Too bad, you can either use expensive ink, or use expensive subscription.
or other printer
This! Get your ink from Ali Express and live your best life.
Epson Eco tank to F HP’s bullshit in the A.
I got one during Black Friday years ago and it came with so much extra ink that I still haven’t bought more ink for it 😅
Did… did they suffer some head trauma?
If like me you don’t print much but still need a printer occasionally, get a laser printer (possibly a scanner multifunction, since it can be handy to scan your receipts), and just buy your cartridges normally. Laser toner won’t dry up like ink does, so you end up paying less for your infrequent prints in the long run.
Go do your local goodwill/thrift store and check for laser printers.
Get a laser printer, with toner cart, for less than 20, often less than 10, bucks.
Yeah but, how big are they?
Depends.
Though I suspect what you can find used for a good price will generally be larger.
Old ones can be big, yeah.
You have a scanner in your pocket, just a reminder.
It doesn’t do as good a job, unless there’s something I could be doing better.
It’s probably down to the scanner app. I’m using CamScanner.
Tiny Scanner for Android
Adobe Scan works as good as a scanner if you use their cropping system to square up the page afterwards.
Laughs in Epson Ecotank
laughs in off-brand toner sitting in my Brother
removed by mod
Laughs in BizHub color laser copier that fell off a truck
Until the software counter decides that the waste ink pad is full and the thing blows a software fuse.
Epson’s official solution to a full pad is to throw out your printer and buy a new one - literally a printer with a self destruct timer. Not very “eco”.
Cursory research about this seems you can replace it yourself for $10. Are you sure about this?
Yes, the hardware (a cheap sponge, essentially) that the counter “protects” is easily replaced for little money - but you still can’t just reset the counter.
https://epson.com/support/epson-ink-pads-reset-utility-faqs
For “North American users” Epson now offers a tool to reset the self destruct counter one, single, time.
There are third parties now, that offer a reset of the software destruct counter, for a fee.
The fact that a printer sold as “Eco” has a software self destruct that the user requires an unlock key to reset - an occurrence frequent enough to make it a profitable business for third parties to sell such keys - should tell you all you need to know about these printers.
I couldn’t confirm, but there supposedly are more premium models with user serviceable waste ink tanks that don’t have a self destruct, but most consumer models very much have this limitation.
Thanks for the info, that’s absurd. I don’t know why more people are talking about this then.
God, the amount of times I’ve had to explain the EcoTank vs HP math to customers in my store, and then STILL have them pick an HP is fucking baffling.
My deepest condolences - the absolutely dire mathematical skills of the purchasing public never cease to horrify me.
They are both terrible. HP for obvious reasons, Epson for its self destruct timers.
If they want a third option, I usually recommend Brother, and even more I tend to recommend used/refurbished. We just don’t carry those in my store.
Brother used to be the best choice, until ~2020 when they, too, went over to the dark side and secretly blocked third party toners via firmware auto-updates.
Not sure if any non-shitty printer makers are left, there’s only so long that you can recommend “try to find an old Brother printer and disable firmware updates” is an effective choice.
HP is like the facebook of printers. Hugely popular; absolute shit product.
/Shocked pickachu face.
Get 'em hooked, make 'em pay.Bold move, Cotton. Let’s see if it works out XD
Can’t read “Cotton” without thinking of the fiddy men he traded for his shins.
This is yet another reason why I would not buy or recommend HP printers anymore. My ancient laserjet from 10 years ago is still going strong, but if it ever kicks the bucket, I’m getting a Brother. They seem to just work without any hassle.
It amazes me that there are so many people who buy a printer, are offered this “pay $x a month for Y pages” type of plan, and say yes. I mean, sure, HP sucks, but they wouldn’t be able to get away with such slimy business practices if there weren’t so many people willing to pay.
I am obligated by my work to offer this to customers when they buy an HP printer and I make it really clear that it’s a bad deal for most customers. There are some edge case examples, like a lady with a small business who always prints exactly like 3 pages a day. The other customers who agree to buy it are almost always the super old people who don’t want to have to come to the store to get more ink. I think it’s a shit program that should be scrapped entirely, but some people really don’t care if it’s a bad deal as long as they get the convenience. No different than 7-11 up charging shit because it’s easier to buy it at the market down the street than the Walmart a few miles down the road.
Spend a bit more and get a laser and have it last exponentially longer. That’s how I’ve been rollin.
I keep saying it around here - my 1996 Lexmark laser just died in July.
Almost 30 years old. And I think I can fix it.
My cheap 300$ laser died after 8 years, so replaced it with a 600 better one. Let’s see how this goes 😂
the article sorta implies that only ‘hp+’ denies use of third-party cartridges for life of the printer… but just plain ‘instant ink’ subs do, too, through mandatory automatic firmware updates to the printer that will immediately install a firmware update with ‘dynamic security’ that blocks all but ‘genuine’ oem cartridges.
hahahaa i recently dumped them for a big, sturdy, traditional, offline Brother laser. it’s ridiculous how much more satisfying it is to print, especially without HP breathing over your shoulder counting how many pages you’ve printed in the last billing period
Satisfying isn’t the word. We have to generally use HP for SAP purposes so unfortunately I have to buy HP for work. Guess what? Every fucking month a few clients need printer support. Just HP bullshit time and time again…
I have brothers, kyoceras and others that just work and work without any issues. But HPs are just nagging offline fucking pains in the ass.
Just making it easier not to buy one!
“buy”
So the plan dictates how many pages you can print each month? Feck no! I own a Brother laser printer and I’m so glad I escaped the HP madness years ago.
Yes and no. If you exceed that, I think they just bill you for the next tier.
If you cancel, they immediately remote disable the perfectly working cartridges already in your printer that are still full of ink. Even if you’ve fully paid for the remainder of the month.
It’s a complete scam. Just don’t buy an HP printer, Instant Ink or not.
Of course they disable the cartridge. You’re paying for ink on a subscription. If you didn’t pay for cart in full, why should you be able to use the rest of it? That’s literally what you signed up for. Otherwise everyone would get a full cartridge for $1.
If you don’t want to do ink-cart-layaway, don’t sign up and buy the cartridge.
Disabling mid-month is a scam though.
They could have made this subscription far easier and fairer if they wanted to. A service that simply buys a new cartridge once your existing one reaches a threshold (say 20% left) would be simple to implement, simple to understand and even be quite useful. Instead this Instant Ink thing is an abomination of multiple tiers and price gouging.
Me: writes whole reply about why mid month canceling is a scam, and then realizing I didn’t read your last line and writing this instead.
Damn. I don’t print much, but I did get my HP printer dirt cheap. Wish there was some sort of hack around this.
