sold for $12 wholesale. A lot of the cost of those cartridges seems to be markup at the retail level.
In case of fire, do not use elevator. Use water!
This is the same comepany, after all, that has told people for years that throwing away perfectly good printheads (such as those conveniently attached to the ink cartridges)
I appreciate this, my printer works well, rather then messing with it if there is a problem, I just replace the ink cartridge.
I end up with a cheap printer, that provides high quality output. The only downside is the costly cartridges, but even then I can buy 3rd party replacements.
And who really cares about the warranty? if it doesn't break right away it probaly won't. And if it does, just buy another, they're dirt cheap.
The ability to print nice color CDROM labels, plus the ability to print photos on demand, makes an inkjet the only way to go for me.
Yes, it costs $40 or so for a pair of new cartridges for my Epson. But I only ever bought one pair, then I refill them. It takes about 10 minutes and costs about $3 to fill both of them.
I don't know about Linus, but the RMS fellow would probaly insist on calling them GNU/Ink
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
I hardly ever buy inkjet cartridges. I use a refill kit with a syringe and it works just fine for me. After a while, the cartridges do wear out, and I have to get a new one, but I save a LOT of money this way. There are a number of places online that sell complete kits with all the materials you need, and even a CDROM with an instructional video. Check it out!
Dog is my co-pilot.
maps, pictures, and birthday cards (I maky my own as it adds that extra personal touch).
Color adds a lot to printed documents and can help a long ways to making printed text more relaxing to read.
Anyways, keep your grey world if you want. I appreciate color in mine.
Do not spread "09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0" over the internet, thank you.
I bought some crappy HP InkJet for $35 dollars because I print precisely 2 pages per month and I didn't want to have to disconnect my wife's Laser from her stupid Macintosh and carry it over to my computer.
The chances of me ever buying a replacement cartridge for this thing are slim. In two years when I run out of ink, I'll just buy a new printer! At $35 bucks, it's less than the cost of the cartridge!
This is not a problem with just the inkjet companies. I recently purchased a Lexmark C710 color laser, and inside was a little note saying that "by the way, we jipped you on toner, these cartridges are good for only 3000 pages, not 10000" (I forget the exact numbers).
Aside from that, it's been a great printer. But I was pretty pissed to find that note. It should have been clearly stated on the web site where I ordered it, on Lexmark's site, and on the outside of the package.
Before I buy a new inkjet, I check the online refill suppliers and make sure that they're reasonably easy to refill. I just don't buy printers that are not easy to refill.
I made an exception for the Epson 870 photo printer, but only after someone figured out how to refill it at all (originally it was not possible, but someone figured out how to cheat). It was good enough to put up with a little bit of hassle in filling the carts (it still only takes about 10 minutes)
The new carts for this printer are about $20 each. However, for $50 I bought enough ink to refill them dozens of times. Just be sure to get a specific formulation for your printer, not one of these Wal-Mart "universal" ink refilling kits.
To dispel some myths before they come up:
I have been refilling for 3 years now, both HP and Epson, probably 30 to 40 cartridge refills, and NOT ONE INSTANCE of a clogged head or anything.
Some people say the ink quality isn't the same. They're right; the aftermarket stuff is BETTER. I have a few dozen photos hanging on the wall behind me printed on the Epson 870. They have all faded in the sunlight a bit, but the ones printed with original Epson ink have faded A LOT more. Another complaint is possible color inaccuracies. I don't know, they look OK to me but I don't have "pantone eyes."
