[csomar]

Multi-function inkjet printers are a Scam. No, I'm serious.

1. The printing functionality is flawed. A cartridge will not last for more than 100 pages. (I tried Epson, HP and Canon).

2. The cartridge will dry and not function after a few weeks only.

3. The original cartridge cost almost as much as a new printer with the cartridge.

4. The printer will not function (Scanner or Fax) without the full cartridges (black and colours).

5. They are buggy and noisy as hell.

[qb45]

> 4. The printer will not function (Scanner or Fax) without the full cartridges (black and colours).

My parents recently scraped an Epson all-in-one. Something had broken inside and the printer insisted that there is a paper jam and refused to do anything, even scanning.

They took it apart trying to figure out what's wrong. This thing had probably hundred moving parts or more, mostly made of plastic. It was so overengineered I'm surprised it had ever worked at all.

My favorite part is the CD/DVD tray which takes like 10 seconds to eject because the drive is hidden deep inside and the device has to rearrange some of its guts to bring it to the front. As much as I admire people who were able to pull it off, this is sick.

[kaonashi]

The purpose behind the engineering of the printers is to drive the sales of as many ink cartridges as possible while being as cheap as possible to produce.

From this perspective, offering many additional features which turn off when the ink rent hasn't been paid makes much more sense.

[chrischen]

Makes sense until people stop buying them for laser printers.

[Grishnakh]

There's a problem with that theory: they're simply not going to stop buying them and switch to lasers.

We've had this dynamic for at least 15 years now, and people still are buying cheap-o inkjets and getting ripped off on ink cartridges. If people haven't learned after a decade and a half, they're never going to learn. Just look at the other comments on this discussion (including the blog posting that started it all): even on "hacker news", which is full of technologists rather than regular people, tons of people here have fallen for the inkjet scam. If a bunch of nerds don't know any better, than you certainly can't expect the regular public to figure it out.

[chrischen]

People don't really print anymore. If you do print, you're an office or business that runs laser printers.

[takeda]

It's so infuriating though that laser printers seem like much cheaper alternative.

In reality inkjet are cheap, many companies (from top of my head I see BofA) use them to print bills, because it saves them cost.

It sucks that prices are so artificially manipulated.

[badminton1]

I think they sell the printers at a loss in order to make money from the cartridges.

[novaleaf]

multifunction printers are great, if you scam the scammers.

I got an epson all-in-one (WF-3640) and bought a continuous ink system off amazon: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00OIC1MAS?psc=1&redirect=t...

works great, i print a ton, and still less than half way through the ink.

[stordoff]

I've got a HP PSC1215 that is 10+ years old, and don't agree with all of your complaints.

1. Cartridges last about 200 pages, which isn't great (I use a laserjet for anything I don't need in colour, so personally not a huge issue). They are rated for 500ish pages, so YMMV.

2. Never had this issue - I've had cartridges in for over a year, and they've still worked fine

3. Not the best of comparisons, as the printers often ship with 'trial' cartridges that contain much less ink than the replacements. That said, a set of Black+Colour cartridges will cost me about £30 (a little expensive really), or a third-party/refilled set will be about £15 (always worked fine for me; YMMV).

4. Never had this issue - I used it as a scanner recently without any cartridges in at all and it worked fine.

5. It's noisy when printing. I hadn't encountered any major bugs - mostly used with OS X, so can't really comment on Windows driver quality.

[alanfranzoni]

You tried cheap consumer printers only, I suppose. Did you try Epson Workforce Pro series? Or Canon Maxify?

[csomar]

Hi. I didn't complain mainly about the quality of the printer. It's cheap and it's expected to just work. But not working because a cartridge is available or "malicious" pricing of printer/cartridge is not honest business.

At least, that's how I see it.

[Grishnakh]

You can see it however you want, but that's how businesses work now, and they've been doing it for a century now. It's called the "razor and blades" business model, which started with Gillette. You get the main item cheap, and then the consumables are horrendously overpriced. Who cares if it's honest or not? People are so gullible they'll buy into it, and if they haven't figured it out after 100 years, they're never going to, so companies might as well use this model or else they'll be uncompetitive.

If you don't like getting ripped off this way, it's really easy to avoid: buy a business-class printer, and not some cheap-o consumer printer.

[Tempest1981]

I had a Canon Pixma iP1600 that would still work after months of non-use. I was in awe, since every other inkjet is like you described -- I had several HPs.

[pmarreck]

Agree with this 100% as I found this to be the case, repeatedly.

Bought an HP LaserJet P1606DN and a Fuji ScanSnap scanner a few years ago and never looked back. Amazing.

[kuschku]

I don’t know what kind of printers you buy, but the ones I had – from HP and Canon – solved all those issues:

(a) you can refill cartridges, you know that?

(b) printers will ask you "foreign cartridge detected, accept? yes/no", and it works

(c) refill ink goes for a few cents per liter

(d) the printer works fine without some cartridges, just press "yes" when it asks you "print with just black?"

(e) I print 400 pages university books on one set of cartridges once a semester usually, and have enough left to print another whole semester my homework.

[Ralfp]

Vendors actually hard-code "I'm dry and won't print anymore" kill-switch into chip on cartridge as protection against regeneration. You may refill your cart, but if kill-switch went on already, your printer will not print anyway claiming dry cartrigde.

I've actually experienced this on HP printer, and quick Google search shows that I'm not alone in this: http://www.gadgetspage.com/comps-peripheral/hp-printer-consp...

[kuschku]

Well, my printer allows me to ignore that switch if I keep the "abort print" and the "print test page" button both pressed for at least 15 sec after inserting the cartridge.