Last time I looked at printers I found no FOSS options. Most of the time, buying a whole new printer costs less than simply buying replacement ink. This is horrible for the environment. Are there _any_ alternatives in this space?
Any time printers are brought up, someone says this.
And every time, I feel I have to point out that the cartridges that come with a printer are starter cartridges. They contain significantly less ink/toner than a replacement cartridge. If you are buying a new printer rather than new cartridges, you are NOT saving money.
This is not HP-specific, either. AFAIK, every printer manufacturer does this. I have a Dell laser printer and I'm fairly certain that the toner cartridges that came with it are rated for 200 pages, while replacements are rated at 800 pages.
Later on they started including "starter cartridges" instead. (And even reduced those from 1/2 to 1/4 at some point)
Even accounting for that, I remember it was still cheaper to buy a new printer.
Why do people always say this? You can't determine if that is actually cheaper unless you know how much ink the printer comes with. I am genuinely curious.
Because they sell the printer at a loss to get you to buy the ink, the ink is their real business. This is exactly why HP is so concerned with forcing you to buy only HP ink. See also razors and blades.
But I agree it would be nice to have some kind of FOSS printer without DRM etc. This came up recently on another HN post, and people had various hypotheses for why this hadn't happened, but I don't recall the article to find it now.
Lots of people just need a few pages per month which is why the cheap cartridge printers are so popular and why a lot of people will just cope with HP's $0.99/ month.
I'm not keen on HPs deal here, but it would be difficult for many to justify that $200 up front cost when it'll take 10 years to recoup it and ink jets often don't last that long.
I'm not sure that's true. The cheaper printers people are buying are cheaper because the manufacturer makes it up on the egregiously priced ink.
It depends on how much printing you do, but I doubt it'll take you 10 years to recoup or longer than the life of the printer. Has anyone done any numbers?
How much are you paying for a cheap HP printer anyway? I don't buy em, I'm not sure what they go for. I bought a B&W Brother laser for ~200, and am happy with my purchase.
I'll be tempted to buy a new printer when it fades, to add duplex and get newer wifi.
The HP laser printer I bought recently, on the other hand, did come with starter cartridges with a smaller amount of toner. My impression is that starter cartridges are more common with toner than ink.
In my case, I've been buying 3rd party toner cartridges for my parents' Canon D300 laser printer/copier for years. First through one company I found on the internet years ago and then, when they closed up shop, I found another on Amazon -- I paid $20 for the cartridge I bought this past May (the official cartridge is about $109).