Also, they can't "void your warranty" for using aftermarket inks. Requiring people to buy their ink products for their printers is called "product tying" and is AFAIK an illegal monopolistic practice.
if you think half empty is bad, a friend of mine just bought her first computer, and bought a cheapo 50$ printer, the first thing she tried to do was print some pictures, and they were looking pretty strange, so i go over and take a look at the printer, the black ink cartridge was COMPLETELY empty, the most empty i have ever seen an ink cartridge, there were small minute traces indicated that ink was present in there at one time, but that was it. (btw, yes it was an hp printer, and we live in NC, not minnisota)
"The United States has no right, no desire, and no intention to impose our form of government on anyone else." - Bush 05
http://www.inksupply.com/index.cfm?source=html/cf
The Glass is Too Big: My Take on Things
Uh? From the respective pages: ;^)
specifications
* Ink volume: 19 ml
* Page yield: 450 pages based on 15% coverage
and: specifications
* Ink volume: 38 ml
* Page yield: 970 pages based on 15% coverage
Now, maybe it's because I'm European or something, here, but to me it's pretty easy to see that the large cart's 38 ml is actually more than the budget one's 19. Hopefully, I'm not unique with this ability.
main(O){10<putchar(4^--O?77-(15&5128 >>4*O):10)&&main(2+O);}
What the hell -- I can't bathe in a butter tub either.
This next song is very sad. Please clap along. -- Robin Zander
"guess which division of HP made more money than the other four combined? "
the division that allows me to by a new printer ever 6 months because its cheaper then the ink?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
They key is to use remanufactured toner and inkjet cartridges from a reputable, low-volume company. High-volume companies do a lousy job. Refilled cartridges are also not the same thing as remanufactured cartridges.
A good remanufacturer takes apart the entire cartridge by hand and replaces worn parts. They then fill the cartridge completely full with toner that is often better than what HP/Lexmark/etc use.
I buy toner cartridges from this place in my city. They have a 100% guarantee on their cartridges. However, every cartridge I've gotten from them has been fantastic. I'm not sure of any decent Internet shops, but I believe this small-town shop can ship cartridges also.
Myself, and several of my friends (in different parts of the US) all received a free Mach3 razor right around our 18th birthdays (3 years ago now). Anyone else have the same experience? I figured Selective Service gave them my name, who knows.
What?
I thought about this, but decided that it wasn't likely to work well as fountain pen ink has a different viscosity than inkjet ink. Does it in fact work well?
Dog is my co-pilot.
OK, here we go again. Moderators, think about things before you click the button. When I wrote the post above, there were 0 posts. Thus, I couldn't possibly be posting redundantly. When my comment finally made it to the page, there were already 12 other posts. I wasn't redundant then either. I suspect the redundancy you see is from posts replying to earlier posts than mine, which would make them redundant, not me.
Anyway, to be on topic, I still think that HP is doing no wrong here.
--- Think of it as evolution in action ---
DO you plug your AC? Refrigerator? Compressor?into a UPS ? NO? why not?
Well, the fridge maintains state for a couple of hours so long as you leave the door closed, and the AC isn't that big a deal.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
It's because HP patented their ink-jet cartridge designs. Therefore, unless HP licenses the patent, you won't see any other companies producing them, and HP can charge what they want for them. With printers like Epson's, the ink cartridge is just a tank for the ink, rather than having the print head built into the cartridge like HP's, so you see third-party ink tanks; I buy mine (Epson 980) for ~$7 for black and ~$9 for color (with discounts for buying three or more at a time).
On the other hand, as long as you don't let the cartridge run dry (which will damage the print head), you can refill HP cartridges about a half-dozen times before the print head wears enough to be noticeable. The same place I get replacement Epson tanks from also sells refill kits; a refill kit for the HP 700-1300 series cartridges runs ~$30 and has 2oz each of cyan, magenta, and yellow (enough for 3, 6, or 12 refills, depending on which size color cartridge you're using) and 4oz of black (enough for 3, 5, or 6 refills, depending on which size black cartridge you're using). The same quantity of ink for refilling tanks for my Epson 980 is about $6 cheaper (4 black, 3 color refills), because HP uses pigmented black ink, which is more expensive than the dye-based black ink the Epson printers use.
So you can run the cost of operation down, as long as you're willing to make the effort to load more ink into your existing cartridges.
A lot of the cost of those cartridges seems to be markup at the HP level...
supplies for deskjet 1120c (just to pick a random inkjet).
