HP Tries to Explain Why Printer Ink is So Expensive

[james_8970]

For $38 my laser printer will print 2,600 pages in black and white. I don't understand why people even use inkjet any more.

 

[james_8970]

I don't even understand why people buy inkjet any more. For $38 I can buy a new high yield OEM Brother toner that'll print 2,600 pages for $38.

 

[shin0bi272]

no HP this is why it costs so much.... From Top Gear

Jeremy: And it's a good job your car doesn't run on bull semen.
Richard: Well it is, yes. But why?
Jeremy: Because you know how much bull semen is?
James: Do you know? I can't remember off the top of my head.
Jeremy: 24,000 pounds a litre.
Richard: No way!
Jeremy: I filled my car up with petrol a couple of months ago, do you know how much that cost?
Richard: Well no...
James: 90 pounds.
Richard: ... big car, 85 pounds.
Jeremy: No! 35,000 pounds.
James: You filled it up with bull sperm you idiot!
James: I reckoned you spent it on bull sperm.
Richard: Did you not notice the pump was different?
Jeremy: [laughing, with the audience laughing as well]
Richard: [imitates a bull noise]. It keeps moving! Now it's chasing me! I don't want it any more.
[audience laughs]

 

[oxxfatelostxxo]

One other thing ppl havnt commented on. Not sure about other companies, but my semi new hp printer actually gives me warnings if i dont change the printer ink by SAID date or that using refilled or generic ink will also VOID my warranty, which is BS.

 

[waethorn]

What's worse about HP is that now they're marketing their business inkjet printers as "cheaper than laser". What does that say about their existing laser printers though? I have an HP Laserjet 2605dn (duplexer and ethernet), and it works great. Problem is, should I stick with laser, or replace it with an inkjet when it gives up? I know the toner cartridges cost a lot, but I've only replaced the toners twice in the 3+ years I've had the thing, and I've gone through several thousand pages. It doesn't have a user-replacement drum unit, so I'm wondering what's going to happen when I reach 10,000 - 25,000 pages on it (which is usually the cutoff for drum units on printers that need to have them replaced).

I love the printer. I've been looking at other models in case I need to replace it, but I got it for a good price too. I don't see any current models with the same specs that are as cheap. I don't want an all-in-one (I have a flatbed scanner that gets turned on maybe once a year), but I'd rather have network printing, and the duplexer.

 

[zodiacfml]

gillette

 

[dEAne]

hp should look for other ways to minimized cost for their ink. I have a lots of bad experience with hp printers, since then I never thought of buying one but maybe in the future hp can change that.

 

[TheDuke]

i use a laser printer now but toner is still expensive but they last longer

 

[pirateboy]

generic refill kits ftw !

 

[omnimodis78]

[citation][nom]drowned[/nom]Inkjets are total scams for people too dumb to spend the upfront cost of a laser printer. I get 3000+ black and white pages out of my $80 laser for $30 a cartridge (generic)...no way any inkjet can compete with that.[/citation]
Actually I don't think I'm dumb at all for using an inkjet - I got through 2 semesters with one pack (1 b/w and 1 colour) replacement and I had to print 30+ pages per week of powerpoint presentations, various text documents, a few personal stuff I needed printing off - oh and ya, I can scan with my printer, and while I'm not claiming that inkjet and laser are on the same playing field, I would die if I had to drop $100 for ONE laser toner. Canon all the way!

 

[Guest]

Buy Brother Printers. Those printers use a really cheap refill cartridges to where you can find a pack of 4 for about $15 on many ink refill websites. Becuase the cartridges also don't use electronics or other expensive ....., you can literally use any refill kits without having to "Reset" the cartridge.

 

[bebangs]

Printer Ink - It super Expensive!
it's $3000 per liter of ink! imagine that.

 

[bison88]

$1 Billion a year on "Ink Research"? Give me a break, who the hell is going to buy such utter ....... Give or take there is some legitimacy but I think its only because all Printer manufacturers want to create a new goddamn cartridge for every damn printer making them PURPOSELY incompatible with one another. I mean, they are still the same freaking colors right? Come on now get real. I'd rather pay $300 for a printer if it meant $5 cartridges and probably would print more. As it is I hardly print unless I have to. Oh and I buy those resold ones online for about 1/3rd the price and its the same quality as far as I can tell.

 

[Blessedman]

I like how he states that showing the amount of liquid in the ink cartridge would confuse the consumer because of how much liquid is used on different models, blah blah blah. Then two seconds later contradicts himself by saying the cartridge does contain approx page yield. Ummmmm...

