[aggregate reply to multiple people] On Wed, Aug 5, 2009 at 1:50 PM, Ralph Smith<[email protected]> wrote: > They worked OK, while they worked, but one problem I’ve had is > that once they are out of warranty they are hard to fix because I can’t find > parts.
I've had the same trouble with our recent HP's. HP seems to have adopted Dell's "everything is disposable" mentality. The only parts we could get for our 1320's was the fuser and pick-up tire. Worse still, HP won't even give you the time of day unless you buy a service contract, including retroactive charges for the period since the warranty expired. Then they'll tell you the time of day, and that it's a known issue but no fix is planned. At least Dell will give you tech support for an out-of-warranty printer. They still tell you it's a known issue and no fix is planned, but at least you don't have to *pay* for the lack of service. We'd probabbly be buying Dell, except that we tried a 1700, and had an issue with default preferences propagating from the server to clients, and Dell support told us (wait for it) it's a known issue and no fix is planned. So we returned that. The Lexmark's have worked fine from day one. This seems weird to me, since Lexmark is the OEM for most of Dell's printers, but there ya go. Lexmark's support has been pretty weak, too, FWIW. Thick accents, lack of clue. But "free" support continues past the warranty period, and they'll actually provide some help on occasion, e.g., telling me what the P/N is for a worn roller. Pricing seems to match HP, often down to the dime. Initial equipment quality seems to be about the same. Lexmark's manuals are better. Their front-panel UI isn't quite as nice as the HP, but it's completely usable. Lexmark's drivers appear to suck a lot less, so far. Price per page is a little better, because Lexmark packages toner separately from the photo drum. On Wed, Aug 5, 2009 at 2:43 PM, Angus Scott-Fleming<[email protected]> wrote: > How about toner? ISTR Dell toner was VERY expensive. Dell's toner is more expensive, both price, and cost-per-page. But HP's isn't exactly cheap, either. And they won't honor their cartridge warranties unless the printer is also under warranty. Yes, I have an HP printer horror story for *everything*. HP has done just about everything they could to make me hate them, short of actually sending someone out to piss on my shoes. I just keep hoping this systemic dysfunction doesn't spread to the ProCurve division. -- Ben ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~