Granted, Dad's "UPS" is a Trace inverter with a battery array mounted in a 45' Gilig bus, but it will easily run the 'fridge, the microwave, TV, satellite and the furnace (which has a pump for pumping glycol).
The A/C is not possible, but its a 40K BTU unit and will only run off the generator or 50A shore power.
I think its just a question of the size of your UPS (dad's is an array of 8 6V storage batteries) and the capabilities of your inverter to handle the load. Dad says he gets about 3-5 days in mild weather of "normal" living -- lighting, fridge, TV/Sat, and water pump without shore power, the generator or running the engine (which also charges the battery array).
If you bought a $100 UPS, I wouldn't plug my cell phone into it to charge. If you bought a $2k UPS that came with decent batteries and inverter, then you might be able to get away with the 10-12A that a big laser printer will demand.
There's nothing magical about compressors and other electric motors other than the current draw; most computer rooms are actually full of electric motors (fans, disk drives, tape drives). It's just that the UPS are sized to meet those loads.
Carly Fiorina: Leading the way in abusing us.
(There are probably some people who don't know she is CEO of Hew-Paq.)
My local Office Max has an inkjet printer for $20 in every weekly flier (after rebates and never the same brand).
When a cartridge runs out of ink I just throw the printer away and buy whatever $20 job they have this week.
Actually, this week they've dropped to $10 after rebate.
Let's see: $10 printer every three months or $150 printer + $50 cartridge every three months.
And the quality is fine for crappy web pics (even scanned pics folks send) and business letters.
obviously no deficiencies vs. no obvious deficiencies
Look at the side of a Maxwell House can. That's a coffee cup. It's also a tea cup, for that matter. Cups like these, typically holding five or six ounces are the standard for coffee, established back in the day (watch Lucy and Ricky or the Cleavers drink coffee -- back then mugs were for stevedores), even though most people these days use mugs. Goofy? Sure, but if they're refunding you it's because it's easier, not because they'd lose.
Oh, and the measured cup is, of course, eight ounces, but that's not the same thing -- the spoon you use to stir your tea isn't guaranteed to measure one teaspoon either, and my shoes don't have to accomodate twelve inch feet.
This next song is very sad. Please clap along. -- Robin Zander
Actually a mb (millibit) is 1/1000th of a bit (that's not even possible, is it?). A MB is 1000 bytes. No really, it is!
Carpe Cerevisi - Seize the Beer
Don't you just hate how the "R" cartridge runs out before the others? Happens a lot with Slashdot because they use so many words.
I had just stocked up on about 30 carts for my epson 740 that I bought from a friend (along with a revision a imac) for a hundred bucks. The day the package arrived from "ink cars are us", I had taken the printer down from the shelf and while answering the phone in the next room, my dog pissed on the printer. I took it as a sign from God. I threw out the printer, Gave the carts to the x wife (let her have the karma) and bought an Ethernet laser the next day.
It's cases like these half-filled ink cartridges that may result pretty soon in a major investigation by the Federal Trade Commission over policies in regards to ink cartridges for inkjet printers.
This may result in companies like Canon, Epson, HP, and Lexmark being sued for violating the Clayton Antitrust Act due to tying issues (e.g., customer is forced to buy replacement part only from one manufacturer). We may end up seeing all four companies being forced to license inkjet cartridge production to approved third parties, which will drastically reduce the cost of replacement cartridges.
(By the way, in regards to the razors, a number of third parties have been making razor refill blades that fit razors built by both Gillette and Schick for some years.)
Raymond in Mountain View, CA
It's because HP patented their ink-jet cartridge designs.
However, HP runs the very risk of being sued in a manner similar to the famous U.S. v. United Shoe Corporation case (1941), where the courts ruled that a company cannot use its patents to eliminate competition. It's the same problem that will now pester Rambus with the SDRAM patents.
Raymond in Mountain View, CA
Apparently the other replies to this didn't understand what he was saying, and instead posting comments calling the parent a dumbass.
