HP Printer And HP+/Instant Ink

[Xelriel]

Hopefully im posting this in the right place xD Sorry in advance if it's not!

My wife and i were looking to get a printer in a day or two and were trying to figure out one simple thing.

Comes with 3 - 6 months of Free Instant Ink when you sign up with HP+

So does this mean no matter how much my wife prints, She will get ink when she needs it within that amount of time?

Thank you in advance for any answers!!!

[Radium_Angel]

That HP+ is a rather expensive scam, don't go for it

[mariushm]

Don't subscribe to those programs. 

 

Once you enable that  HP+ feature, it will install a firmware in the printer that will only let it print with original HP cartridges. Also, if you don't have a credit card in your account so that HP could auto charge you, the printer will be bricked. 

 

See I thought I owned my printer. But my printer owns me. - The Atlantic

 

quoting from faq 

 

Quote

No. Customers can choose to participate in Instant Ink, which provides convenience and cost savings of up to 50 percent^3,4, or purchase Original HP Ink or Toner directly from the retailer of their choice. HP+ printers requires the use of Original HP Ink or Toner to operate even after expiration of the Instant Ink trial.

 

Basically to get those 3 -6 months you have to SUBSCRIBE and pay from around 1$ a month, and you get those 3-6 months depending on the plan you get

 

Here's the plans : https://www.hp.com/us-en/printers/instant-ink.html#section=browse-plans

 

You'll pay 6$ to print 100 pages ... you can get a laser printer and print 2-3k pages with a 20$ toner.

 

[Applefreak]

14 minutes ago, Xelriel said:

Hopefully im posting this in the right place xD Sorry in advance if it's not!

My wife and i were looking to get a printer in a day or two and were trying to figure out one simple thing.

Comes with 3 - 6 months of Free Instant Ink when you sign up with HP+

So does this mean no matter how much my wife prints, She will get ink when she needs it within that amount of time?

Thank you in advance for any answers!!!

Please get a decent color laser printer instead. The value is so much higher when you consider that using aftermarket inks can brick the printer in some cases. The subscription model has some fine print. I don't remember the details but don't believe you will get more than 1 refill every 6 month, at least that is what I believe to remember, shipping costs extra though. 

[Xelriel]

Jeez i did not know the sub was THAT bad, Fair enough! Thank you all so much for the input! Stay away from the Sub and to AppleFreak, We just came from a Brother Laser Printers and omg the picture quality is horrendous.... We need to go to Ink instead and were getting an HP Printer for 12 bucks Brand new too! Again thank you All so very much for the input, Received loud and clear!

[manikyath]

if you dont necessarily care about photo printing quality, get a brother 'LED' printer. (it's like laser, but less moving parts, so cheaper and more reliable, but colors are a bit subpar)

 

as for the HP ink stuff.. from a former employee of a HP partnered consutlancy: dont. if you go HP, just ditch all the software and junk and go for the barebones driver, and buy new cartridges when they run dry. i do recommend buying the HP ones, because some aftermarket ink is *actually garbage* and if you wanted to save on ink you should have gotten a brother instead.

[mariushm]

21 minutes ago, Applefreak said:

Please get a decent color laser printer instead. The value is so much higher when you consider that using aftermarket inks can brick the printer in some cases. The subscription model has some fine print. I don't remember the details but don't believe you will get more than 1 refill every 6 month, at least that is what I believe to remember, shipping costs extra though. 

And if you do buy laser printer, don't buy the cheapest models. The cheapest usually have refill protections and components that go bad fast.

 

A laser printer has two consumables, the drum  and the toner. The drum is a metal tube the paper goes over (toner powder gets "sprayed on the drum", paper goes over drum and picks up that toner powder and sticks to the paper). 

In cheap printers, the drum is only rated for 2-5k pages and after that starts to wear out, as in you'd start to get for example a thin vertical line that's more white or gray, or you may start to see a bit of toner on the edges of the paper... so you replace the drum then.

In more expensive printers, the drum last 10-20k pages, even more.

 

The other consumable is the toner (the powder that's in a tube inside the laser printer, either black or cmyk, 4 separate tubes or cartridges).  In cheap printers there's often some refill protection like a chip that counts how many pages are printed and automatically refuses to print after let's say 800-1000 pages were printed.

There's higher end printers which use toners that can be refilled with third party toner and "reset" by twisting a gear, or replacing a 1-3$ chip.

