I've received for repair from a family friend a 6yr old Canon iP2000 Inkjet showing all the signs of soiling its nappy, i.e. the "waste container" is full. Like a fool, I accepted the job of repairing it and had my hand guilded with 60 notes for my trouble. Yup, most of the cost of a new one ...
So off with the covers and a partial strip down, I take a rapid assessment that cleaning congealed multi-manufacturer inks out of the mucky thing out would cost me more than 60 quid in time, soap, bleach and other personal body care products, so it's time to tell the owner about better replacement options.
Or, rather the owners battleaxe wife....
I whimper on the phone,
"your husband has a choice, buy an expensive to run inkjet or a cheap to run laser"
She shrieks,
"a LASER??!!! Oh No!, that sound's horribly expensive and complicated! He's not that good with complicated things as you know. Nope, we will NOT have a laser in the house."
Bah, I blame James Bond and that movie :(
[As an aside, her retired ex-hack husband is (surprisingly) not really too Windows GUI literate, only has application skills in "Windows Mail" and hasn't yet got the hang of cut, copy, drag, paste, minimise, maximise, restore, right click, double click or performing accurate mouse manoeuvres to follow a straight line of text. Hopeless in fact.]So after calming down, and I've drained my diet coke & vodka glass, she asks questions about the ink jets and I stray onto the All-in-One features that are common nowadays. "Oooo, a scanner - Oh, he'll like that!!"
-&-
Damm, I know once installed - this ink jet AiO is going to be the cause of further 'friendly' support grief, as I don't think I've seen one that is really user friendly when it comes down to basic use. The software dialogs can be complicated and mouse accessible only. Which has given me a name of 'Mr TeamViewer' when they phone with other issues, and I end up doing their 'work' for them.
So probably I'm going to be shopping for one with heads built into the cartridge (used in a hot room), a low sticker price, and hopefuly long life and moderately priced consumables. Probably talking of 1000 A4 sheets a year (mostly of printed jokes from email...)
Really, I should cut my losses and suggest they visit PC World for advice...
Canon MP280?