I like to think I'm not too bad with technology after all I design and maintain the website, implemented an online store for Jayne's Foreverbunny, run Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest accounts and know my way around CSS, HTML and SQL, but sit me in front of inkjet printers and it doesn't matter what I know it will always frustrate and irritate in equal measures. Inkjet printers you see have spawned from the devils own backside and today was going to be rather annoying.
We bought our printer a few years ago after reading a serious amount of guff about which is the best and which one will change your life by being able to print out photos from your fridge. It seemed ok at first but then we started to get a surplus of yellow cartridges as we found it had a drinking problem, it couldn't get enough of blue, red or black and knocked it back like a lush. All inkjets are prone to this but I think what gets me is the price of genuine replacements which border on stupid, no, let me rephrase that, obscene. £38 for four colours, each containing 8ml is not good value for money no matter how many times we are told of the 'investment' and technology that goes into these products. Prices like this made the ink worth £1.18 per ml, £674 a pint or £1,180 per litre. Compare that to petrol and I think we can safely say the words rip and off together.
That aside our inkjet two days ago started to display signs of irritation again and began to A) Stop printing black randomly, B) Fail to switch to draft mode and remember it and finally C) Pause halfway through a print before deciding to hurl it back out leaving a scrawl that looked a bit like H...e....lp....m...e. My inkjet was not happy shaped and I knew what was coming, printer shopping. This was further confirmed when it decided to rip up the foam pad the print heads rest on and liberally scrape it across the inside in a blatant attempt to disembowel itself whilst printing out important documents needed today.
So, on to today and why my blog entry is being typed at 3:10pm instead of 8am...
After deciding that the printer was beyond repair and after wasting three hours of my life changing cartridges, letting the head cleaning system drain four more cartridges and becoming increasingly frustrated with the chip protection system, you know the one, the printer runs out of CYAN and has a full black cartridge but the stupid chip won't let you print just black so your printer just sits there flashing a red light to amuse itself, we decided to buy a new one.
Jesus, I didn't realise that we needed to set aside a week to go through all the models available, some do this, some do that, none mention that they actually print, they would rather tell you about an integrated screen or automatic connection to Flickr. Surely the clue is in the name, I buy a printer to, and I may be wrong here, to print. So I sat down in front of the computer and started to try and work out a cost to running cost ratio that would give me the best deal, unsurprisingly nothing was a good deal, it all involved either a cheap printer with the option to take a mortgage out for the ink or the printer was expensive and it took moderately expensive cartridges that were slightly larger. The worst I found was a model that cost £39 to buy but the colour cartridge alone cost £54, easier just to buy a printer each time it runs out.
My local supermarket had decided that today, seeing as I was visiting that they would have a massive display of printers but sneakily place cheaper ink cartridges above. The sneaky bit was that the cartridges were not for the printer that was underneath them but they were from the same manufacturer. So I had to play the game and spend an hour checking each item carefully whilst screaming kids were wheeled by in vain attempts to curb their ministrations failed and they tried to confuse me into buying a lemon. Everytime I thought I was on to a winner something would crop up, maybe the black was a lot more expensive as a refil or there was a big giveaway like only one colour being more expensive than the rest and you can bet that its the colour you are always going to need as its the printers favourite tipple.
After three years I managed to make a choice only to find out that they didnt have any in stock, well, what they actually said was 'Ain't got none in mate' but I think that was the gist of it. I couldn't have been more surprised if I woke up with my head sewn to the carpet. Suddenly remembering the catalogue ordering store next door sold them I dismissed the varlet and went to Argos.
Except Argos was having a bad day and decided to add further misery to mine. None of the handy terminals were working, every one had a sign on it saying simply 'Out Of Order'. Checking if items were in stock was now reduced to looking at it in the catalogue, writing the number on a bit of paper and standing in line for a member of staff to say yes or no like a crap raffle. This was to be repeated time and time again until you found what you were looking for. I found what I was looking for straight away, it was called a door and out I went.
Back to the supermarket, 'Look, let's make this easy, tell me what you have and I'll decide from that' I said helpfully.
'Can't do that'
'Why?'
'I need a supervisor.'
'Why are you prone to nicking things?' Was what I wanted to say but my mouth said 'Oh, can you get one?'
'No, I need a supervisor to leave my post'
'Wha! You need a supervisor to be able to find a supervisor?'
'Yes'
'Words fail me'
So back to deciding what to purchase, eventually I decided to dump inkjets all together, I'm tired of paying through the nose for coloured water and plastic so after a bit of deliberation I bought myself a colour laser printer instead. It prints a thousand pages before the toner runs out, it's quiet, it's wireless, works with my phone and its not inkjet, win,win!
Lets just see how much those toner cartridges are now I'm free from the hidden costs.
OMFG!
www.petersmithcollective.co.uk Home Of Foreverbunny and the Impossimals
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