Not legally binding. Companies can kick you off their services, but they can’t legally make you do anything IRL like agree to arbitration or only buy their ink, etc.
Back when I was getting into electronics, I used to drive around during hard waste collections on the lookout for interesting devices to pull apart. (One man’s trash is another man’s treasure!)
Honestly, it was shocking how many printers and scanners were being thrown out. Every second hard waste pile had one. These were devices that looked 3-4 years old at most.
Clearly many people employ your strategy, and the companies are to blame. The volume of waste they’re incentivising with their business model is criminal. I hope HP get everything that’s coming to them.
Colleges are a huge problem with this. They charge per page, it’s reasonable… but a lot of the Laptops used to come with coupons for near free printers. So basically all of them get chucked at the end of graduation or even each year.
I’m sure they’ll think to include a small piece of paper that says something about mandatory binding arbitration and waiving all rights that can be legally waived, in the next version.
After switching to laser, I truly don’t understand how inkjets still sell. Is it purely for photo printing at home? Because outside of that specific use case, laser is far superior on every axis.
A toner cartridge lasts for years and years, even with limited use, and it nets you thousands of pages. Laser printers aren’t even that expensive anymore, and I’d argue they’re cheaper than inkjet after having to refill the latter just a single time.
Edit: and something I didn’t know until I got one: toner doesn’t run if pages get wet. There have been a few times where that has been handy.
Yeah I’ve been using laser printers for years, fuck inkjet. I’m still on the starter cartridges from my current one and it’s pushing 5 years old. Though I print very little. Unlike ink that dries out, toner is fine for a very long time.
Because on a shelf with inkjet printers, lasers cost 5* the upfront cost. Of course you make that back by not buying 50€ cartridges everytime you print because the ink is dry, but consumers don’t think about the type of printer they’re buying.
My dad prints a lot of schematics and diagrams on 11x17 to mark up and edit for his job, but color laserjets that can handle 11x17 don’t seem to exist outside of the humongous office printers with 5 1000-sheet paper drawers. Probably because the toner cartridges need to be bigger.
He’s got a Brother ink tank inkjet, though, which is pretty much the next best thing.
My wife has a cricut. It’s a little CNC plotter table that can make custom stickers, signs, and whatnot with a very clean UI. They are pretty popular with the stay-at-home mom crowd. If you know a better way to high quality color prints on specialty papers I’d love to hear it. I know that sounds sarcastic, but I mean that with absolutely zero sarcasm. Please tell me.
That sounds like a legitimate use case, tbh.
Sometimes the complexity of a “better” system isn’t worth it when a “lesser”-but-easier system exists that produces satisfactory results.
I know PCB etching enthusiasts have developed a way to transfer laser toner onto copper PCBs.
I wonder if there is a similar system that could be done, but between print paper and product paper.
Ah, right enough. I remember destroying a $20 inkjet so I could feed PCBs through it.
I stopped prototyping my own PCBs before I got into UV transfer or toner transfer. Its been a good many years
One lab I was in used a CNC mill to route boards. It was pretty effective, and really great for custom geometry like encoders formed to the back of motors or boards doubling as structural components.
I bought a 3d printer with an eye to get back into PCB fab… Either by swapping to a CNC head, or by printing plastic onto PCB.
I just don’t make enough PCBs these days to justify the FAFF of making it work. Which is a shame. I bet if have a lot of fun
A color laser printer costs $400+ where I live. That’s why people still but inkjet, Cause you can buy those for $50.
To poorer people, that’s always the grind. You know you’re gonna pay more in the long run, but you can’t afford the initial investment in order to make those savings
I can’t imagine anywhere I could buy a laser printer in my city for $20 unless it was from an old lady at a garage sale that is selling random shit. Can’t even buy a meal for $20 around here. University stores are also a place you go when you want to get gouged.
Color laser printers basically need a full printer assembly for each color, which drives up the cost. I believe there’s LED laser printers that can do everything in a single assembly so they’re typically cheaper
Laser printers are literally the same price most likely. In the us market (atleast) you can get them for $60 from Dell / etc. you don’t have to spend $200+ on a laser typically.
Most people don’t need color. Monochrome lasers are dirt cheap.
That is of course unless there’s some issue with availability wherever you are
I dropped HP printers when I tried to use a new ink cartridge and it was out of date and wouldn’t print. We have 2 Epson’s with refillable ink cartridges now.
Agreed. There’s no such thing as a good printer anymore. Fuck them.
On the bright side, printers sucking so badly has led me to take extreme measures to avoid having to print much of anything, and on the rare occasion we need something printed, I just go to the library and do it there.
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