 

[cruiseoveride]

This was a really poorly written article

 

[Blessedman]

Oh yeah, great point Bison88! We are hitting a threshold of how good inkjet technology can get soooo. Why not start using the same ink across all new models and start lowering the price. I remember back in the day HP used to say well our cartridges are so expensive because there are new heads with cartridge. I bought that hook line and sinker, but the new 88 models have separated ink and heads. So why are the inks still so freaking expensive ($1 billion a year in R&D, how much do they sell a year?)

 

[Guest]

HP are clearly on the defensive on this issue.

Thus the ads running on this site claiming that 3rd party refills actually cost more.

Thus the interventions on earlier threads like this by HP's Public Relations consultants.

There is no excuse for deliberately increasing the waste by artificially limiting the lifespan on the cartridge. No excuse for producing dozens of different cartridges for different printers. No excuse for different manufacturers each producing unique cartridges. No need to go on refining this technology -- finer print just means smaller nozzles which means more blockages -- inkjet worked quite well as a low res black and white technology but it's reached the end of the road.

This issues requires Government intervention, giving the industry a couple of years to get honest or imposing penal duties on the import of printers and cartridges. This would either save inkjet technology or (as I suspect is overdue) consign it to the dustbin.

If you want correspondence printing go mono laser. If you want spot colour go colour laser. If you want photo quality go to a pharmacy kiosk or internet process house.

 

[drutort]

i never go by from the manufacturer when it comes to ink, the only exception is if i were to print photo but u know what? its better to go to a store to do that and not bother with good ink just to print a few photos so i refill my own cartridges and reset them i will eventually have to by new cartridges and i know the printer head is not as good and im almost forced now to use hi setting to keep it printing fast the ink just doesnt work well on draft or fast, but i dont care its so cheap its not even funny and how fast the ink goes isnt funny either...

i dont care about there RnD that is a bunch of BS just cause a company decides to throw money literally into the air doesn't explain why ink is expensive in general, this article failed to show anything tangible besides a company trying to pass on the costs that they could easily cut back if they desired to...

 

[TheKurrgan]

HP gives away printers to companies who buy their toner. They simply have a ploy in doing so. See, they are aware that most people who work in offices of large corporations are lazy, fat people that simply MUST have their own printer for some obscure reason related to confidentiality yada yada yada, and their boss doesnt want to make the clucking hens use the big printer that takes the code to process a job because its down the hall. So you end up with tons of smaller printers all about. So as a loyal HP customer and have purchased plenty of ink and toner for the various printers you earn points, which can be used for anything BUT toner. So the purchasing clerk buys person A a new printer, which is a LITTLE bit different from person B, requiring a different type of cartridge. And in the laser world, forget about it. Every printer HP makes thats < 700 bucks has been crapped out and reinvented and needs a new cartridge. All said and done, all these people must now buy ink. To me its obvious where the money is made on the printer industry. they are a bunch of greedy scoundrels.

 

[rohitbaran]

They simply can't justify the high cost. They can't even explain how their ink is superior to refill ink and that how refilling itself is bad for printer. Pure sophistry.

 

[rajeshsundaram]

Dot Matrix are great and dirt cheap - if you are printing only text with low clarity.

Lasers are value for money - if you are printing crisp text and occasional graphics.

Inkjets are like Greedy wives. New cartridges always burn a hole in your salary, and always dry up even before your monthly pay-check arrives. And they will stop working if you feed them with cheap inks. You can't live with them.

After suffering a lot from inkjet printers and those annoying awful startup noises they make - "dam,dum" ,"tok-tok", "dumk-donk-donk", I ended up buying a laser printer. I then realized how much I could have saved in the past.

 

[Guest]

Corporate lies !

Printer makers simply try to hook people by selling under-priced printers (sometimes cheaper than the replacement cartridges, while a set of cartridges are already sipped with the printer), and then making the money on the cartridge, by selling them at an insane price... In fact, it sometimes costs you less money to buy a new printer than to replace the cartridges !

They also try to develop technologies (built-in chips to "certify" the cartridge) to prevent people from using third parties cartridges: why HP and others would do that if the price of the cartridge was so close to the development cost of the ink ?...

 

[Guest]

i only use a basic pinter and it has got to the stage where i just buy a new printer when the ink runs out . i can usualy find one on special for less than the price of new ink

 

[Ciuy]

yeah, bullwack....its expensive cause they want it to be....i hate all all printer manufacturers...

 

[feeddagoat]

Tesco's do printers for £20-30 Its cheaper to buy a new printer than to get new ink. I use an Epson now which has a decent selection of "cheap" alternate brand refilled ink at least, when we had our HP we would just go down to the shop and buy a new printer, until Tesco stopped stocking them =( If I printed my photos then maybe I would invest in good quality ink and a photo printer but since I only print notes for university I usually just use draft quality anyway.