Regionalized INK?! Get REAL! Good-bye, HP.
In my ongoing series of consumer advocacy stories (that's jargon for being a complainer) I bring you a story about Hewlett Packard printers.
I bought my HP printer in Albania. I found ink for said printer in the US for a fraction of the cost. I bought said ink and brought it to Albania. IT DOESN'T WORK!
<checks the label - yep, there's my printer listed as compatible>
<checks and rechecks to make sure it's put in right>
<throws up hands in disgust and turns to Mr. Google>
Sure enough, HP saw fit to regionalize their ink. You're probably familiar with the concept from how DVD's work -- if you get a DVD from a region that your DVD player is not from then it just doesn't work in your player.
(Of course for most of us it's an exercise in futility because you just take 2 minutes with Mr. Google to find the codes to crack your DVD player and allow all regions -- this is NOT unethical because I own the player and I own the license to the DVD.)
But to make INK specific to a certain region?! This is getting a little ridiculous!
Years ago I stopped buying HP and went first with Epson and then with Canon in search of the most cost-effective (lowest cost per page) printing. I came back to HP out of convenience because my Canon printer bit the dust and I needed a color printer urgently.
Now I know why it was a good reason to stay away from HP all these years. I can probably buy another Canon printer and pay for it with my savings on ink during the purchase of my first set of ink cartridges!
I bought my HP printer in Albania. I found ink for said printer in the US for a fraction of the cost. I bought said ink and brought it to Albania. IT DOESN'T WORK!
<checks the label - yep, there's my printer listed as compatible>
<checks and rechecks to make sure it's put in right>
<throws up hands in disgust and turns to Mr. Google>
Sure enough, HP saw fit to regionalize their ink. You're probably familiar with the concept from how DVD's work -- if you get a DVD from a region that your DVD player is not from then it just doesn't work in your player.
(Of course for most of us it's an exercise in futility because you just take 2 minutes with Mr. Google to find the codes to crack your DVD player and allow all regions -- this is NOT unethical because I own the player and I own the license to the DVD.)
But to make INK specific to a certain region?! This is getting a little ridiculous!
Years ago I stopped buying HP and went first with Epson and then with Canon in search of the most cost-effective (lowest cost per page) printing. I came back to HP out of convenience because my Canon printer bit the dust and I needed a color printer urgently.
Now I know why it was a good reason to stay away from HP all these years. I can probably buy another Canon printer and pay for it with my savings on ink during the purchase of my first set of ink cartridges!
Labels: cartridges, Hewlett Packard, HP, HP Photosmart 5510, ink, Photosmart 5510, printer, region, regionalized
posted by Peter Bowers at 11:18 AM
1 Comments:
So sorry about this Peter. I can sort of relate. I have an older HP printer for which I spend approximately $100 every six months for two ink cartridges!
And region-free! We can relate to that too. I bought a program called dvd ghost years ago, and it has been working for us, albeit on only the two computers for which they gave us a license.
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