 

For black and white printers, I like brother printers, I have one and am quite happy with it. For color laser printers I don't know, but I'd probably also look at brother printers.  edit: now i see you didn't like the quality, but maybe you bought one of the cheapest printers?

 

for color / inkjet  you may want to give a try to those epson ink tank printers, which allow you to just fill tanks with ink

 

For example see

Amazon.com: Epson EcoTank ET-2800 Wireless Color All-in-One Cartridge-Free Supertank Printer with Scan and Copy – The Ideal Basic Home Printer - White, Medium : Office Products

 

Amazon.com: Epson EcoTank ET-2850 Wireless Color All-in-One Cartridge-Free Supertank Printer with Scan, Copy and Auto 2-Sided Printing - White, Medium : Office Products

 

Amazon.com : Epson EcoTank ET-4800 Wireless All-in-One Color Inkjet Printer, White - Print Copy Scan Fax - 10.0 ppm, 5760 x 1440 dpi, 8.5" x 14", Voice Activated, 30-Sheet ADF, Ethernet : Office Products

 

 

Ink is not that expensive, $30-40 for 4 bottles (black and 3 colors) : Amazon.com : epson ecotank ink refill

 

[Applefreak]

15 minutes ago, mariushm said:

And if you do buy laser printer, don't buy the cheapest models. The cheapest usually have refill protections and components that go bad fast.

 

A laser printer has two consumables, the drum  and the toner. The drum is a metal tube the paper goes over (toner powder gets "sprayed on the drum", paper goes over drum and picks up that toner powder and sticks to the paper). 

In cheap printers, the drum is only rated for 2-5k pages and after that starts to wear out, as in you'd start to get for example a thin vertical line that's more white or gray, or you may start to see a bit of toner on the edges of the paper... so you replace the drum then.

In more expensive printers, the drum last 10-20k pages, even more.

 

The other consumable is the toner (the powder that's in a tube inside the laser printer, either black or cmyk, 4 separate tubes or cartridges).  In cheap printers there's often some refill protection like a chip that counts how many pages are printed and automatically refuses to print after let's say 800-1000 pages were printed.

There's higher end printers which use toners that can be refilled with third party toner and "reset" by twisting a gear, or replacing a 1-3$ chip.

 

For black and white printers, I like brother printers, I have one and am quite happy with it. For color laser printers I don't know, but I'd probably also look at brother printers.  edit: now i see you didn't like the quality, but maybe you bought one of the cheapest printers?

 

for color / inkjet  you may want to give a try to those epson ink tank printers, which allow you to just fill tanks with ink

 

For example see

Amazon.com: Epson EcoTank ET-2800 Wireless Color All-in-One Cartridge-Free Supertank Printer with Scan and Copy – The Ideal Basic Home Printer - White, Medium : Office Products

 

Amazon.com: Epson EcoTank ET-2850 Wireless Color All-in-One Cartridge-Free Supertank Printer with Scan, Copy and Auto 2-Sided Printing - White, Medium : Office Products

 

Amazon.com : Epson EcoTank ET-4800 Wireless All-in-One Color Inkjet Printer, White - Print Copy Scan Fax - 10.0 ppm, 5760 x 1440 dpi, 8.5" x 14", Voice Activated, 30-Sheet ADF, Ethernet : Office Products

 

 

Ink is not that expensive, $30-40 for 4 bottles (black and 3 colors) : Amazon.com : epson ecotank ink refill

 

I agree, my Brother office printer (bought a used one for 80$) does about 15k pages on the drum and 2500 on color approx. 4000 pages b/w per toner. A toner set goes for about 60 and a bit more for a set of drums. The OEM drum costs a bit more but even so would be cheaper in the long run and the toner does not dry out like ink does and you have a greater choice in paper. Canon LBP office printers are also nice, you will get a new drum with every toner change (combo unit) which makes it even less complicated. 

[SorryBella]

11 hours ago, mariushm said:

for color / inkjet  you may want to give a try to those epson ink tank printers, which allow you to just fill tanks with ink

These thing can be a PITA. I own an entry level canon ink tanks and that thing got air in the color ink system that i cant fix after multiple ink flushes.

[Radium_Angel]

I find it interesting that laser printers were a solved thing in the HP LJ II/III-era, and the big companies have managed to muck it up (all in the name of profits, no doubt) since that point in time.

 

I believe I have one of the last good HP laserJets, a 1320DN, prints forever on real or aftermarket carts, doesn't jam, happily accepts any paper you toss at it.