I have had my HP printer for many years, it’s a C4520 I think, and it has given reasonably trouble free service up to now. However, it is now refusing to print and gives a message saying that it doesn’t recognise the cartridges. I must confess that the cartridges are not genuine HP items but they have worked perfectly up to now.
I decided to buy a new printer and was going to go for another HP product until I noticed that all HP printers are now programmed to only work with genuine HP cartridges. This reminded me that I recently did a software update on my printer and I now suspect that HP have kindly reprogrammed my old printer to only work with genuine (expensive) cartridges.
I have invested £39 in a new Epson printer which is due to arrive tomorrow and according to the reviews it will be utterly marvellous!
I’m with you on the HP printers, my wife’s printer suddenly didn’t want to play after working ok for around 5 years.
No updates no support, they just want you to buy another. She did and working out the cost of cartridges re buying a printer with them already supplied with it seemed to be a no brainer.
Incidentally she had the free cartridge service, she sometimes doesn’t use much per month. Now she’s ditched that and now buys from eBay genuine cartridges, via Jersey I think.
We’ve had enough Epsons in our time, it seems to be use it or lose it with those, they clogged up too easily.
Interesting info re Epson. I don’t use the printer much so I suppose blockages will be on the horizon. Ah well, £39 isn’t much in the great scheme of things and I can always squirrel the old printer away and try to resurrect it in the future.
These days a new printer is cheaper than buying replacement cartridges, which is a silly state of affairs.
My washing machine (integrated) wanted to go into orbit recently when the bearings failed. It was more cost effective to buy new, get a warranty, and kick out the old.
Depends on what you’re needing to print of course, but I have a mono HP LaserJet printer here for the odd bit of paperwork or a boarding pass etc.
I last bought a (compatible) toner cartridge for it in Jan 2017, for the princely sum of £15! Can’t say I’ve missed not having much printed out in colour and any photos I need printing I get done professionally anyway.