Why are printers so lame?

wrong robotwrong robot
Posted:
in General Discussion edited January 2014
In all my years of using a computer(almost 100% macs, but I have certainly trouble-shot my share of PC printer problems as well)



Printers are always the worst thing to have to deal with, I don't mind getting internet to work, or setting up a LAN or file sharing or anything like that, but when it comes to printers, they just never seem to work.



Paper rarely loads correctly, you never know how long you are supposed to press certain buttons(why do they make you do that anyway? ) They take forever to start up and start printing, and even then sometimes they make a lot of noise for like 2 minutes then they don't print the damn thing.



Maybe I've just been unlucky, i've used mostly epson printers, and I've tried to trouble shoot and get HP and Canon printers to work. Generally these are the cheaper models($100 or so) because I've never thought that spending a lot of money on something that is only going to print word documents and the occasional webpage was very practical.



I feel like Ahmir and Michael from Office space





And now, the questions:



What is the deal with printers



anyone else have as much misfortune as I?





Is it really worth it to shell out some extra scratch on a printer? they practically give these things away all the time.



Have printers really advanced much in the past 3 years, I have used the same 5 year old printer with my iMac for 3 years, and it's been frustrating as hell, but I have managed to get it to print enough to warrant keeping it. We have another printer in the house that is maybe 2 years old and it is just as bad. That's not to mention the 2 or 3 printers that my sisters have gone through at college.



What is a great consumer level printer that is easy to use, and operates quickly?
«1

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 21
    dave k.dave k. Posts: 1,306member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Wrong Robust

    In all my years of using a computer(almost 100% macs, but I have certainly trouble-shot my share of PC printer problems as well)



    Printers are always the worst thing to have to deal with, I don't mind getting internet to work, or setting up a LAN or file sharing or anything like that, but when it comes to printers, they just never seem to work.



    Paper rarely loads correctly, you never know how long you are supposed to press certain buttons(why do they make you do that anyway? ) They take forever to start up and start printing, and even then sometimes they make a lot of noise for like 2 minutes then they don't print the damn thing.



    Maybe I've just been unlucky, i've used mostly epson printers, and I've tried to trouble shoot and get HP and Canon printers to work. Generally these are the cheaper models($100 or so) because I've never thought that spending a lot of money on something that is only going to print word documents and the occasional webpage was very practical.



    I feel like Ahmir and Michael from Office space





    And now, the questions:



    What is the deal with printers



    anyone else have as much misfortune as I?





    Is it really worth it to shell out some extra scratch on a printer? they practically give these things away all the time.



    Have printers really advanced much in the past 3 years, I have used the same 5 year old printer with my iMac for 3 years, and it's been frustrating as hell, but I have managed to get it to print enough to warrant keeping it. We have another printer in the house that is maybe 2 years old and it is just as bad. That's not to mention the 2 or 3 printers that my sisters have gone through at college.



    What is a great consumer level printer that is easy to use, and operates quickly?



    I agree. Printers and printing totally suck. On a related note, Apple your Print Center totally sucks too. Please fix it for 10.3, Copy Windows if you have to.
  • Reply 2 of 21
    placeboplacebo Posts: 5,767member
    I agree that printers are the most finicky divices in existence. The primary reason is that over 1,000 drivers exist. What I hate about printers is that you feel that the computer is barely connected to the printer.
  • Reply 3 of 21
    cubedudecubedude Posts: 1,556member
    Well, the HP DeskJet 5550, the free one with a new Mac, starts up very quickly, and because of the way it loads paper, I haven't seen it jam up at all.
  • Reply 4 of 21
    andersanders Posts: 6,523member
    What would be so hard with implementing a simple computer-printer interface? The computer should speak PDF and the printer should understand PDF. No drivers. Whatever the printer needs to print it has to translate from PDF.



    WHy isn´tit done like that?
  • Reply 5 of 21
    jlljll Posts: 2,713member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Anders

    What would be so hard with implementing a simple computer-printer interface? The computer should speak PDF and the printer should understand PDF. No drivers. Whatever the printer needs to print it has to translate from PDF.



    WHy isn´tit done like that?



    It basically is done like that, but with PS (if it's a PS printer).
  • Reply 6 of 21
    npynenbergnpynenberg Posts: 44member
    Printers DO suck!



