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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.
If Lexmark does it on their own, would Dell's version be any different?
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Free your mind.
I bought my HP laserjet for $240. About the $289 dollar inkjet from Dell. Inkhet printers are typically $200-$100.
After switching to laser I will never go back. I do not need color for most documents and the quality and reliablity are so much better. My epson inkjet blows goatballs and always jams.
http://saveie6.com/
I don't think it will.
As long as most people blindly accept the pap they get from Dell, they will buy printers like this one as well. The end result? Dell sells printers and ties them to the cartidges. They're just looking to capitalize on their place in the market . . . appealing to the ignorant buyers in households who know no better options.
Real markets depend upon easy access of producers and consumers, and an informed consumer on the products of the market. In this case, we have neither; ergo, we have no market. We have another Windoze in the making.
It's situations like this one that make me doubt the "free market."
...tizzyd
The only printer I have working now is the old receipt thermal printer from my former cash register. It's blazingingly fast, but only does 60 columns. And it's really small text. Great for grocery lists, for code not so much. And I only have two rolls of the free Service Merchandise paper left.
Anyway, there's my random thought for the day. Thought I'd share. I think now I'll head over to ebay.
-B
Ash and Hickory, straight-grained and true, make excellent bludgeons, dandy for the cudgeling of vegetarians.
This sort of thing only bothers me when the manufacturer takes action to restrict the customer's ability to use the product as the customer desires, and the customer doesn't realize this until he gets it home.
As long as the customer is made aware of the artificially engineered restrictions, then I figure it's cool. Customers who don't want to accept those restrictions don't have to buy the product. It's not like DeLL has a monopoly on printers.
I knock them (and Lexmark, and many other inkjet manufacturers) for trying to rip people off! They sell printers at below cost and consumers think "Mmmm...what a great deal I am getting", until they find out they have to buy $5 worth of ink for $40.
That's like buying a toaster and later finding out only Black and Decker bread fits in it, which is $10 a loaf. Or like buying a KIA car, then finding out oil it uses costs $20 a litre.
Hmm...this kinda sounds like some software company that everyone complains about that sells their OS for $199 but it only costs them $40 to make.
How do copyrights restrict the manufacturing of printer cartridges?
Simple: incorporate a chip in the ink cartridge that interacts with the printer. This chip is required for the cartridge to be recognized, but it uses some form of encryption, so duplicating it may violate the DMCA. HP has already used these tactics to limit or prevent sale of third party cartridges.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
There is no reason to buy one of these Dell printers when you can buy another brand that doesn't have this "feature." Depending upon what you're printing and how much, it may be worthwhile to invest in a decent laser printer. The price per-page on laser printers is far less than that of inkjet printers. If you print a lot, a laser printer will eventually pay for itself. You do have to be careful of course in what you buy since not all are made the same. I couldn't tell you what to buy right now, but I bought a Lexmark 12ppm laser printer three years ago and I've yet to run out of toner for it. The price was $499 on clearance. When I do need to replace the toner cartridge I can buy 3rd party and refilled cartridges very cheaply. If I want to add more memory to the printer I can do that very cheaply as well because it works with standard 72-pin EDO simms.
Here is a little bit of printer tivia for you. The printer division of HP makes derives 75% of its profits from the sale of ink and toner cartridges. Remember that the next time some company tries to lock you in to buying cartridges from them.
Lee
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
Actually, Canon printers are somewhat more expensive that their Epson equivalents, but have much cheaper running costs due to lower cartridge prices. So some manufacturers are taking the higher inital cost/lower long term cost route.
After dicking aroung with cheap fax machines and flaky fax servers for too long, I bought a Canon laser fax/printer/scanner/copier. Should have done it years ago.
"Eve of Destruction", it's not just for old hippies anymore...
Actually, AT&T owned the entire phone system, including the phone wire in your house! They only made you use their phone instruments because, legally, they were theirs. In the MCI vs. Ma Bell case, they got clobbered over long distance service competition. No longer [owning/being responsible for] the phones and the house wiring was something the Regional Bell Operating Companies that were spun off from AT&T wanted.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
Anyways the analogy is irrelevant, anybody can make gas and anybody can make printer cartriges.
Anybody who buys a printer with proprietary cartriges is a moron. They could double the price of those cartriges tomorrow, and whatcha gonna do about it?
How long before the print heads wear out? Is that a problem at all?
I don't know about current printheads, but I refilled my old Canon BJ200 carts enough times that... well, the printer wore out (twice -- once under warranty, once afterward) before the carts did. The only one I lost was due to bumping and damaging the printhead itself. I used the same 3 carts for about 5 years total.
Generally when they started printing poorly, the only thing wrong was that either the printhead or the print path was dirty. Nothing a good cleaning couldn't fix. I soon learned to swish the printhead in alcohol whenever I refilled the cart, to keep it pristine, and sometimes I'd run a little alcohol thru it prior to refilling.
As to whether some are now *designed* to "wear out", that's another question.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
The problem is that after a point, they've made back their money, and they're just gouging.
A comparable situation is the contract requirements with mobile phones. They rig them in a way that makes them back the subsidy they've given you on the phone, BUT they don't tie you there after they've made their money back.
Possible technical approaches to making the money back without permanently locking in the consumer include:
1-- storing the cartridge chip ID; after some number of different official cartridges are recorded, unlock the printer.
2-- sell only a package of the printer and cartridges at a price that covers costs; additional cartridges are reasonably priced or clonable.
3-- sell the printer at its true cost.
It's just like a fascist dictatorship, without the punctual rail service!