2/25/23
More than 80% of my house calls for printing issues are for HP brand printers.
I don't know if this is partially due to how popular they are, or if they simply have far more issues than the competition.
One of the main issues is their drivers and software.
No printing company has the drivers or software perfect, many of these programs look like they were designed in the late 90s,
others are so modern, simple, and lack any basic form of control when something goes wrong or needs to be adjusted that they're just useless.
One of the biggest problems is when HP requires users to use the HP Smart program to setup the printer.
This program rarely does what it's designed to do, and it blocks Windows from being able to communicate with the printer directly.
So if you can't do it their way, you can't do it anyway at all.
Another problem is that if you have an HP printer built in the last few years, they don't even allow you to scan from that device, unless you've made an account with HP.
Why would I buy a printer from a company that won't let me use one of the features that was built into this unless I make an account with them?
What does an account get me? More dishonest marketing emails from HP? Yet another way for my data to get leaked? What if I had this shipped to me in a remote location without internet? Now I can't scan because of HP's dishonest, anti-consumer practices?
Why would I need an account to scan? Suspicious.
Could you imagine a car company doing this? We're well on our way if we as consumers allow this in any industry, it will not take long for another industry to come along and say "Hey, look at how much money they made after doing that, we should do it too."
I recommend returning your printer or clogging their support lines if you find that you cannot scan without first creating an HP account.
If we as consumers can make this cost them enough money, they will reverse their anti-consumer decision.
So we know why their software is bad, let's move on to their parts, and then their cartridges.
HP likes to design parts that no one else in the industry uses. With most printers, if a gear breaks, I can measure the size and teeth on that gear, and track down a replacement online from numerous sources. Not from HP. HP with many of their parts will make a let's say a paper feeding gear with a very unique center opening, so that you cannot easily source a replacement. You have to hope HP is even willing to sell that part directly to consumers.
Luckily, where there's a will there's a way. A few people online have 3D printed these unique parts, so we can actually replace them ourselves without a company like HP telling us our only choice is to throw it away and buy a new one.
Beyond their parts that are likely designed to break just outside of the warranty ending, let's talk about why actually makes these printers a real scam to own: the cartridges.
I remember reading an article a few years ago online that mentioned HP's black ink is worth more than oil. This always stuck with me. It was around this time that I learned most consumer printer manufacturers are making their printers at a loss, because they know we'll have to come to them for our ink and they will make a killing. One HP black ink cartridge can cost as little as $20 for a basic printer. This will usually come with approximately 1.5 ounces of ink, and according to HP it will handle around 190 pages. Now these are 2023 prices, and tank printers have been around a few years, so these are significantly cheaper than they use to be, but still, way more than anyone should be paying for that amount of liquid anything. It's a huge environmental waste, half these cartridges when they report themselves as being empty still have up to 20% of their ink still inside. No one should pay this much to print. No one should be making a company this dishonest this rich.
Take your printer back if it's new enough. Hopefully you haven't bought new cartridges recently.
What I would do is use the rest of the ink in the HP, and go buy a toner or tank based printer.
Toner printers are also known as laser printers, they use a carbon dust that gets heated and applies onto the paper
If you never need to print in color, if you do not need to print photographs, these are the way to go, you may pay a little more initially, but the cost per page is far less, there is no ink that can dry up on the printhead. Downside is they are just a little messier, sometimes you'll have a bit of dust or a tiny smudge, sometimes they drop dust below themselves onto your desk, but these are the way to go for document printing.
Now if you do need to print a picture, or color documents, the tank printers are the way to go. The Epson I recommend will print 7500 black and white pages, and about 6000 color pages before they need to be refilled. The refill bottles start around $30 for the pack of colors and black ink.
I would rather spend $30 doing several thousand pages than spend $20 to print a couple hundred.
Epson and Brother I believe are the first two companies to adopt these cartridge-less printers. They can cost about twenty percent more than the competition, but you aren't being scammed into buying their cartridges, or even their ink. One I recommend on the lower end is the Epson Ecotank ET-2850 (NOT THE ET-2800), or one of the Brother Inkvestment models. (Some Brother inkvestments are still cartridge based, but FAR bigger capacity cartridges). Another decent brand is Canon with their Pixma series if you do a lot of photography, these seem to really shine when printing on glossy paper or doing photographs. None of these companies have perfect drivers/software, I've seen issues with every single brand. Printing and networking can be a complicated issue, but none of these companies I recommend force you to use their specific software, and they do not block Windows from handling printing natively like HP's printers do.
Update: After writing this article I found that HP has just recently started making tank based printers. Don't buy these, they are the same company that ripped everyone off with their tiny cartridges, the same company that ripped everyone off with cheap proprietary parts that have to be 3D printed, and it's the same company that still will now allow users to scan with their devices until they sign up and create an account with HP.