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Dell Takes the Low Road Regarding Ink Cartridges
Anonymous Coward writes "Dell released a line of printers today, manufactured by Lexmark. As covered by by Yahoo they '..contain a chip that disables the cartridge if it is refilled and replaced in a Dell printer..' and 'The cartridges are different sizes than cartridges from other printer vendors, including Lexmark, the spokesperson said. This will limit the amount of knockoff cartridges available, but only until someone figures out how to reverse engineer Dell's cartridges.'" In the interest of full disclosure, note that the poster sells knockoff carts.
Saying that Dell taking the low road by preventing the sale of third party ink cartriges would be akin to saying the same of Microsoft and the X-Box. Dell sells printers at close to cost, making up for it because of package deals and the extra sales of their proprietary cartridges. Don't knock them for trying to make their money back.
Have you been stalked by Seth today?
Dell has released an extremely cheap printer. This extremely cheap printer uses ink cartridges which create a revenue stream for Dell, but also wear out and stop functioning to spec after a certain amount of time.
Some third party is upset that they cannot refill those cartridges, even though they were not designed to be refilled, and are at the end of their lives.
Consumers have a multitude of options regarding printing technology, at widely varying costs per page. Dell's decision has not eliminated any of the other suppliers or technologies.
In short, unless you manufacture inkjet refill kits, don't worry about this, it doesn't matter and it would change your life in the least.
I am not the only one who realizes that it's cheaper to buy a new printer than a set of replacement catridges.
So, what do you think happens to the old printer? it gets tossed; and then it gets dumped in a landfill or china - neither is a very good option.
I don't see how does that *not* impact my life.
Besides, environmental issues aside, while cheap, printers DO COST MONEY TO MAKE, and throwing them away because the manufactures decides on a fucked-up business model only drives up the cost eventually.
I really don't like this model the inkjet people has taken on. I mean, I understand it with games consoles, but the analogy don't really compare. It's like if Xbox costed less than your typical came and always came with coupon for a free game of your choosing - or a car that's so cheap you will buy it for the tank of gas that the dealer gives you. It's not a good business model anywhere else, why would the printer people get all drunk over it?
My life in the land of the rising sun.
Ditto on the lasers blowing the inks out of the water. I've got two lasers at home I picked up on my local county online auction. I picked up an Apple 12/640 for $40 and a Lexmark Optra Lxn+ for $68. Both of them are still on the toner cartridge that was sitting in them when I bought them and print flawlessly. The Apple printer had 6800 pages on it and the Lexmark had 32,000 and they sold them for small change. I felt like a thief picking them up from the county warehouse.
Last inkjet printer I bought sits in the closet waiting for it's next set of cartridges. Every time I think I need to print something in color I price the carts and say "nevermind". That's what cheap printers with expensive ink create. A customer who you make nothing (or next to nothing) off of when you sell him the printer and who never can bring himself to pay for the expensive refills.
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
It's as easy as that. I usually "buy" (i.e.price) the cartridges first.
My dad ran a laser printer cartridge recharge/refurbish business for a while several years ago. IIRC, a lot of printer manufacturers would also collect these old cartridges to do the same and resell them as used. What's preventing Dell/Lexmark/whoever from doing something like this? There's obviously a market for it, they'd save on manufacturing costs and empty cartridges would stay out of the landfills for a while.
Everyone please come down, this is self-regulating capitalism in action. It is well known fact that there are little to no margins in printers themselves. The way Dell is going to make up what is more than likely a loss on the printer itself is to sell printer cartridges. Think of it as a loan, they sell you the printer at or below cost so the consumer does not have to bite the bullet and pay for the full cost of the printer (And the manufactures profit). Consumers like it that way! People like a cheap upfront cost!
It is the exact same way with cellphones, look at the cost of a unlocked (gsm) cellphone compared to the cost of getting the same phone under contract with a cellphone provider that locks you into the use of that one provider. Granted, some people do go for the unlocked phones, but the vast majority are fine with a locked phone from the provider because it is the same phone but much cheaper. Same with DirecTV who eat a loss of somewhere around $200 for each reciever they sell. Oh, and it only works with DirecTV.
If there was a market for printers that used some sort of universal cartrage, someone would make it thanks to capitalism. If you want something close get a laser, there is much less focus on consumables in that market, but of course you are going to pay a much higher upfront cost. (I have a laser and personally I wouldn't use anything else)
If you don't like it don't buy an ink jet printer, and/or make the market known for a inkjet printer that is not subsidised and uses an open design for cartriges, but frankly gripping at length at how Dell is trying to screw the consumer with a perfectly legitiment business model (And one that most consumers like) is not productive and gets quite tiresome.
Think, write, think, edit, think...then post.
" Every time I think I need to print something in color I price the carts and say "nevermind" "
I do the same thing. To take it further, I often opt to not print at all, and instead just scribble down what I want off the screen onto a post-it. If I didn't have a nag in the back of my mind about the cost of ink every time I hear my printer doing the hula, I would print a helluva lot more stuff out. So, in a way, having expensive ink makes me more environmentally friendly. (tongue in cheek)
To get back on topic, Dell and the low road, what exactly would you have them do? Despite people knowing about the money being made on the ink, the first theing they consider when buying a printer is the cost of the printer. Dell can't exactly reverse the trend of the existing market just because they now have their name on a printer. If Dell decided to do the "normal" thing... by charging enough to make a profit on the hardware, then selling the ink for the profit that it is worth, how would they get their printers into the market? People would look at the price of them and say... "um, no".
- a regular cartridge with no lockout chip ($129/$99/$35)
- a "use and return" cartridge with lockout chip ($99/$75/na).
I feel pretty certain that Dell wants to keep you as a cartridge customer, but they aren't locking you in. Oh, and only one of the four printers is an inkjet. The others are lasers. Even better, the inkjet does not include this technology. Bottom line: Dell is getting into the laser printer cartridge refilling business. No wonder the OP is complaining.I'm surprised Dell does this. They don't have the infrastructure to have a relationship like this with the customer - and they won't be able to get stores to stock yet another set of ink cartridges(also, this wouldn't be consistent with Dell's way of operating). So how are customers (especially consumers) going to get their parts in a cheap[1] and timely manner?
[1](well, this is ink and thus a bit expensive... but fedex on single cartridges would make it that much worse)