{"id":220,"date":"2019-04-23T21:11:39","date_gmt":"2019-04-24T00:11:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/productrevue.ca\/?p=220"},"modified":"2019-05-02T12:15:14","modified_gmt":"2019-05-02T15:15:14","slug":"why-not-hp-printers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/productrevue.ca\/index.php\/2019\/04\/23\/why-not-hp-printers\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Not HP Printers"},"content":{"rendered":"

I just published the in-depth review<\/a> of the Brother MFC-J6945DW printer that I’ve been working on for almost a month.\u00a0 In the review, I compare it to other similar printers on the market and list other contenders I considered.\u00a0 Conspicuously missing in the review is any mention of HP printers.\u00a0 I want to get into the reasons for that here.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

HP started out as a company I really respected.\u00a0 Whether it was their original LaserJets printers, mid aughts business inkjets, or their HP\/UX workstations and servers that had stronger frames than a HumVee, they were a company that was serious about making products that were engineered to last.\u00a0 When my brother and I took a stab at our own business, I bought three used LaserJet III printers and then ran them continuously on refilled toner for, I’m sure, 20,000 pages of flyers each in a month.\u00a0 If I hadn’t needed to get rid of them for weight and space reasons, they would still be working.\u00a0 Those old LaserJets were easy to repair and could be kept operating forever.\u00a0 Fast forward a few years to the mid 2000’s when I picked up an HP OfficeJet Pro K5400DN.\u00a0 It has aftermarket extended cartridges and over the last 12 years has been dragged back from the brink of death at the hands of my kids more than once.\u00a0 Replaceable printheads meant the printheads could also be removed and refurbished with ease.<\/p>\n

From a consumer perspective, though, it feels like HP has lost their way.\u00a0 Cost, control, and reliability are the reasons why.<\/p>\n

Cost<\/h2>\n

Although it’s Lexmark that first pioneered the practice, HP has turned bilking customers on ink sales into an art form (interestingly, it didn’t end up working so well for Lexmark, who exited the inkjet market in 2012).\u00a0 HP’s price per page has gotten steadily worse and is now just north of robbery.\u00a0 The only way to get genuine ink for anything like reasonable prices is to sign up for, essentially, a service contract where you pay a monthly fee for the number of pages you want to print.\u00a0 You pay whether you use the pages or not, though.\u00a0 And a page with one line on it is a page.\u00a0 “Software as a Service” has the software industry twitterpated.\u00a0 Printing as a Service is HP’s mantra.\u00a0 When I see HP now what comes to mind is Thenardier from Les Mis belting out “but first…. YOU PAY!”<\/p>\n

Control<\/h2>\n

Let’s say you do sign up for their “printing-as-a-service” ink program.\u00a0 You might think you own those cartridges HP sends you.\u00a0 Think again.\u00a0 HP owns them, and basically owns your printer to boot.\u00a0 The ink cartridges you get are actually locked out for use on any other printer.\u00a0 They are locked to your printer’s serial number and can only be used there.\u00a0 In addition, HP gets information on everything you print.\u00a0 Do the printers communicate this securely?\u00a0 Damfino.\u00a0 HP sees everything you print and controls how you can use your ink.\u00a0 They control how many pages you can have and what constitutes a page.\u00a0 It’s really kinda big brother.<\/p>\n

Reliability<\/h2>\n

All of the big four printer manufacturers (HP, Brother, Epson, and Canon) have at least flirted with ink-tank printers.\u00a0 Interestingly, the only two who have made a serious go of it world wide are Brother and Epson;\u00a0 who are notably the two manufacturers who use reliable piezo print head technology.\u00a0 Canon has a couple ink tank printers, but hasn’t really committed to it.\u00a0 HP has done it in other markets but not here.\u00a0 In North America they have shied away from this concept like a prisoner from a torturer’s branding iron.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 Well, for one thing HP is, of course, addicted to the money they make on business ink sales.\u00a0 But I suspect the other reason is reliability.\u00a0 An ink-tank printer implies not just low price-per-page but also long-term reliability.<\/p>\n

Thermal ink jet print heads send current through a tiny resistor to heat it up and vaporize a bubble of ink.\u00a0 Like the bottom of your tea pot, when this tiny bit of ink is vapourized, it leaves behind a residue.\u00a0 They require ink to flow through and wash this off periodically but that doesn’t always work and they are much more prone to clogging over the long term.\u00a0 Their inks have to be very carefully formulated for solubility.\u00a0 This is also why pigmented inks have been troublesome for HP and Canon.\u00a0 They have both come a huge way in print quality, so much so that they may now be superior to Brother and Epson on that front.\u00a0 But in my experience, HP and Canon print heads just don’t last.<\/p>\n

HP used to put replaceable print heads on most of their higher-end printers.\u00a0 Those printers where the heads weren’t built into the ink cartridge, at least, and just for that reason of reliability.\u00a0 This is becoming more and more of a rarity, though.\u00a0 Even on their higher end printers, the ones where they ostensibly aren’t subsidizing the printer cost with future ink sales, their print heads are fixed.\u00a0 I refuse to treat my printer as a disposable item.<\/p>\n

Conclusion<\/h2>\n

I have had great experiences with HP printers.\u00a0 Great old LaserJets, a 12-year-old OfficeJet Pro that still works, a photo printer I gave to my daughter… I loved HP.\u00a0 The last one I bought from them, though, made me take a long hard look at them as a company.\u00a0 It was an OfficeJet 7610, and it was an unmitigated disaster.\u00a0 Two disasters, actually, since I set up a friend of mine with one for his restaurant business too, and which was just as much of a disaster for him.\u00a0 The black ink leaked out the print head when it wasn’t printing, the colour inks wouldn’t flow, and the cartridges were a fortune.\u00a0 The drivers for it were cut-down and had almost no controllability – I ended up forcing my printer to use the drivers from my 12-year-old printer (PCL 6 to the rescue) because they let me control everything.\u00a0 It was philosophizing on the reasons why this printer was so terrible that lead me to the realization that they have lost their way.\u00a0 Now, am I sour grapes because of one bad experience?\u00a0 To some extent, of course I am.\u00a0 The question remains, am I blinded by my own uniquely bad experience, or did I have a bad experience due to a real trend.\u00a0 That is up to you to decide.<\/p>\n

In my view, though, HP is more and more becoming the Microsoft of the printer world.\u00a0 The business model they want is “printing as a service”.\u00a0 Which means contracts and monthly charges.\u00a0 It also means that long-term reliability isn’t necessarily even in their best interest.\u00a0 They want you on contract, not going it alone.\u00a0 It’s for this reason that, unless they make some significant changes, their offerings will likely not even make it onto my radar any time soon.\u00a0 And I don’t think I’m alone.\u00a0 A company can trade on its goodwill and name for only so long.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I just published the in-depth review of the Brother MFC-J6945DW printer that I’ve been working on for almost a month.\u00a0 In the review, I compare it to other similar printers on the market and list other contenders I considered.\u00a0 Conspicuously missing in the review is any mention of HP printers.\u00a0 I want to get into … <\/p>\n

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