Has HP given up on its printers?
I am typically a fan of HP printers. You kind of have to be, they set the standard. Unfortunately, the time has now come for a new standard.
We buy a lot of printers around my workplace. Sharing isn’t exactly something our employees are known for. Our PC to Printer ratio is a little more than 2:1 (2.5 if you want the exact number). We have nearly 800 workstations. That is an insane amount of printers!
Unfortunately we don’t really have a standard model. We have nearly 15 different model HP printers currently in production. The newest printers that we have (and like) that are as close to a standard we are going to get are the HP2420 and HP4250 models.
The HP printer line has gone through a massive restructure. The HP2420 has been replaced with the P3005n.
This printer is useless. Don’t buy one. If you have one, send it back. I promise.
These things are bricking left and right around here. Not only that, HP refuses to fix them! We called HP about them and they said that because we removed the fuser on some of them, we voided our warranty. It’s no longer a ’serviceable’ part. To have HP repair the printer anyway it would be HALF the cost of the printer to begin with.
Are you kidding me? I could change a printer fuser in my sleep as many as I’ve had to deal with around here. Name a model… I can tell you what the fuser looks like and what rollers you need to replace.
We are beyond furious. When we call Dell, they APPRECIATE that we have troubleshoot the issue, ask us what we did so they can record it, THEN THEY FIX IT! They trust that we have correctly diagnosed the issue, and when they show up the technician knows exactly what has been done already.
We are seriously considering finding a different brand of printer now based on the quality of this product and our customer support experience. Why should we expect any better experience in the future, after all, it’s their ‘policy’. Even if only this model is a lemon, what difference would it make in the future if we can’t service any of the equipment we have in production?
We are using Xerox for all our printers and copiers, we have service contracts on all the equipment from them (ranges from $5 to $15 per month) and they provide on-site service and parts are included. It works out great for us, almost like outsourcing the printer management side of out IT department.