Printers

My advice?
Buy any brand BUT HP.

What is the deal with HP? Were they forced to turn over management of their printer department to Somali pirates? Does anyone remember when you used to install a printer from a DVD? That process with HP and only HP, used to often take a mindblowing 30 mins! Where did they get off? Now they have a “HP SMART” app you will be coerced into using for printer installation, if you can get it to work. What a joke! Like Microsoft, they write bloated, buggy software, and the printers do the same stupid, annoying crap — duplicating themselves, not uninstalling, not installing with reasonable effort, not deleting print jobs, falling off the network — like I have seen them do for 20 years. Do their programmers live in the same cave with the hideous, pale, Microsoft geeks, writing programs without ever coming out into the sun to use the programs or printers themselves?

It is not uncommon for me lately to spend an hour trying to install an HP printer.

Here’s something extra cynical: I helped a customer in Jan. 2023 install a new printer HP had just sent her to replace the exact same model that she bought a couple months ago that failed. I set up the new one and put the two month old ink cartridges (5 of them) from the exact same previous printer into the new HP. It gave an error that it cannot use ink cartridges that were originally installed on another printer. The new printer didn’t come with any ink. Really, you scumbags? We can only use virginal cartridges now, with matching DNA?

Here’s something else crappy. If you get the “SMART” app to work, you will find that to be allowed the privilege of using the SCAN feature you need to create an account with HP. Printing is on the house folks! But if you need to SCAN then HP needs a little taste of your personal information to sell to the highest bidder. 

If you sign up for their ship to home ink program you will only be allowed to use their ink only if you can successfully register the ink cartridge through their stupid software -- even if you went and bought your own ink at Office Max. You’ll be allowed to use new ink when they say you can.

I am now 100% against new HP printers.

Pro tip: If you can live without color printing, go buy yourself a $120 black and white LaserJet printer and live the good life! They print fast and you only need to replace one expensive ink cartridge. I have used Brother LaserJets successfully, but I am sure all LaserJets are pretty cheap and problem free. You can also find them with scanners.

Not all (older) HP printers are annoying. Not all other brands are problem free. But skipping HP will decrease your chances of ending up swearing and feeling swindled. Btw, if you have a Mac, any printer will connect in one minute and stay that way for 10yrs. Is the Apple printer secret that hard to crack, Microsoft and HP?

As far as I know, there is not a printer repair shop in Fort Collins. If your printer is physically broken, your only option is to replace it. Yes, annoying. I can fix printers if you are having a more common software or network related problem.