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David

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I bought a printer for around £40 last year, ink ran out. I bought a black and white cartridge for it which was £26 as I went for the XL version, didn't bother with the colour, binned that cartridge and thought nothing of it.

Went to print something today but it won't even get ready to print without putting a colour cartridge in, throws up an error.

Same printer is now £30 to buy brand new and comes with both the colour and black and white cartridge.

I don't get it. 

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Sith Happens
2 hours ago, David said:

I bought a printer for around £40 last year, ink ran out. I bought a black and white cartridge for it which was £26 as I went for the XL version, didn't bother with the colour, binned that cartridge and thought nothing of it.

Went to print something today but it won't even get ready to print without putting a colour cartridge in, throws up an error.

Same printer is now £30 to buy brand new and comes with both the colour and black and white cartridge.

I don't get it. 

I remember once reading that these printers are often considered as disposable because of the new ink costs. I am sure when new though you only get half full cartridges.

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3 minutes ago, Paul71 said:

I remember once reading that these printers are often considered as disposable because of the new ink costs. I am sure when new though you only get half full cartridges.

Doesn't make much sense when you buy a new one it comes with ink, can't be much good for the environment binning these things every few months

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Sith Happens
2 hours ago, David said:

Doesn't make much sense when you buy a new one it comes with ink, can't be much good for the environment binning these things every few months

Yeah agree. If you printer high quantities a laser printer is more efficient.

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It happens with a lot of products. These companies have worked out they can make more profit by selling the printer / razor etc at a loss and then ramp up the price of the consumables to go with it for the next 2-3 years or whatever. Once one company follows this business plan, the rest all have to follow to be seen as competitive for the initial outlay.

Would you rather pay £200 for a printer and then a fiver for the cartridges?. The average outlay over the lifetime of the printer is probably much the same.

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My former employers discovered this to their cost.

The ink printers didnt last long before getting scrapped or written off.

Sounds like a bargain at first, but ink runs out very quick , especially in a business, and then your paying an arm and a leg to replenish. Lasers much more cost effecient.

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On 31/08/2017 at 10:00, David said:

I bought a printer for around £40 last year, ink ran out. I bought a black and white cartridge for it which was £26 as I went for the XL version, didn't bother with the colour, binned that cartridge and thought nothing of it.

Went to print something today but it won't even get ready to print without putting a colour cartridge in, throws up an error.

Same printer is now £30 to buy brand new and comes with both the colour and black and white cartridge.

I don't get it. 

Made me smile when I saw you having a dig at them on twitter.

That's a sign you're getting old mate.

It is b******* though.

 

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I used to work for HP - the printer division always made enormous profits - with the majority coming from the sales on consumables.

I buy el-cheapo cartridges nowadays rather than the branded ones - don't last as long as the official versions, but they're a fraction of the price (a complete set of 5 for my Canon printer for less than £5 as opposed to over £10 each for the official ones) - as long as you're not printing photographs, cheap ones should be fine (though they can cause the print head to dry up if you don't use the printer on a regular basis....)

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Same with spare parts for cars. Really there should be a law against it... It's monopoly pricing, where are you going to get your Gillette blades from , if not Gillette? And what about Apple iPhone accessories? 

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9 hours ago, PistoldPete2 said:

Same with spare parts for cars. Really there should be a law against it... It's monopoly pricing, where are you going to get your Gillette blades from , if not Gillette? And what about Apple iPhone accessories? 

Apple are bad, my wife broke her screen a few years ago, cost a fortune to fix.

I broke my windows phone screen a couple of years ago, got a replacement easy to repair online for a few quid.

At least with cars now you can take them to non main dealers for services and keep your warranty intact.

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  • 1 month later...

I’ve got a printer at work with powder ink. The ink should last me 5 years without the need to replenish. And if it doesn’t, the contract I have guarantees it’ll be refilled. 

Yes, it’s in a £100 a month contract, so probably not relevant for most, but considering I spent about that much per month on cartridges, and had just killed my last printer by knackering the ink reservoirs or something, so it stopped working, so I was about to spend the best part of £200 on a new one, I thought this was a great deal.

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