Posted on 02/22/2005 3:10:35 PM PST by holymoly
Geesh. I have a Dell All in One and I can only buy cartridges from Dell and nowhere else. I have also heard you must buy three at a time!! I use my printing features very little as I cannot afford to buy the cartridges all the time.
I think this is a crock.
While I don't think there is any merit in this suit, I think the HP's printer prices are outrageous beyond belief as are the rest of the prices for these things. They aren't in the printer business anymore. They are in the printer cartrige business. Highway robbery!
Why else would ink in a plastic container cost more than $50.00.
It cost me over $65 bucks for ink for my HP PhotoSmart 1115!
Not unless this chip also causes the ink to disappear. When my cartridges are depleted you can tell there is nothing left in it just by shaking it.
BUMP!
I must have bought 5 times the dollar amount on cartriges that I've paid for HP printers over the last 4 years...
This is a load of crap. HP's cartridges are see-through. You take it out of the printer, and if you see no powder in it, you are empty.
They do NOT expire on a set date. I've had the same color cartridge in my printer since day one, and that has to be 18 months so far. (I've changed the black one lots, though, but that's my fault for printing so damn many game walkthroughs.)
HP better settle this one fast. This sort of word could kill them in the marketplace, and too much of HP's revenue comes from printers.
I had a Cannon bubblejet. The cartridges would quit after a certain amount of time, regardless of how little/much they had been used.
Replaced it with a Lexmark. Its cartridge time was even worse. After less than 200 printed pages, the movable head quit.
Next, I bought a desk size laser. I don't have the color, but I don't do that much printing. The laser is in its 3rd year, and I've never had a problem with it.
I'll never buy an inkjet again.
Lasers will eat them soon. Black lasers are running around $100 or less, now. Color lasers are nearing the $350 mark. My first Cannon bubblejet cost $370 in 1995.
Being able to charge whatever they like for cartridges is like having a license to steal.
I was pondering a class-action lawsuit just yesterday after an $80 color toner cartridge I knew was more than half-full insisted that it was empty.
Your best bet with a printer is to buy one that's on sale at your favourite retail store, us it until the ink is gine and then get a new printer "On Sale", the harware is cheap, the ink is expensive...To get refills for my printer it costs $100...I could buy 3 new printers for that price...
MD
Interesting. My color printer cartridge just stopped working one day. I don't mean one of the three colors ran out. I mean it is like there is not cartridge in the machine. And I hadn't used it that much. I did all the cleaning steps, including the "heavy clean" to no avail. The black and white cartridge has lasted through five refills. But don't tell HP that...
Printer companies are without a doubt in the ink/toner business. They make squat on the printer and soak you on their supplies. Make it extremely difficult to try to refill, and tell you they are empty when they are not.
Expect a flurry of these "lawsuits" in the immediate future, nothing more than grandfathered robbery and blackmail.
George Eastman was the one who came up with the idea of
practically giving away the Brownie Camera, and making a
profit on the consumable film.
It's an old technique; been around for a 100 years or more.
Hummm I just bought a Canon Multipass. I get the Black for $5 and the color for 10. the first thing I did was look at the printers and then checked out the cartridge price. Determined my choice.
That's the freemarket economy. What's the alternative to this? Price-ceilings? Govt-mandated price fixes? Or maybe taking a cue fromt he agricultural industry, have government set the cost of cartridges below the cost of manufacturing, and then support the cartridge companies with subsidies.
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