OT How useless is tech support these days..

[Leon]

Which one/s are you using, Brother laser?

[Bill]

I guess coming up with rhymes for "Comcast" is like shooting fish in a barrel. I think they are one of the "most-hated" companies (there is a survey out there somewhere).

[Bill]

I think the reason is they are striving stay a step a head of the companies who would sell generic ink cartridges. I think (know) they are even putting microchips in some of them now so they "expire" after a certain amount of time. HP knows that the profit is in the "ink" not the printer. I think the consumer is smart to bear that in mind too (only in reverse).

Bill

[Bill]

I found mine "evaporated".

[Larry Blanchard]

The B&W is an HL5250DN (prints both sides). The color is an HL3070CW. Neither are current models, in fact I bought the color one refurbished. I suspect this one is as well:

[krw]

The HP's hardware is excellent. The software is a nightmare and getting worse.

[Doug Winterburn]

I have a Brother HL-2040 and an HP F4280 - both cheap as hell and both work fine. Having said that, they are both on my linux server and scanning and printing are no problem over the home network.

[clare]

Brother had them ages ago. I used Canon printers for over 10 years, through the Pixmo 3000 and

6000 series. Each model got worse, untill the 6500 series when I quit using them ( half of the 35 I had in use either didn't make it through warranty or failed within a month after warranty.) I switched to OfficeJet Pro 8000 from HP. We've had a few print head failures and 2 have been damaged by operators pulling stuck paper out backwards.

Can't buy any more new ones, so I've been buying used on e-bay.

Anyone's "cheap" printers are junk - and Canon decided "cheap" was easier to sell than "good". At least HP still gives you a (limitted) choice.

[clare]

The Xerox solid ink laser is not a laser - it is a dye sublimation printer. I've been closely associated with 2 of them. Under moderate use, both got expensive real fast - and both had numerous memory failures, and both had the main boards replaced under warranty. Both have been scrapped for several years now.

[clare]

I refill about 70 HP 940XL tanks every month.

[clare]

I had the same problem with my Canon scanner - which is how I ended up with the HP- - - - - - -

[clare]

I have Officejet pro 8000 printers with hundreds of thousands of copies on them, without any issues.

>

[clare]

I refill the 940XLs untill they time out (usually about 2 1/2 years) then buy new ones, and refill them untill THEY run out. $4/oz for black, $8 per oz for colour.

[clare]

Lexmark is what WAS IBM. Kinda the Lenovo of printers.

My favorite printer of all time is the old OkiData. Their dot matrix printers were jackhammers. The OL400 and 800 were EXCELLENT laser class printers - (used LED instead of lazer and rotating mirror) Mine did all my office printing for 14 years. Had numerous inkjets for colour printing around the house over that period of time.

[Leon]

Most any cartridge can be refilled more cheaply than buying a generic cartridge. I think the planned obsolesce is more likely the situation.

While the profit is certainly in the ink, changing designs of cartridges still makes for ink sales on top of more printer sales and additional ink sales as most every one looking to buy a new printer has spare cartridges that will never be used.

[Leon]

I suspected that you may have models that have been discontinued. ;~(

Thank you just the same, good to hear that Brother is still getting good reviews. I should be receiving my new print head and ink cartridges from Lexmark tomorrow. I still have almost 2 years of warranty left but this print head issue is becoming more trouble that it is worth.

[Bill]

So we could say, they are doing it so that the ink cartridges are not "commodotized"--improving the pricing perspective. Same game--follow the money.

[Bill]

Kreg would never do that with their "joinery jig" product, would they? Upgrade the unit, all of the parts incompatible with the old? They wouldn't, right?

[Leon]

Precisely!

[Leon]

LOL. Well, their screws/ink cartridges will work in conjunction with any model pocket hole jig/printer regardless of model. ;~)