    My experience: (coming from a 5 year stint at a high school with over 400 macs)



    1) The old (very old) serial printers from HP (the 500 series) are tanks... they just keep going and going and going.



    2) The newer HP printers do not last very long.. but I've never had driver problems. (That is, when they actually get the drivers written.. :-( )



    3) Epson inkjet printers are the worst. I will NEVER buy another Epson product. We bought over 50 Epson 740's, about 30 Epson 777's and a few other misc ones. They are all dead as of a mere year later.



    4) If you don't NEED color... but print a lot... buy a small laser printer. You'll save a TON on ink costs.. and they just keep going. You can always keep another cheap ass inkjet around for your color needs... HP, Canon, are fine.



    What do I have at home? I have an old tank of a Laserwriter (ethernet equipped) that does most of my printing. It works great... and onyl costs me about $85 a year for toner.... and I print a LOT! I mean a TON!



    I also have a HP PSC (Printer Scanner Copier) for my color and scanning needs. I love having a copier around... and the scanner is fine. It does good color... and since I don't print a lot... the costs are way down. It is relatively new.. so I don't know how long it will last. The drivers are okay... under 10.23 and later.



    At work in my office... I use Apple's Laserwriter 8500. It's HUGE!! It has a duplexer and 4 trays and handles everything just great. I print to a color laser printer for my limited color needs.



    Sorry... that was much longer than I had anticipated!
  • Reply 7 of 21
    kennethkenneth Posts: 832member
    I feel your pain..



    Apple should make its own printer (not OEM)



    My HP DeskJet 932C screwed up lately... it refused to print the last 4 lines of text (e.g on a full single space Letter size paper) and a lot of paper jam. I can say that I will trash it after the ink ran out, then buy an All-In-One printer( scanner, fax, copier, printer) or a Cannon Ink-Jet.
  • Reply 8 of 21
    wrong robotwrong robot Posts: 3,907member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by CubeDude

    Well, the HP DeskJet 5550, the free one with a new Mac, starts up very quickly, and because of the way it loads paper, I haven't seen it jam up at all.





    I will look into it, thanks
  • Reply 9 of 21
    wrong robotwrong robot Posts: 3,907member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by npynenberg



    I love having a copier around...



    Quite possibly the most useful office device since the paperclip or the post it note.
  • Reply 10 of 21
    ast3r3xast3r3x Posts: 5,012member
    Printers that load paper that is laying flat jam a lot less then the kind that have it load diagonally to my knowledge. Also it slows printers down extremely when they need to clean the cartridge every time you want to print, this is my biggest problem with my brother printer I have now.
  • Reply 11 of 21
    buonrottobuonrotto Posts: 6,368member
    Printers suck because the printer makers don't make money on them. They have no incentive to make better ones, rather they have incentive to cut corners where they can but add useless features that look good on a spec list. Then when you've made your purchase, you can waste ink and paper, which are the things they make their real money on.
  • Reply 12 of 21
    theflythefly Posts: 72member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Kenneth

    I feel your pain..



    Apple should make its own printer (not OEM)



    My HP DeskJet 932C screwed up lately... it refused to print the last 4 lines of text (e.g on a full single space Letter size paper) and a lot of paper jam. I can say that I will trash it after the ink ran out, then buy an All-In-One printer( scanner, fax, copier, printer) or a Cannon Ink-Jet.



    The problem is that printers have become such a commodity, there's no value in printer hardware. That's the reason why ink is expensive and they change cartridges with ever new printer that comes out, so you have to upgrade.



    The question is what value can Apple bring to a printer that isn't already out there? The last time Jobs had that ability was when NeXT brought out their 400dpi laser printer. It was cheap ($2000, I believe) compared to other laser's at the time because the page rendering was done by the CPU.



    Printers should have standards on data to and from them, but that's not going to happen. ColorSync was supposed to contribute to that and I'm sure Adobe would love every printer be PS.



    On the other had, I've had an HP 970 with duplex unit and have run reams of paper through it with rarely a problem. And by reams, I mean reams. I'm certain I've exceeded it's monthly page limit many times. And that's not bad considering half of those pages were duplexed.



    theFly
  • Reply 13 of 21
    satchmosatchmo Posts: 2,699member
    I couldn't agree more about Apple's Print Center...it needs an overhaul for Panther.

