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Thread: Printer Ink Monopoly

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    Diamond Member Blurock's Avatar
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    Printer Ink Monopoly

    Is it legal for a company to force consumers to use only their consumables such as printer ink? Can it be regarded as a monopoly and therefore an unethical business practice?

    I have been an HP fan for decades as I found their products to be reliable and cost effective.
    However, our ever deteriorating exchange rate has forced me to look for generic ink cartridges which has worked well for years. All of a sudden (after an unintended update) the generic product which is priced at a fraction of the original is no longer working in my printer.

    The much more expensive cartridge is manufactured in a militaristic, communist country with dubious labour and human rights practices. HP is now forcing me to buy from this country at double the price, whereas I could rather support traders in my own country.

    I will now be looking to replace my printer with one that has a refillable ink tank. Bye, bye HP!
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    Diamond Member AndyD's Avatar
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    All the printer companies use the same underhanded tactics. They loss leader their printers in order to rip you blind on the cartridges. Add to that that they use every trick in the book to make sure you use as much ink as possible such as periodic test and head cleaning cycles that consume massive amounts. It's been going on for decades and they constantly play 'whack a mole' with generic cartridge manufacturers by force-updating firmware to disable the use of generic cartridges.
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    We have two printers:

    1. Brother DCP-T510W which has ink refill tanks. CMYK (This is a cheap printer / scanner)
    2. Epson L7160 which also ha refill tanks. CMYKU

    The OEM inks are not expensive and the inks last a very long time in both printers. One can use non-OEM refill inks in the tanks without a problem.

    The Epson L7160 is a very special printer. It is THE highest resolution inkjet available on the market. It has normal CMYK and it has another double size Ultra Black tank. The retail price for the printer is R12,000 - R14,000. I walked into Game one Sunday morning and they had it on special for R9,000. I said that I might buy it the following week and they offered it to me at R5,000 if I take it there and then. I paid Game R5,000 for the printer and Epson had a cash back thing going that month if one presented the proof of purchase. Epson gave me R1,000 cash back two weeks later. The Epson in a brilliant but finicky printer.

    I can 100% vouch for both the Brother and Epson inkjet refill tank printers. They are both really good and really cost effective to run. Neither use replacement cartridges of any sort - you just fill the tanks with ink.

    BTW: Hi Fi Corp is selling off Canon photo paper packs for about 5% the going price. I think it is because nobody prints photos anymore. I've bought enough photo paper to last me a lifetime for the two inkjet printers.

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    Diamond Member Justloadit's Avatar
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    In fact all brands do this. It is a way to remain in business.
    Development costs lots of money, and the recovery of the R & D on printer sales is difficult. They make their money on consumables at ridiculous prices.
    I use Samsung CLX-6220, which uses toners, and replacement for the full set is about R6K, and have printed over 50K pages with it.
    I get around 5K pages for the colour cartridge and about 12K pages for black, it is very dependent on what you are doing. I print a lot of pamphlets and colour user manuals with mine, and the toner makes the finished product almost professional.
    So I print as I need which works out cheaper than ordering 100 user manuals for each of my products.

    I chose this specific model because it can print on both sides of a page, and it can scan a pile of pages in one go through a document feeder.
    I stopped using ink printers 15 years ago, simply because the ink use to dry up in the heads and the amount of copies per tank was dismal.
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    Diamond Member Justloadit's Avatar
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    I see that HP is now the agents for Samsung.
    See here CLX6220ND

    I see that Global Ink has good prices, half of other suppliers.
    Victor - Knowledge is a blessing or a curse, your current circumstances make you decide!
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    Diamond Member tec0's Avatar
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    I deleted my post above... i was thinking of the wrong thing...

    I had totally the wrong idea of what type of printer we where talking about.

    I own 2 Samsung color laser printers as well they are good get the job done fast and is for the most part reliable. I am fond of the wireless function especially. i use none original toner cartridges and accept for a paper jam here and there it works really well. Both of these have been with me for a while now and both are working just fine. That said i do not run a printing shop these printers are mostly to print out photos customer specs, product details and stuff like that. So how cost effective they will be for a printing business i do not know.

    Both are the same model it is the Samsung Xpress C480FW

    I like laser printers as i can make Circuit Boards as well. For this i use my Samsung Xpress M2020W it is a little beast of printer but note it is not a color laser like my C480FW.

    What i found to be really handy is to print documents from my phone directly to my printers this have proven to be invaluable but most WiFi printers supports phones.
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