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.
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.
The transfer is done because it’s really hard to feed a PCB into a printer.
Color is the main concern.
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
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 bought my color laser printer from the local university surplus store for $20…
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.
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.
https://www.theprinterpros.com/HP-Color-LaserJet-CP1518ni-Printer-Refurbished-p/ypc-cp1518ni-hp.htm
600 DPI and the toner refills are cheap as fuck. I have had 2 of these and they work great.
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.
Yeah fuck HP. Not buying one of their products ever again, printer or otherwise.
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.
When my printer runs out of ink I buy a new printer.
They make a loss on the printers and I rarely print
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.
I remember when I was a teenager, Walmart sold shitty printers that came with ink for $35… Replacement ink for that exact model was $20/cartridge.
Those starter cartridges had far less ink in them than the replacements. It didn’t matter if you refilled them yourself though.
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.
