Tweet
I had a meeting with Thom Brown, who is one of HP's ink-jet gurus, today. Thom is making a bit of a name for himself via his [URL="http://www.youtube.com/printwiththom"]YouTube channel[/URL] - he's really quite amusing there.
Being a bit smug, I have to say I didn't really learn a lot from Thom today. He confessed that paper and ink technology, after several years of rapid development, hasn't changed much in the last three years or so, but a couple of things he said are worth highlighting.
If you have an HP printer that uses a permanent or semi-permanent print head (in other words the print head is not in the ink cartridge) it's possible that the ink you buy and use will have an expiration date. The printer may reject the ink after that date - even if the cartridge has been in the printer and used previously. Thom explains that after time the ink chemistry can change and this threatens the reliability of the print head. With printers that have disposable print heads built into ink cartridges this isn't a problem - you just load a new cartridge, but if your printer's permanent print head gets damaged, at worst your printer is a write-off.
The moral of this tale is that it may not be worth stocking up on ink if you aren't sure you will use it all within the expiration period.
On a different topic, HP is planning to change its Premium Plus photo paper range from the traditional 'swellable' surface coated type to the more commonly available porous surface photo paper type. The new Premium Plus photo paper will work with older HP ink jet printers that require this type of paper, but as these inks are protected from gaseous attack by the gelatine 'swellable' coating on the original paper, the new paper will mean your photos will not resist fading so well.
In this case, you may well indeed wish to stock up on the old type paper before it's phased out!
This is just another sneaky trick by OEMs to make us buy more of their expensive ink, isn't it?
When will OEMs realise that they'll sell more ink by making it more affordable, rather than use sneaky "expiration date" tricks to force us into buying more?
I have an Epson R1800 that I haven't used for over 2 years because I can't afford the expensive OEM ink. It hasn't printed anything in all that time. In contrast, I have a Brother printer here that I have third-party ink in (the ink costs �10 for 100ml of all four colours), and I use it frequently - I don't even think about the cost of the ink or paper, I just print.
With OEM ink, I can't afford to run the printer; while with non-OEM ink, I don't even think of the cost. That's why today, this year, the third-party ink supplier is getting far more of my money than the OEM is.
We also have an HP Officejet printer in which we use OEM ink (because it uses high-capacity cartridges from a time when "high capacity" actually meant "high capacity"). When the printheads die on us, which I'm sure they will, we'll be replacing the printer - but not with another HP, because the ink costs in current models are too expensive. No, we'll be replacing it with another Brother printer with third-party ink.
It's about time that the OEMs realised that they'd sell more ink with the carrot, not the stick, and that sneaky tricks don't encourage people to buy more - instead it puts people off using their products.