He is pointing out that they sell 2 different products, using the same packaging, but one of them is only filled half way. It'd be like selling half gallons of milk in gallon containers, but only filling them halfway, and then selling 'large size' milk jugs, which are the same as the other ones, but full.
So it looks like you are paying $19 for 18 ml of additional ink, in the same cartridge.
What?
Return it. When you've got a dead cartridge in your hand and you're trying to print out that last minute book report, don't despair. Head over to Best Buy and pick up a new cartridge. Then, spray a bottle of typewriter ink liberally all over the old cartridge and (optionally) your hands and arms. Head back to the store and accuse them of selling you a defective cartridge, which exploded (and thus drained all of its ink) when you installed it. Voila! You will have a new cartridge for free.
There's a word for this: FRAUD. It's the moral equivalent of putting a cockroach in your yogurt and then trying to sue the yogurt company. Shame on you for suggesting a _criminal activity_ to the innocent, pure-as-lambs Slashdot community!
Freedom: "I won't!"
Yea -- it is a hard decision, every time my wife drains the color & black carts on her inket:
Black Cart replace: $25
Color Cart(s) replace: 3 x $12 = $36
Total: $61
Cost of brand new printer: $55 - $150
Imagine having to pay 40% of the price of a car every time you filled the gas tank.
(+1 Funny) only if I laugh out loud.
Remove the cheap solvent, and, by weight, inkjet ink is more expensive than gold.
I think that the "12-cups" they are referring to are measuring cups.
There is no true standard coffee cup: I have "standard" coffee mugs that range in size by 2-3 ounces.
Think of it this way: if you are making a loaf of bread, and it calls for 3/4 cup of buttermilk, you wouldn't grab a coffee mug to measure it, but a measuring cup.
(Oh! And as my wife and sister (two different people!) pointed out to me (that I did, of course, check) liquid cup is slightly larger than a solid cup--you can't use the same vessel to measure the flour for that bread)
My panasonic dot matrix has never quit.
/dev/hda >> /dev/lp0
I just shove in a $2 cartride, and type:
cat
It is as simple as that.
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
I just want to know if any of you have come across this scam:
(I have seen this happen 3 times in my career in IT)
You get a call from some one, they find out that you are in charge of purchasing for you IT dept in your co. They tell you that they are going to send you your free gift! a small tv or some such thing. If you accept this gift - they send you a pallat (sp?) of laser printer toner cartridges and try to charge you like $200.00 each.
They bill you and try to send you an invoice at some regular interval.
When I first got into IT I mistakenly accepted the seemingly innocent free gift from a vendor and had this happen. They had told me that they were an authorized HP cartridge re-manufacturer, and that the toner cartridges containg high quality super fine toner which yeilded over a thousand more pages per cartridge (no - I did not fall for this BS as i will explain) - they continued on the superiority of their re-furbished crap... I was very wise/lucky to basically record the conversation in transcript form in notepad....
I told them I did not want to buy any of their cartridges - but sure I would accept the free gift that they wanted to send me regardles... big mistake. They sent the free gift all right - right along with half a pallet of the toner cartridges i didnt want.
So I accepted the gift, but refused delivery of the pallet. but the delivery guy was apparently giving instructions not to take no for an answer and would not accept the refusal of delivery. and left me with the pallet - and the invoice for a few thousand dollars.
I was pissed off... luckily I had the entire ordeal meticulously documented... for some reason I felt the whole thing was fishy and kept very good notes.
being that the company said that they were one of the few nationally certified and autorized HP cartridge manufacturers - and that the delivery of the toner carts was total BS - and that they were charging over 200 per toner I was pissed off.
