There are two rules of printing

1. You choose an inkjet printer and it is used so frequently a laser would have been cheaper

2. you choose an inkjet printer and it is used so infrequently that you waste all your ink cleaning the heads and a laser would have been cheaper.

I spent under 200GBP and have a multi function duplex colour networked laser printer with full PostScript interpreter. It doesn't do photos well, but I can go online and have genuine photo prints delivered to my door next day. If I am more imp

I so rarely use my inkjet, it's too expensive to use unless I need fine color control or additive inks.

I bought this printer:

[1]https://amzn.to/3BTBLdE [amzn.to]

when a color print job was quoted to me at more than what the printer cost (pre-pandemic it was cheaper) and refill it once or twice a year with recycled toner carts:

[2]https://amzn.to/3FX1Bju [amzn.to]

and it's cost effective enough that I don't worry about the per-page cost.

The previous iteration of this printer lasted me about 8 years which is good enough, s

[1] https://amzn.to/3BTBLdE

[2] https://amzn.to/3FX1Bju

> If you must print, you must have a printer that lets you refill your own ink, officially or unofficially, or you're just getting egregiously ripped off at a level the home user should not attempt to sustain.

This wouldn't even be an issue if manufacturers and sellers all the way up and down the supply chain weren't allowed to externalize the true costs of what they're making and selling.

As it is, in addition to externalizing the costs of goods through de-facto subscriptions and planned obsolescence, they're also passing on the costs of environmental damage and non-renewable resources to the rest of the planet. Future generations will likely pay with their very lives for our current economy's excesses.

If we drov

> If you must print, you must have a printer that lets you refill your own ink, officially or unofficially, or you're just getting egregiously ripped off at a level the home user should not attempt to sustain.

The point here is that you should be able to scan regardless of whether the ink is full or empty, since scanning doesn't require ink.

I could see this going either way. It could be a conscious decision for a money grab, or it could just be a case of not having the features encapsulated enough. A fault from any one may create a blocking condition in their software until the fault is cleared.

Years ago, I got an all-in-one for free that was going to be thrown out because there was a problem with one of the print heads. I just wanted the paperport scanning functionality, but the print head fault completely blocked the device from doing anythi

Let's see if they issue any firmware updates. If it's a silly coding error, they would quickly correct it - at least for newer models that display the problem.

Many manufacturers do this, and have for some time. If they wanted to fix it, they could have done. Since they haven't, I think it's safe to say this is deliberate.

Sadly, I do not think it will be long before laser printers are also "upgraded" with this features. I have an old later printer myself; the problem I found is that software as no longer updated or maintained. After I had to reinstall Windows 10, I had trouble finding the drivers and scanning software. I had to reinstall Win 10 because MS decided the latest update could not use MBR and must use GPT even though was not presented as an option years ago when installed Win10.

> and you still need to print a lot, It's best to buy a laser printer.

And if you don't need to print at all and are just planning to use the scanning capability, you should be able to just buy whatever's cheapest.

But that turns out not to be the case, since the scanning capability is turned off if the ink isn't there.

> They're suing for only $5 million! This isn't the 1960's. A multinational corporation could find $5 million in the couch cushions of the C level suite! They should at least sue for enough money to get everyone that owns one of these printers free ink.

Came here to say pretty much the same thing, except you didn't go far enough IMHO. I think it should have been "get everyone that owns one of these printers a free replacement printer of their choice from any manufacturer along with two years' worth of consumables . As I keep posting here, (and I sometimes get downmodded for it), we need to get imaginatively and outrageously serious when it comes to punishing these fuckers who abuse their power and position.

It must be a misprint. Should say $5 Billion. I weighed the sponge at the bottom of my Canon inkjet before I threw it away. It weighed 28 ounces. I don't know what it weighed before it soaked-up all that ink but it still works out to $1200 of wasted ink.

I'll add that I will never buy another HP printer again, especially now with their ink subscription model, which just puts their greed on display.

The printheads need to be primed constantly to keep ink from drying in the nozzles which would require throwing out the whole printer as the repair is usually not economical. This is by design. The cartridges are just so comically small and outrageously expensive that it runs the ink out within a year even with non-use. Leaving a cartridge empty and continuing to print equally runs the risk of damaging the printhead. Nevermind that they have a waste ink disposal sponge that if it fills up the printer st

The real reason is hidden tracking dots that you cannot see with the naked eye are printed to track anything you do back to your printer/serial/warrantycard.

So you cannot print in black and white when color is out because little secret faint yellow dots are printed like a barcode to track you and if those are out then the ability to track you is lost which means your ability to print is no longer permitted.

Their tracking > your right to print.

You purchased an inkjet printer but only wanted to do black and white printing. That is about the dumbest stupidest thing you can possibly do in the world of printing. If you only want to print in black and white then you should *ONLY* be considering a laser printer. There are literally no exceptions to this rule.

There is a local sailing club to which I donated my LaserJet 5L over a decade ago still going fine. The thing is 25 years old now and does a few sheets a week. Note I did replace the rollers and pi

I have told all my friends for years not to buy inkjets. There are still a few who "need" color only not to really use color. If someone really needs color, I advise them on color laser. Sure they cost twice as much but they save that money easily in ink costs.

Please don't diss Satan's cock like that.

HP doesn't even offer their shitty software as a stand alone package, it has to come from the Windows store. They do offer a stand alone driver package but its intentionally made difficult to use. It extracts the driver files somewhere and doesn't run any setup or open a readme. Turns out the files go into \windows\temp\$random_string which you can then point windows towards. No way in hell is this printer going to connect to the internet.