Region specific ink cartridges
 

Just read that HP have started to make region specific ink cartridges, so if your printer is purchased in the UK, your ink cartridge must come from the UK, you cant purchase a cheaper one in the USA!

What do people think of this idea?

Mutt.

It stinks:mad:

If it is true, my first response would be don't buy HP.

AA

Well, it wouldn't worry me too much as I refill my own, but I wonder when printer manufacturers will realise that more and more people resent being ripped off by the price of ink cartridges. The manufacturer who charges a fair price for his printer and then makes cartridges available for sensible money could do well - until all the other manufacturers copy him!

P.P.

These days its cheaper to by a replacement printer than new cartridges. I have seen an Printer for about $A80, but on doing some checking I found that it would cost $A120 or so for new cartridges, and they were generic not original.

If HP wants to comit suicide then go ahead.

I use a cannon (i965). The print head (the smart electronic bit) and the ink tanks (the dumb plastic bit) are seperate components. Means much cheaper ink reloads. Tho the printer was a bit more expensive. Its like mobile phones, you can either pay nothing for the phone and a whopping contract fee every month or buy the phone for a small fortune and pay nothing every month.

I may be wrong, but I was under the impression that the EU had ruled against ink chips some while back, and said they were anti competitive, so unacceptable.

HP went that way several years ago with the larger printers, and it was a pain, in that not only did it cause problems with refilling, if the supplier you got the new carts from was not good on stock rotation, the "new" carts would not even install, as they'd expired before they were even shipped. PC world in Dublin were classic for this one, I checked one cart on one visit, and it was already 6 months out of date!

Hopefully, this one will get killed before it even happens, but it might be worth dropping a note to a local Euro MP.

Cheers

Steve

Avtrician. Be a bit careful with the 'new printer cheaper than a cartridge'. My brother runs an office supplies business and I said this to him recently. He pointed out that for quite a lot of printers the cartridges supplied with the printer have only 1/2 or 1/3 the ink in a standard cartridge.

And I'm with daysleeper, bought a Brother last year and I've probably saved half the cost of the printer already (£7.00 per cartridge instead of £21.00 for my previous printer). Although they have just brought out an updated version of the printer with better facilities £30 cheaper. Damn.