I called up HP and asked about their authorizing such shady companies - I was informed by HP that there was nbo such thing as an auth'd cartridge remanufacturer... and they forwarded me to their legal dept. I talked with them about the whole thing... emailed the transcripts of the whole ordeal - and they sent someone next day to pick up the pallet of illegal cartridges (but said I could keep two or three for my troubles)\
Then since we never paid the invoice to the con company - they called up demanding their money. I told them that I would be happy to pay them - if they could prove that they were authorized HP remanufacturers (I dont remember exactly why - but HP said that I should not tell them that I had reported them until they gave me the go ahead... they said to give them the run around on the invoice for a few weeks - and they would contact me and tell me when they had completed their investigation)
they called every single day trying to get payment out of us. Then they sent us another pallet of toner carts - that HP galdly picked up again the next day.
Finally I had the pleasure of telling the guys on the other end of the line that I ahd documented every last detail - including them verifying their mailing address 3 times for payment of the invoice and had reported them to HP and the BBB and the state attorney general for fraud. You should have heard the guy on the other end - he went stark raving mad into a panic - especially after I was able to document exact conversations and every single time they called me.
They claimed that what I did was illegal and that I should be prepared to be sued "big time" by them. They never called me again....
But ! some others tried to get in on the game a few years later. I received calls where they said "Hi, sam - we would like to send you your free gift!" I would ask them what company they were from, get them to repeat and verify their company name a few times - then laugh and tell them I knew their scam and that I was calling the Ca state attorney general - they would promptly hang up.
Anyone else seen this scam before?
In one of those kits of free stuff you get when you buy your textbooks, there was a disposable razor with a single blade. I'd call that "half empty," given that most razors use two or three blades. (Took it on a trip...damn thing was the biggest POS. It nearly chewed up my face the first time I used it. It went in the garbage after one use and I picked up a Mach 3 at a store to put with all of my travel stuff.)
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
Many printer manufacturers do this, and not just with inkjet carts. I bought a Samsung budget laser, and it's cart was only half full as well. That being said, I still don't think it is right, and I would discourage any company from doing it. It is nothing more than a low way to sell more carts.
Moon Macrosystems. Sun's biggest competitor.
I have an HP and tend to print most of my documents in draft mode. For most intents and purposes, especially for text documents, it is is perfectly sufficient. Since the print head seems to pass twice for high quality, I would guess that I am on average doubling the life of my ink cartridge. If I need something to dazzle then the high quality mode is there when I need it.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
Yes, the argument is that this isn't clear to the consumer. Especially when it is labelled 'economy' or 'refill' which implies something very different. They should be clearly labelled as 'Small' and 'Large' or something along those lines. I guess people should just be as careful with print cartridges as they are with food and actually read the labels. Or maybe they should have a price per ml listing like they do with most food items.
What?
I find it very ironic that you would close off with the above statement, after admitting that you used a digital camera during a "professional" photoshoot. Real professional photographers still use slide (a.k.a., "colour reversal") film.
Digital pictures look just fine, as long as you don't blow up to anything bigger than a 5 x 7. At 8 x 10, you start to detect pixelation with the naked eye (you'd need a loupe to see the grain in the 5 x 7). Anything bigger than an 8 x 10 is goign to be very obviously of lower quality, when compared side-by-side with a professionally done print from a slide.
Slide film images are roughly equivalent to about 50 megabytes of high-resolution data. Obviously, a 3+ megapixel digital can't compete.
Like woodworking? Build your own picture frames.
>guess which division of HP made more money than >the other four combined?
As guess who makes LaserJet's? It's Canon. Not sure if they also make the InkJets.
Funny, the best consumer product HP sells IMHO is the LaserJet and Canon actually makes it.
The inkjet printer industry has always seemed to use the old "Snag 'em with the razors, gouge 'em on the blades" business model. The printer chassis was surprisingly inexpensive, while replacement inkjet carts were disproportinately high.
The practice of 'shorting' the included carts is what they're being sued over - since the "economy" lable seems to imply a "good value" for the customer, not "we only half filled the cart so you'll have to buy a new one soon!"
It's not about the difference between inkjet v. laser. It's about deceptive labeling.
Never attribute to malice what can as easily be the result of incompetence...
