Dell says printers will become cheaper

The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review ^ | Thursday, October 10, 2002 | The Associated Press

[Willie Green]

ORLANDO, Fla.

[Willie Green]

Related threads:

Dell eyes "white box" market

Dell Computers are "American" - official (Hypocrits)

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It would be nice to have cheaper printer cartridges, but IMHO, the Dell Dude is giving himself a vasectomy.

[fogarty]

Don't underestimate Dell. Myself, I think Dell is about to take HP to the cleaners. Carly is going to drive HP to the ground. She already got rid of the best engineers the company ever had by spinning off Agilent and closing down their calculator division.

[discostu]

Printer prices are OK, but damn those cartridges. Last year I bought a new printer because it was cheaper than the cartridges for my old printer... there's a good chance of the same thing happening when these cartridges run dry. That just ain't right.

[dirtboy]

That just ain't right.

That's just a take on Gillete's strategy of giving away the razor and selling the blades...

[Michael Barnes]

No joke..I was at Costco's the other day...Can't believe the prices on replacement blades anymore...

[HamiltonJay]

Printer cartriges have been cash cows for printer companies... 30-40 bucks retail for some ink and a few chips? You can buy entire printers for that price. I know they subsidize their printer cost by making it up through the cartriges, but at this point a printer should not cost more than $50-$100, except for high end, and cartriges should be retailing for $10 or less

[HamiltonJay]

hehe.. it is cheaper to buy a new printer than a new cartige depending on the printer and cartrige... when a new printer with cartrige is $30-$50 bucks and a cartidge alone is $40... why not buy a new printer? Especially if youare like me and only go through one cartriged every year or two.

[Wright is right!]

The printer cartridges are a scam in more ways than one. Every Epson printer I've ever had uses both Black ink AND Color ink even in B&W mode. There is nothing you can do to make the printer stop using color ink, even if you're printing ordinary black text.

Now, it DOES use color ink much more slowly than black, but about every third black cart, I have to replace the color cart as well. I've been thru every last set-up setting time and time again - and it still continues to use color ink. And the obvious fix - don't put a color cart IN unless you need color - won't work. Once the ink cart is in, it has to STAY in until empty. Plus, the system will either nag you to death about the lack of a color cart OR may not print AT ALL.

Michael

[PLK]

Companies such as Lexmark, Hewlett-Packard, Canon and Epson generally follow a business model that sees them selling printers at a low price and making their profits on sales of ink cartridges.

Consumers are sick and tired of this scam. IMHO, if Dell pulls this off, they will reap great profits. I will be the first one to buy a Dell printer if the ink cartridges are priced reasonably.
(By the way, do those syringe thingy's that you 'inject' ink into an empty cartridge work???)

[general_re]

And the obvious fix - don't put a color cart IN unless you need color - won't work. Once the ink cart is in, it has to STAY in until empty. Plus, the system will either nag you to death about the lack of a color cart OR may not print AT ALL.

I had something of the same problem last year with a finicky Stylus 860 - I was printing some documents at home to take to work with me, all B&W text stuff, but the color cartridge ran out. And as you know, you can't print with a full black cart and an empty color cart - it refuses to print, even if the material is strictly black and white. BUT, I discovered a rather curious workaround - if you take the empty color cart out, violently shake it back and forth for 10-15 seconds, and then put it back in, it fools the printer into thinking the cart is full again. Check the status monitor and it'll report that the color cart is completely full.

I swear on my life it works for me - I'm guessing that the few drops of ink in the empty cartridge coat the sensors in there and fool it into thinking it's full when it's not. It's still empty, so you still can't print in color, but that way you can print in B&W, even with an empty color cart - it was much easier than running out to buy a color cartridge at 6 AM ;)

Anyway, it doesn't actually use color ink when you're printing in black and white - what happens is that every time you start up the printer and it goes through its self-cleaning cycle, it uses up a little of the ink. So even if you never print a single thing, you'll eventually use up all the ink just by turning the printer on and off...

[KansasConservative1]

No problem. Refill kit at Sam's $19.00 and it has been working fine for about 3 refills so far (Black) 1 for color (enough for at least several more refills). I hear it is a problem with HP but all others seem fine. Oh and for the lamo excuse that "refilling voids your warrantee" no problem, I can buy a replacement for $40 (printer). So... Now what?

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[js1138]

and cartriges should be retailing for $10 or less

And they're making them copy protected now. And refill protected.

[HamiltonJay]

Of course they are.. they went to the "subscription" model for lack of a better term.. take a bath on the hardware, but make it back and then some on the sale of the ink cartriges. Its not a bad overall model, steady income from sale of cartriges overtime, and lets face it you will sell far more cartriges than printers. Problem is they are gouging on the cartriges, and everyone knows it.

Simple mathmatics tells you what the pricepoints should be, if you need to make 66% profit per print cartrige sold to on average make up loss on printer sold in first place, you discounted the printer too much to start with. People will only look at the sales price and ignore the printer cartrige cost for so long before they recognize the "deal". Once they do the model starts to fall apart.. If a printer needs 66% margin on print cartriges to see profit on the sale of a printer discounted, then they discounted the printer too much. Secondly anymore I am having harder and harder time believing that HP et al, are really subsidizing as much of the cost of the printer as they used to. When brand new scanners, who have to make money on the actual sale are $50 or less, and monitors are <$100 for 15 inch.. how is it that a basemodel printer is really costing much more than $50 to $100 to produce and bring to market? Its about time someone shook up the market.. hope it happens.

[RushingWater]

My one experience on the syringe attempt to renew my cartridge was a failure. I almost ruined the whole printer. I'm not sure what brand it was, but I got it (and returned it) to Wal-Mart.

[Noslrac]

If its some optical type sensor.. put some black tape or something over it.

[js1138]

Actually the cartridge chips are driven by software. They actually count the drops dispensed. Originally the software was in the driver, now it's moving to the cartridge. HP even has cartridges that expire, based on date. It's like the digital media wars, but without copyright laws to enforce them. Look for this soon.

[VRWC_minion]

HP's printers are never discounted much even after they have been on market for years. There must be lots of room for lower prices.

[Noslrac]

So you could change the date on your computer.

[Bush2000]

(By the way, do those syringe thingy's that you 'inject' ink into an empty cartridge work???)

Yes, but it's not worth the trouble.