    I've had good luck with HP Laserjets. I've had an HP 4MP for about 7 years and it's still going strong. I've got a low end 940C for the home and while it's fast, it's noisy and shakes alot. That plus the driver doesn't remember any of the page setup settings.



    Epsons are crap...not only do they die in about a year, it takes forever for it to start up. And noisy as heck.
  • Reply 14 of 21
    jeremiah richjeremiah rich Posts: 853member
    I must agree that printer quality just flat out sucks now. We used to have a 500 series HP and that thing, as someone mentioned before, was a tank. It jammed with my sister stuck a screw in it. We removed it and it kept going. This thing was built out of a good deal of metal. Then came the 700's and 800's. With their fancy kodak printing and all. But, we had many more problems with them. I have like an 872 I purchased a year ago to use with my Mac, and it was so problematic (had to keep re-plugging it in) that I don't even use it anymore. We have gone through SO many printers for our family recently. We now have an HP all in one that is on the Beige 233 in our den (the family computer) and seems to work fine, so far, but is built very shoddily. I also agree that print center could use a MAJOR overhaul. I think Apple really could do a great job in this area. If they fixed Print Center, they could build a tank of a printer, which, coupled with print center, would luer new users. Because of it's purpose, they could make ink very cheap. Perhaps make the print heads replaceable (and it would monitor them) and then you would use "ordinary" ink or something like that. Working at Office Depot, it sickens me to see how expensive HP, Epson, and all of them, how expensive the ink cartridges are. I feel bad when I check someone out for a color and a black and white cartridge, and the total is over 100 dollars. It is just crazy. I could see Apple totally doing a great job in this area.... Jobs! Are you listening??!??? I would be one of the first to buy one... Heh. No crazy extra features, just a simple, (elegant of course hah!) printer that just works. Sorry for the rant, but I have been thinking about this myself for the past few days, and when I saw this thread, I knew it was my time to vent.
  • Reply 15 of 21
    cowerdcowerd Posts: 579member
    What are you complaining about--inkjets or postscript laserprinters. Never had a problem with a laserprinter. In fact the new HP are rendezvous enabled and are very easy to set up.



    Inkjets. You get what you pay for.
  • Reply 16 of 21
    serranoserrano Posts: 1,806member
    I run a samsung laser w/gimp print drivers. Runs like a dream on my network. Get some decent drivers... decent printers help too.
  • Reply 17 of 21
    graphicumpgraphicump Posts: 82member
    I have an Epson Stylus Color 600 that's still going, connected to my bf's daughter's Beige G3/300. At work, I have an Epson Stylus Color 777 (2 yrs old) that has no trouble along with an Epson Stylus 3000 (1 yr old) that's our RIP proofer, again no trouble.



    I now use an Epson Stylus C60 at home (over a year) that keeps going and going and going....along with an Apple LaserWriter Pro 600 that has 50K+ pages printed and no trouble at all. It hangs on an old Performa 6200CD with the Apple LaserWriter Bridge, connected to the cable router. Even the bf's Win2K machine prints to it without trouble.



    I never have paper feed trouble and the inkjets only make noise for about 2 mins. or so before printing when it's been a week or so since I've printed - they're cleaning the dried ink from the nozzles so the print quality is good.
  • Reply 18 of 21
    jesperasjesperas Posts: 524member
    I've got an Epson 880 that's still going strong. Sits unused for months at a time (I know you're not supposed to do that with an ink jet), and prints fine with a few ink jet cleanings. I'm using GIMP drivers, though, not the Epson.
  • Reply 19 of 21
    bostonmhbostonmh Posts: 97member
    My Epson 740i is still going strong. I am going to buy a laser to do most of my printing, but I will still need a color printer from time to time.
  • Reply 20 of 21
    cubedudecubedude Posts: 1,556member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by jesperas

    I've got an Epson 880 that's still going strong. Sits unused for months at a time (I know you're not supposed to do that with an ink jet), and prints fine with a few ink jet cleanings. I'm using GIMP drivers, though, not the Epson.



    Yeah, the 880 is a great printer, even though Epson ink costs $35(!) a cartrige here in the Bay Area. I buy from www.inkresq.com
Sign In or Register to comment.