Heh... I know what you mean, I really do. I just lost my job last Thursday due to "budget cuts" (after 6 years of doing computer support for them!) - but despite that, they have not one, not two, but *3* office managers who insist on printing just about everything to a color laser printer just so their Excel spreadsheets can have little yellow and green boxes instead of greyscale, and so the emails they print can have URLs and such printed in blue.
Then, they used to throw a fit when I told them they needed to buy a new fuser or imaging unit for the printer, at hundreds of dollars a pop.
(That doesn't seem right! We just replaced some expensive stuff on that printer a few months ago! Are you sure about that?)
Oh, so that economy car in front of my house is a "jumbo"?
This next song is very sad. Please clap along. -- Robin Zander
One of our clients is a real estate appraisal firm and they routinely include color photos of the property along with their appraisal report. Like many new businesses, they started with two computers networked together with one inkjet printer between them. As they grew they just added workstations and printers until, by the time they asked us to fix things, they had files everywhere in various stages of completion and a $300 per month cartridge bill!
We did two things. First, we installed a Dell server running Linux to be their file server and mapped all their "my documents" subdirectories to a directory on this box.
The second thing we did was install an HP color laser printer with a network interface and point to it for default from every machine in the place.
Savings? Everything paid for in just over one year!
No one ever had to evacuate a city because the solar panels broke!
...to sell half-full ink cartridges with new printers. I just bought an Epson C80 and I'm sure that the ink cartridges that came with it are of the 'economy' class.
What bothers me more than that is that Epson puts microchips into their cartridges so that "the user can get more information about the state of the cartridges." I'm sure that the side-effect of not allowing me to refill the cartridges was an oversight. Yeah, right.
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
If HP included a full inkjet cart, I'd just throw my old DeskJet away and buy a new one when I ran out of ink!
I don't know about CompUSA/Best Buy/etc... but at the (nationwide) office supply retailer I work for (who shall remain nameless), we don't make all that much on them.
For example, HP's 45A inkjet cartridge sells for $29.98. Last I checked, our cost for it (what the company pays for it) is about $26.50. That's little compared to how much HP makes off them, which according to our HP rep. is something like 60% more than what they cost to manufacture.
The standard should be increased to 25A or 30A in all rooms.
Switch to compact flourescent bulbs and you'll trip your breaker less often. My two 15A circuits were supporting 18 100W incandescant bulbs, which together drew around 12A. Since I replaced all the 100W bulbs with 25W flourescents, I haven't tripped the breakers once.
A huge difference with what HP is doing is that the auto manufacturer is not also the sole warranty-accepted source of gasoline for your new car.
I do not deploy Linux. Ever.
Good advice on how to get into that free country club called jail!
Nope. Wouldn't work. If you want to get into a country club prison, you have to steal at least a few million. This is petty and will get you thrown in a really crappy prison reserved for people with less ambition in life.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
This is not entirely true. My family had a potrait done this christmas and the photographer used some sort of didgital camera hooked directly to a G4 tower via firewire. I can't remember the brand of the cammera, I didn't recognize it but the pictures it produced were amazing. They don't look quite as good printed as they did on his 21' monitor but even 8X10s and larger look great. IIRC the images took about 45 secs each to get to the G4 from the cammera via firewire so they must have been friggin huge
Great for businesses with high print volumes.
I personally replaced my defunct HP 550C inkjet with a Panasonic KX-P7110 laser. It's network enabled, duplex and will do 4,000 pages for the cost of 150 pages on an inkjet.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
Photo snob. His object was obviously to reduce costs. "Real photographers only use real film" is as ignorant a statement as "real programmers don't use MS-Windows".
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Clearly the man who wrote this has never flown economy class, or spent the night at an Econo-Lodge.
This next song is very sad. Please clap along. -- Robin Zander
I buy Office Depot premium glossy paper, which I like very much. At full retail, it's $45 per 100 sheets, but it's often on sale for $25. With refilled carts, I can print a full 8.5 x 11 for about 35 cents. I can fit THREE 4 x 6's on there.
