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Old 08-29-2012, 01:18 PM
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Kevin WS Kevin WS is offline
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That's the things now are! Watch the other inkjets start going as well.....

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Re the flaking laser prints. See below.....

Why do laser prints sometimes crack or flake?
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Old 08-29-2012, 03:13 PM
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pdmccool pdmccool is offline
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Since both of my day jobs rely on printed material, I'll be interested to see where this is heading. While one of my jobs is using less and less paper all the time, the other, as a Notary Public, currently has no method of being completely replaced by a paperless format.
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Old 08-30-2012, 11:46 AM
hancocp hancocp is offline
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Firstly, I have to admint that I work for HP ... but I'm a network engineer and don't work on the hardware or marketing side of the company. With that in mind I had a chat with some colleagues in PDS about this.

Basically, Lexmark fell into a cesspit they made themselves. Costs were cut to the bone, corners were cut in both material quality and assembly to the point where the printers are complete POS, last about a month and are really basic. Lexmark also signed exclusive licensing deals with 3rd party ink producers but insisted they be Lexmark branded. Poor quality ink (cost cutting again) and the removal of their ink development worsened the reputation of the company and Lexmark became a byword for 'crap'.

HP will never leave the print domain, but will move further away from the budget end of the single-function market. Multifunction ('all-in-one') devices are the way forward and innovations in interoperability with mobile devices (phone/tablet/tv/web) will advance. The budget end of the market may well recede, but not disappear. HP will always focus on the business level of printing but the consumer market has legs in it yet. With pricing, you get what you pay for and quality costs.

On the subject of ink, I'm amazed that people here who rely on ink as the basis of their hobby are apparently ignorant of the reasons for ink cost. Rip-off ink prices ? Do me a favour. Get on Youtube etc and watch a documentary or two about the tech that goes into that cartridge. Its easy to copy a plastic box, whack some cheap crap pigment into it, stick on a microchip and sell it for pennies once the initial (expensive) development work was done by the OEM. Even Epson only licence the copycats to older models of printers (and certainly not a business-level model). And I dont consider Epson to be a byword for quality vs affordability (see also Brother).

HP only sell ink made to HP specs, and produced in HP fab plants. The ingredients and performance of HP/Canon ink is the best there is, and they are tested to extreme tolerances. Chinese mass-production (ie cheap) is not the way to maintain quality when it comes to something like ink - too many ingredient substitutions, emulsion tolerance etc etc. The cheapy carts are made to 'one-size-fits-all' for ink content and delivery, only the cart shape and ob chip is different. The ink is NOT designed for the very different printheads of different manufacturers. Flow-control is a major issue, and when you measure printhead nozzles in microns (and the ink basically explodes in the head to tight tolerances), out-of-spec ink can cause problems. All HP and Canon ink is developed for high-dpi photo quality & fade resistance and I don't consider them overpriced for what they are. By all means, buy pinkjets or copycarts if you don't really care about your ink and are more keen on price. One of my other hobbies is photography. I own a high-end HP A3 printer for work/hobby/photo, a Canon iP series for photo/CD printing, and a budget HP for general family use. I only use HP & Canon carts.

Laser printers are definitely not suitable for home use because the manufacturing process does not allow for poor-quality toner/fuser supplies. Their high-ppm rate and OCR characteristics make them office/business suitable, and most are leased due to the high cost of consumables. The cost can't come down because the technology of laser printing is expensive. I had some fun with a Konica Minolta colour laser that cost under £200, but it was too expensive to maintain.
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