Fed up with the reliability of HPs printers (Talking about the sub =A3300 market here.) which seem to have gone down the tubes recently. We've had 2 DOAs and at least 3 die within 6 months. Dealing with their "Customer Support" is enough to give you severly raised blood pressure. It's a pity, as i've been buying their kit and finding it very reliable for years prior to this.
What brands are people having success with these days, or has the downward trend in prices meant that they are all going the same way?
I got fed up with the running costs of my not much used inkjet - seemed to use more ink in cleaning than printing - and bought a Samsung ML-2240 mono laser printer from CPC for 42.50 plus VAT. If you're a fairly heavy user at that price they might be considered as disposable.
Particularly impressive is the paper handling. We print manuals on ours - double sided A4. The built-in duplex is slow but we run "Print odd pages" then turn them over and run "Print even pages" - it's much quicker that way.
I was telling someone only yesterday that, in the 15 months we've had the Pixma - during which time we've printed several hundred double sided 60 page manuals on it - the paper pick-up has not failed once.
That's probably cursed it now but that level of reliability is great. If you can't rely on the paper pick-up, you have to watch every page get printed or be prepared to ditch a whole load of manuals (we print three at a time) because a page has been missed and the wrong even pages have been printed on the back of the odd pages.
And, whilst on the subject, I have no association with them other than as customer but I can heartily recommend ink.co.uk
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cartridges at 0.37p instead of £10 makes an enormous difference to the running costs though we use their more expensive (£1.47!) cartridges that dry that bit quicker which is important for us.
When we look at new printers, we always draw up a short list and then research the prices of compatible cartridges. All other things being equal, the cartridge price is the decider - probably saving a thousand pounds a year in running costs.
I picked up a 5MP for 25 quid, which is ore than a new toner costs for em, after the cat peed on the old one.
Old HP stuff is stunningly good. Its this modern brand destruction cheap inkjet crap that is to be avoided. Its meant for rock bottom purchase price consumers, use 5 times and throw away stuff.
You need to mpay mire for a reliable office class machine. Or buy old stuff.
I bought a Samsung ML1510 a few years ago when they were "half price" for =A350 in Staples and I can't fault it. A new toner cartridge can cost more than the printer did.
Are laset refill kits any good? I probably use about 1 cartridge a year.
What he said. I think my 5MP was 30 quid, and the toner that came in it lasted me over a year. About the only downside is that it only does Postscript 2.
Yes and no. I did get one once, but on my machine - HP LJ5MP - the drum gets replaced with the toner, and on that refill the drum went squiffy before the ink ran out.
Friend virtually wrecked a huge Ricoh A3 color laser using refilled cartridges..all the ink wouldn't fuse properly. clogged something up.
So once every 18 months I get a new £60 quid toner/drum from HP, and regard that as running costs for the 5 reams put through it.
They do give you a box to send it back FOC as well..the empty one.
And who allowed the world's No 5 computer company to walk away with the HP brand name, leaving the world's No 1 test equipment company to find a new one?
But the Agilent board had only themselves to blame for picking that particular name (anagrams, anyone?). Then a few years later, to prove it wasn't a fluke, they renamed their semiconductor operation "Avago".
Over the past few years we have found that the camera, scanner and inkjet that best met our needs all came from Canon. The only exception is the old HP LJ4+ which just keeps on going.
Talk to Cartridge world. I use them for a school with a £2k annual consumables budget and find them reliable and helpful with cartridges (ink and laser) at around half manufacturers recommended. They deal with problems immediatelty, teplacing faulty cartridges. Having said that they are afranchise operation and I may have struck lucky. I will not buy a printer without talking to them about the availability of refills. They also supply printers at competative prices.
I agree that the Canon Pixma series are good value with reasonable priced refills (around £4 with a quick drying ink
I'm terribly sorry about that - and completely baffled.
I should say immediately that I've never had a problem with them or their site.
I've just visited it, and used the tinyurl, using Firefox 3.0.3, IE 7 and 8 on both Vista and XP loaded with so many anti-virus / defender / resident shield/ firewalls that they drive me mad sometimes and yet I can't get a squeek out of any of them.
I've emailed them to see what ink.co.uk say - and I'll report back once I get a reply.
Shame 'cos I've found them to be really good value and, as I say, they have been no problem at all.
I get the feeling the OP doesn't want another HP within 100yds of his place. B-) Mind you he doesn't say what type of HP printer has given s= o much grief so I assigned the post to the spam/troll category.
The only reason I'm responding is because I saw that offer and am half i= n the market for a colour laser. I tried to find more information about th= at printer and failed on the number given from Aldi CP1514 (with or without= the N), which makes me suspicious that it is some sort of "special" from= HP. Now it might be identical to another number printer or it might not.= ..
I get the feeling the OP doesn't want another HP within 100yds of his place. B-) Mind you he doesn't say what type of HP printer has given so much grief so I assigned the post to the spam/troll category.
The only reason I'm responding is because I saw that offer and am half in the market for a colour laser. I tried to find more information about that printer and failed on the number given from Aldi CP1514 (with or without the N), which makes me suspicious that it is some sort of "special" from HP. Now it might be identical to another number printer or it might not...
I have been very unimpressed with Cartridge World's laser toner cartridges. On my 600 dpi HP printer they give very poor quality prints that lack the deep blacks and fine detail of the HP toner.
However, I was impressed with Cartridge World's response; I obtained a
100% credit for the part-used recycled toner cartridge against a new HP cartridge. The HP cartridge is excellent.
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