New Printer with "Extended Capabilities"
May. 29th, 2006 09:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lostcarparkWe had an Epson all-in-one printer/scanner. It was a great little unit, but I found the ink cartridges infuriating. Ithought having four seperate cartridges would save ink, but it seemed to makethings worse. Everything would be fine for a week or two, but then you'd leave the printer for a while, and next time you print, some lines are missing out of the red. So I run the cleaning cycle, which seems to use a heck of a lot of ink, and it might take two runs to get things going again. And everythings fine for a little while, except that I've used so much ink running the cleaning cycle that one of the other cartridges has run out. It might be a day or two before I manage to get a new one, by which time another cartridge is playing up.
I tried refilling cartridges myself for a while, which was a whole heap of fun. But eventually I got totally fed up and packaged the whole thing up and brought it back where I got it. It's over a year old, so for once I'm glad we took out the coverplan. The nice people at Dixons scratched their heads and asked did I call Epson? If I wanted to call Epson myself, I wouldn't have paid good money for a coverplan. Eventually they took it out back to check the serial number. When they came pack, they told me the good news - I could keep that printer, and I'd receive vouchers for a new one in the post.
The vouchers duly and I went printer shopping. Better still, a branch of Dixons has opened in Drogheda, so if it ever goes wrong again, I only have to take it down the road. After som humming and hawing, and extensive web browsing, I settled on a HP model. I wasn't going to go for another Epson, and wasn't keen on getting burned by an even more obscure brand. I've had experience of a lot of HP printers over the years, and very few problems. It was about 30 Euro more than my voucher, but has quite a few nice new features. It has a flip-up colour LCD screen to guide you throu everything, an array of memory card slots to allow photo printing without going through the computer, and it has a network port so the full range of features are available from any computer on the network (plus saving a valuable USB port on the PC).
One thing struck me as odd. During the software setup, it asked me do I want to enable HP Extended Capabilities? When I clicked on "more information", it brought up the following:
So if I accept, am I inviting them to spam me? It seems very vague on what the benefits are if I accept. More to the point, it's equally vague on what I miss out on if I decline. Will features of the software be unavailable?
I feel I have to know what these capabilities are, so I (perhaps foolishly) accepted. I may have to install on a control computer without to see what the difference is.
The computer is waiting for me to reboot (why do all install programs think they have to reboot - is it just their way of making sure you know who's calling the shots?), so I'll let you know how I get on in due course.
I tried refilling cartridges myself for a while, which was a whole heap of fun. But eventually I got totally fed up and packaged the whole thing up and brought it back where I got it. It's over a year old, so for once I'm glad we took out the coverplan. The nice people at Dixons scratched their heads and asked did I call Epson? If I wanted to call Epson myself, I wouldn't have paid good money for a coverplan. Eventually they took it out back to check the serial number. When they came pack, they told me the good news - I could keep that printer, and I'd receive vouchers for a new one in the post.
The vouchers duly and I went printer shopping. Better still, a branch of Dixons has opened in Drogheda, so if it ever goes wrong again, I only have to take it down the road. After som humming and hawing, and extensive web browsing, I settled on a HP model. I wasn't going to go for another Epson, and wasn't keen on getting burned by an even more obscure brand. I've had experience of a lot of HP printers over the years, and very few problems. It was about 30 Euro more than my voucher, but has quite a few nice new features. It has a flip-up colour LCD screen to guide you throu everything, an array of memory card slots to allow photo printing without going through the computer, and it has a network port so the full range of features are available from any computer on the network (plus saving a valuable USB port on the PC).
One thing struck me as odd. During the software setup, it asked me do I want to enable HP Extended Capabilities? When I clicked on "more information", it brought up the following:
This software can help you receive additional benefits only available to HP customers.
Once this software is installed, you will have an opportunity to participate in market research designed to improve HP products and experiences. An invitation will appear on your screen in a few weeks and you can choose whether or not to participate at that time.
Customers who do a lot of printing may also receive an invitation to participate in programs with benefits such as special offers, awards and enhanced technical support.
Participation is completely voluntary. This program will provide a full disclosure at the time of invitation. If at that time you choose to participate, the software may occasionally connect to HP when you are online, but will have a negligible impact on processing and connection speed. Personal information is never sent to HP unless you give permission. IP address will be used only to enable the connection and for security purposes. This software is governed by the HP Privacy Policy located at: “www.hp.com/go/privacy.”
So if I accept, am I inviting them to spam me? It seems very vague on what the benefits are if I accept. More to the point, it's equally vague on what I miss out on if I decline. Will features of the software be unavailable?
I feel I have to know what these capabilities are, so I (perhaps foolishly) accepted. I may have to install on a control computer without to see what the difference is.
The computer is waiting for me to reboot (why do all install programs think they have to reboot - is it just their way of making sure you know who's calling the shots?), so I'll let you know how I get on in due course.
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PSC1215 here ...
Date: 2006-05-30 12:05 pm (UTC)The HP PSC1215 is a much simpler machine (though it works fine as a scanner and printer (and copier)) as it has no LCD panel or card slots. I bought it "second hand" from last year's Worldcon (I think it was £55 but it came with three spare HP black cartridges and two spare HP colour catridges, so effectively free!)
The problem with Epsom printers (aside from what you've said already) is that the print heads are built in, and unless you print something at least once a week the ink dries in the heads and is almost impossible to clean out (certainly I haven't succeeded on any of mine, so I'm about to throw out two slightly broken Epson Stylus colour printers, and wondering about the third (an Epson Photo Stylus 850).
Re: PSC1215 here ...
Date: 2006-05-30 10:59 pm (UTC)I think that's exactly the problem I was having, though not quite so extreme. I recently turned on a HP ink jet that hadn't been used for months and asked it to print a photograph, and it produced perfect results first time. HP ink cartridges can be a little more expensive, but they seem to make up for it in reduced waste.
Funny quote
Date: 2008-05-06 06:29 pm (UTC)Our country has plenty of good five-cent cigars, but the trouble is
they charge fifteen cents for them.
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