I’ve never been a fan of HP. HP printers are mediocre at best. They lack quality and proper software. The software is always bulky, bloated and bug ridden. If it were a bed, you’d stay out of it. I don’t know why I feel this way about them. Maybe it’s a bias or stigmatism, or stereo type. HPs have given me many problems, inferior quality and functionality being at the top of the list. And these issues have spanned decades. They just don’t do it for me. I usually stay way from them. I’ll grab a Brother or a Cannon, or go to the nearest copy store. So why did I buy this printer?
Well… I was in Target the other day and needed to pick up a printer quick. I need to scan and print and do important business stuff. Even though I currently work blue collar 50+/- hours per week. I have serious business to conduct from my weekly room rental at Aloha Inn—I’ve currently reside here for the past month and a half. So with this new printer, my first order of business… Move somewhere I don’t feel like I need to take my valuables with me every time I leave the property, or get woken up to some crackhead banging on the soda machine outside my room for a solid half hour at 3am. So yeah, I need to print. And scan. And print some more. In a hurry.
So like I said I was in Target, in the printer section trying to figure out which printer I should buy. Should I even be buying a printer from Target? A friendly Target Associate came by to help me isolate the one lucky printer I would be taking home that evening. My first choice (I’m not sure what it was), Target didn’t carry the ink cartridges. Who sells a printer and doesn’t sell the refill cartridges? The money is in the refill cartridge not the printer sale. I’ve seen refill cartridges sell for more money than their printer cost. I was not about to purchase a printer without extra ink.
We finally browsed to this HP Deskjet 4100e, price tag: $125. They had the cartridges in stock. Hooray! They didn’t cost more than the printer. That’s a plus. The printer had a scanner/feeder. This is sounding like the one. It’s WiFi and phone capable. Okay I’m sold. Let’s wrap this bad boy up and get’em home.
I paid $124.99 and $29.99 for the refill ink cartridge. See:
Today, a quick google search shows the printer is $99 – I waisted an hour of my life at work for nothing.
When I get back to the Inn I try to connect the printer to the Wifi Network. Aloha’s Wifi requires a code that changes every few weeks that must be entered through a web browser. I spent all night trying to connect the WiFi and finally succeeded only to have it stop working the every next day. Why did I spend all night aggravated and pulling out my peppered grey hair? Because HP doesn’t include a printer cable any more. It’s only WiFi. If you want to connect with a cable, you need to purchase it separately (no disclaimer on box). Thanks HP, you did it again.
At 11pm I wasn’t about to take a trip to Walmart for a lousy printer cable. It’s clear across town and my mode of transportation is a Haven eBike. So I went back to Target in the morning and purchased thee hardest to track down printer cable of my life. The sales associates where all over the computer department trying to find where this cable was located. Why have a merchandising store app that shows you were a product is located, if your going to move the product and not update the app?
So they eventually found the cable (but didn’t relocate it, or update the app) and I went on my merry way. Now I have the printer, the cable, and I started doing some printing. I printed one color photo a few weeks back. And just tonight, I printed out my second, 1 page color photo. The color meter read 75% before printing. After printing 1 photo that took half a page, the color meter read 50% ink left. The quality of the image was pixilated so I set the color setting to “fine color” and reprinted. The featured image for this review shows my HP printer in action. Production print number 3 of its young life. It will probably have a very short life. Doomed to the trash chute. Or maybe an Office Space style beating. And No! I did not spill anything on it. It ran out of ink! Three. Not thirty, but three color photos less than a full 8.5″x11″ page and the color print cartridge bled to death. It’s done for, kaput!
Maybe this is why HP stock is up. Because printer cables cost extra and stock ink cartridges last three to four prints.
I’ll keep you posted on how many prints I get out of it’s refill. But until then… If I where you, I would stay away from HP Deskjet printers.
May 10th 2023: The printer died on me with ink in the tank. Printing blank pages. I won’t risk buying new cartridges when these ones still have ink. No option to clean the print head?
HP’s stock price is at $29.86. I think I’m going to short sell the company tomorrow and get my money back from this POS.