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Comment by michaelt | Hacker News Reader

> I don't understand why people keep buying HP products - printers in particular.

You need a printer, so you go to the store.

The inkjet printer industry offers you an all-in-one printer/ scanner/ copier with 1200dpi printing for $65. It includes "3 months free instant ink".

The laser printer industry offers you a printer with 600 dpi colour printing, no scanner/copier function, and it costs $265.

You ask the nice young man in the store which is better. He tells you the inkjet gives the best quality for printing photos, and the laser printer is best for business use and people printing 500 pages per week or more.

So you buy the inkjet. Repeat 3 years later after it stops working.

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The funny thing is that the laser printer is much better for people who print once a week or less, because toner doesn't dry up and clog the printer. But for the price/quality it's hard to justify buying a new one.

Unless you print colour

Realistically, how many people need and really expect high quality color prints? I’m sure the tech has improved marginally, but I was always disappointed as a kid with inkjet photo prints compared to professional prints. Most people would be better off having professional prints made rather than owning inkjet, very rarely do other documents require high quality color.

how many people need a printer, period? i haven't needed one for decades. if i need to print something i go to a print shop.

my mother (80yrs old) recently bought a printer because she was printing out poems and stories she had written over the years. that made sense for her, but i think that is going to be the exception, unless you live in a suburb or outside a city/village where a print shop is far away.

I take photocopies of kid's activity book pages for my kids to draw on so they're more than one-time-use.

When I know I'm going to cook something big and messy I like printing off the recipe first and treat it as disposable. Same goes for when I'm about to go wrench on the car or motorcycle, having all the torque specs and diagrams and what not printed and handy even with greasy grimy hands is nice.

Then in the end I'll still want some kind of scanner around for those things I get that aren't digital yet. Phone "scanning" apps just aren't as good of quality IMO.

But yeah, outside of these things if I want a high-quality print I just print online. Lots of places around me can take print jobs online and have common stuff all ready in an hour or so.

Since I have kids, it happens a few times a week.

Before that, the scanner got a lot of use for storing copies of official documents.

People doing online returns can print the label at home.

My kid had like $500 worth for printing available at his college and literally didn't use any of it. That said, during covid, I printed a ton of stuff for the kids for school. And it's nice to have one for crafty projects and printing forms for work and the government that can't yet be done online.

This is exactly what I do. There is a great shop a few minutes away and I can order fairly low volumes at great quality. Anything worth printing is worth getting done on their printer which is better quality and the the volume I print likely cheaper overall.

I went to a Brother color laser printer for home and send out high quality color prints to companies with high quality commercial photo grade or print grade equipment

But you do need to keep it and use it over a long period of time to justify the initial outlay. The cheap inkjet may very well be a better deal for most people even if they have to junk it every few years (especially now that the need to print paper copies keeps diminishing).

I know it’s the naive buying inkjets, but if you don’t have a laser printer you’re doing it wrong. It’s possible to find them between 100-300 on sale with all the features (and color on the higher end of that).

The only time I’ve bought a new one is because I didn’t buy a feature I wanted (scanning, duplex, color). Now I have all the things and toner that lasts years.

I'm really lucky because I have a good and cheap print shop close by. So I never felt the need to buy a printer. The only inconvenience is having to physically go there, but the upsides are numerous. No worrying about toner or paper. Having the shop do all the decisions for me such as what printer to use if I want color, or double-sided, or unusually large paper size. They even have a paper-cutting guillotine for me to use for free. It really outweighs the mild inconvenience of a short walk, especially if I'm already going out anyway.

I threw out my HP when it stopped recognizing it had a black cartridge installed. The complaints about using non-HP ink were annoying but at least it worked until it didn't. Replaced it with a Brother laser, never an issue. The loss of color is something I can overlook since I have an Epson photo printer (also never an issue) should I absolutely need to print in color. HP's corporate policy seems to require everything they make to be as annoying as possible.

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