Rip-Off Printers: What Can You Do About Them?

After last week’s Guardian Money article on the increasing price of printer ink supplies, other mainstream media outlets have turned their attention to the world of printing. Over the past week or so, both the Daily Mail and the Telegraph have published pieces lambasting home printing as an overpriced rip-off - albeit for different reasons.

The Mail’s article on the cost of ink cartridges - which we’ve covered in a previous post - covers the same kind of territory as the Guardian’s article, looking into the ever-decreasing capacity of OEM ink cartridges. One of the big themes in the Mail’s article is the increasing efforts of some OEMs to deter consumers from using non-OEM alternatives, such as the inclusion of hi-tech chips in ink cartridges that can detect if a cartridge has been refilled and warn users that their cartridge may be a counterfeit.

On the whole, however, this isn’t something to worry about if you’re planning to get your ink cartridge refilled or were thinking of buying remanufactured toner cartridges. In most instances, these warnings can be ignored and the printer will still work absolutely fine without implications for the future performance of the hardware. However, it’s worth searching for your printer online to check if anyone has had any issues using refilled or remanufactured printer cartridges before committing to a purchase.

The article ends on an interesting notes, imploring readers to write to their MPs and consumer groups to get their gripes about the cost of printing heard. The pricing policies of major printer manufacturers have been subject to legal scrutiny in the past but there isn’t actually anything legally wrong with what the OEMs are doing.

Although the pricing of ink cartridges is unfairly high, this is offset by the cheap cost of the hardware. Similarly, there isn’t a cap on how much printer cartridges should cost and it’s unlikely that there ever will be. Nevertheless, kicking up a fuss about the cost of printing is a good way to draw attention to the issue and hopefully spur the OEMs into action!

As for the other concerns addressed in the article, here are some of the ways you can avoid the sky-high cost of OEM printing supplies:

1) Refill your old cartridges rather than buying new cartridges
2) Consider remanufactured and compatible printer cartridges over expensive OEM equivalents
3) Alter your print settings and practices to reduce the amount of ink you use; use draft mode for documents where quality isn’t a key concern and use digital sharing for internal office memos, etc.

The Solution to An Inefficient Printer

Although it appeared a day after the Guardian’s article on ink, an article in the Telegraph put a different slant on the woes of home printing, focusing instead on dreaded printer errors and the general inefficiency of most home printers at doing what they’re supposed to do.

Unfortunately, we don’t have any quick fix for this particular frustration; some printers just don’t work as well as others. However, a constantly faulty printer could be a sign that your printer is breaking down and either needs fixing or replacing. Like computers, the performance of a printer will decrease over time so if you’ve owned a printer for over five years, it might be time to consider a new model.

It could also be that you haven’t set your printer up correctly. Surprisingly, many users forget to align their printer before using it for the first time, leading to wonky prints and a frustrating chain of misprints. If speed is an issue, you can set your documents to a lower print quality - while they won’t look as good, they will print faster and the difference between resolutions can be miniscule.

As for paper jams, they are usually a sign that you haven’t set up your paper properly. Some common causes of paper jams include:

1) Wrong type of paper
2) Differing types of paper
3) An overloaded paper tray
4) Incorrect alignment of the paper tray and slider

With printing seemingly coming under increasing scrutiny from the mainstream media, it may be the case that we see some major changes in the printing industry in very near future. However, for now, the best remedy for a costly, inefficient printer is to change the way you buy your printing supplies and to take good care of your printer!