Sure, if I bought HP paper at 80 cents a sheet, and used OEM carts, it'd cost me well over $1 per sheet.
I do still go to Wal-Mart or the local photo lab for archival prints though. The inkjet is just for proofs, or if I need a print right away, or for stuff to thumbtack to my wall at work.
Wal-Mart and most small printers with digital-equipped printers have now surpassed the online places for price. Also convenience; I dump the photos I want onto an old 32MB CF card, drop it off on the way to work, and pick up my prints at lunch. I'm paying 30 cents, less for large quantities. Wal-Mart is 26 cents but you never know what idiot is going to be running the printer.
Well a new store opened in town with Inkjet printers on sale at $69 AUD each. Cartridge for same? $65 AUD each...
So I bought a near new 600 dpi postscript network laser printer for $250 AUD.
Xix.
"Everything is adjustable, provided you have the right tools"
Lew Platt, Hewlett-Packard's former CEO, was not a management wonder, but Ms. Fiorina is worse. She just cannot handle the job. She does not have sufficient technical background, for example. At present, one of the most common reasons for corporate failure is thinking that a good salesperson with little technical understanding can manage a high-tech company.
Ms. Fiorina's bad judgement at her previous job didn't become apparent until after she was already working for HP. When you work at that level, however, failure is successful. This [undated] Time Magazine story says she is worth $2.2 Billion dollars: Carly Fiorina, Makeover Artist. $2.2 Billion!
Ms. Fiorina was previously at Lucent. A January 12, 2002, Detroit News article, New chief for Lucent [Patricia Russo] is exception to numerous departures, tells of Lucent's problems. A lot of Lucent stories are filled with positive spin, but obviously something is very wrong. Apparently Ms. Fiorina led Lucent to overspend seriously on investment in communications. Again apparently, the new debt has crippled the company, making it a difficult place to work.
The September, 2001, BBC News article, Profile: HP's Carly Fiorina, mentions an interesting fact: "... she has consolidated her power, now holding down the jobs of chief executive, president and chairwoman - the only woman to control all three top jobs at a major tech firm." Maybe someone who merely wants to have all three top jobs should be considered incompetent.
The BBC News article also says, "A Business Week cover story in February [2001] concluded that she was 'gambling with Silicon Valley's proudest legacy' - and that was before she unveiled an 89% profits slump..."
Yes, that is true, but now that everyone has gotten it right, including the refillers, the price should be far less. The cost of the solvent is very small. The price charged for the remaining ingredients is outrageous; the remaining ingredients are not as rare as some chemicals in the human body, as is shown by the fact that the refillers sometimes have better ink than the originals.
the only decent InkJet I own is an old one, a HP DeskJet 500c, no USB crap, no Winprinter crap, just a real postscript printer that does fast black and white, and crappy color, didnt hurt that I got it for free.
"The United States has no right, no desire, and no intention to impose our form of government on anyone else." - Bush 05
A half-empty cartridge, like a half-keg of beer or a split of champagne, is less expensive to buy, although not to use. (I know people, BTW, who swear that econoboxes cost more to operate -- cheaply built, they say, and requiring more maintenance than a full-size, full-price car, with its heavier and more durable parts.)
I haven't looked in quite a while, but printers used to say that they had "starter" carts, which certainly made the point that they were different from regular ones. Is that still the case?
This next song is very sad. Please clap along. -- Robin Zander
You know, I was thinking of sushi when I wrote that, but really, even that is hardly pulling out a fish and biting off the head. There's a lot of work that can really only be called "cooking", except that it doesn't involve heat, in that raw fish. After all, the guy behind the counter is a "sushi chef", not a "fishmonger".
This next song is very sad. Please clap along. -- Robin Zander
actually i am telling the total truth - so dont get all riled up....
you are right the BB sucks major ass. but again this was early in my IT days... i followed every route.
and yes HP said i could keep some of the toner cartridges. Dork in no place did I recommend people to accept shitty ass scam orders like this.