laser toner cheaper than printer - what gives

[gary]

I bought an HP 3500 laser printer 9 months ago I uses for making brochures,
invoices, flyers etc. Beautiful unit runs flawless and can handle my legal
paper in the tray drawer. Great unit.

So I run out of ink today on one of the carts and the others will be due
within a few hundred pages. Time to run to Staples and pick up 4
cartridges. Sticker shock! In $CAD w/o tax 4 carts comes to $784. I'm in
the printer aisle and the HP3500 is $899.00 with $125 off at the till = $774
and HP has a mail in rebate for $120 = $654.00 + $8.00 provincial recycle
tax = $662.00. I thought they must have half life cartridges. The one I
previously bought had full ones and when I checked this one did to. So of
course I buy the printer. I just got home opened the box and took out the
toner. Now I got a printer for $122.00 less than the toner cost. Now I
just have to find a place to store this sucker. Go figure. How can they do
this? Staples link below.
http://staples50canada.crossmediase...24613&listingid=-2097165092&mapareaid=3222048

 

[Arthur Entlich]

Yeap, this is the kind of garbage I'm often writing about.

Usually, the cartridges are half full, but I can't speak for this
specific model.

Regardless, this business model is bad news all the way around. What's
going to happen to your original printer now? Eventually, it will end
out in the trash.

The only thing I can suggest is see if anyone in your area can refill
the cartridges. That might be a reasonable compromise to consider. You
can either have two working printers then, or sell one used with the
refills for it. Hopefully the cartridges don't self distruct,
preventing refilling.

Art

 

[zakezuke]

Now I got a printer for $122.00 less than the toner cost. Now I

just have to find a place to store this sucker.

Welcome to the 21st century.

1. Buy new printer
2. Sell old one on ebay
3. Profit.

Seriously if you get the rebate, and you save money more power to you.
I'm sure there is either an individual or a business who's happy to buy
these suckers up, refill them, and resell them. Or worst case an
individual or business who needs good spares parts. If more people
exploit their flawed business model perhaps it will do the world some
good.

 

[gary]

I called several of the big toner cartridge refill places in town and they
said that they do not refill that model - yet. On place had refilled
cartridges for sale for $20 less than the OEM ones, not a big enough
difference to sway me. So I will hang onto it and when I can refill the kids
will have an awesome printer connected to their computer.

On another note I had 2 Epson inkjet printers here and took them to the
local eco centre yesterday for recycling. My hopes would be that they would
look at them and send them off to a school or a no profit association or
something. They were 3 years and 2 years old. Cosmetically they looked
brand new. The only problem was some banding I could not get rid of which
was not acceptable for my business brochures. Having the color laser now
they were redundant.

The fellow at the "eco" center said they could not take them with the
cartridges in them and I had to take the cartridges out. I tried to take
them out and told him I needed to power them up in order to get the carts
out. He said to force them out and I said that would break it. He told me
they do not reuse them in anyway and just recycle the materials. He then
grabbed it and smashed it on the concrete floor. Pieces everywhere he took
the carts out and put them in the "hazard" bin. Did the same thing with the
other printer. Kinda made me sick how this is becoming such a throw away
society. I mean the cartridges themselves probably cost more to produce
than the ink in them and then just get disposed of. The recycling process
probably takes more energy and $ resources than to produce the original
printer parts.

In hindsight I would have put the printers up for give away in the free ad
bargain finder newspaper. Sigh.

 

[Arthur Entlich]

That says quite a bit for your local recycling program, doesn't it?
Where are you located, if I might ask?

The three R's are "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle" in that order, for a reason.
Each step is one worse than the earlier one. Reducing your need for
items helps to limit the amount of raw materials, energy and shipping
required in making the product to begin with. Next is Reuse, which can
include repairing, making the object work longer, or giving it to
someone else to use (which is also a type of reduction).

Here on Vancouver Island (BC, Canada), we have three Freecycle lists
just for the lower island, and they are all very active. Each day I
receive about 100 messages with free offers, wants or completed
transactions. We also have numerous charities (Salvation Army, St.
Vincent du Paul, Value Village (who buy from the Canadian Diabetes
Association), and dozens of other Thrift and preowned stores. We also
have a Re-store here which raises money for "Habitat for Humanity".
Garage sales are a lifestyle here during the summer. There are also a
couple of used computer stores, and the provincial government has an
assets and recovery division which sells older high tech items. We also
have a number of "computers for schools" programs and other programs for
needy families and seniors which provides them with some basic high tech
for internet access or their children to use for educational applications.

I think an eco-centre that operates in that fashion is not offering a
great service. I agree with you that the printers could have been
better directed, and I can also bet the banding could have easily been
corrected in about 15 minutes and $1 worth of home cleaning supplies.

Pretty sad, actually.

Art