Does HP have anything good about them left? I feel that they are a tarnished brand, mainly due to their printer shenanigans.
The only area where their reputation is strong is business tech support sector. Laptops are also doing well, but it’s a small market in comparison.
I had a HP laptop in the past. When I brought my laptop for repair, they costed it so high as they say they need to replace the motherboard. The issue was the nvidia card that is causing overheats.
I declined as the price of repair is almost the price of a new laptop. This was an official HP service center. It made me swore off HP laptops even if they look really nice.
I believe the answer you seek is “NO”. I cannot recall a single innovation from anything other than their marketing department for at least the past 20 years.
I think if they did not have user-hostile printers, the brand would have been semi-ok.
Almost all brands nowadays are just trademarks with vague marketing around them. There’s no point in buying something for the brand. Always look into the specific product or service they are buy. Even brands that start as cult brands like One Plus eventually grow to be just another name. Nokia these days is literally just a name that has changed hands a few times.
I loathe how they keep trying to make everything into a subscription. Everything “as a service” is not good for consumers. Then again this is their printer division… where you need an ink subscription or to buy “properly licensed” ink just to print anyway, the entire printer economy is horrible.
In the 2000’s (and before) leased printers were a thing for companies that relied on the things and didn’t have staff that could troubleshoot issues
A subscription model for home printers is rediculous
The entire ink printer economy is horrible.
Everyone should just grab themselves a Brother laser printer for $100 and be good to go for the next 10 years.
They are out of their fucking minds to think $7 for 20 pages is ever going to work.
I wonder, with all the programs that emulate old video game consoles and dead operating systems, are there efforts to make programs that can install directly to the printer hardware to undo this type of stuff?
HP printers these days requires internet connection linked to your HP account to even work. Same principle as live service online video games.
Yeah, but if my printer is pretty much a computer that can have its OS/Applications updated, I’m surprised that hackers haven’t found a way to install software to make a printer be a printer instead of a “live service device”.
It’s not software issue, it’s hardware issue. They use a physical “security” chip that performs authentication.
Latest example of it: HP outrages printer users with firmware update suddenly bricking third-party ink
A chunk of the article makes it sound like, in some cases, it was just a software change that bricked the ink cart.
Firmware, not software. It’s a layer in between software and hardware. You are probably familiar with a most commonly known firmware terms used in PCs, called BIOS or UEFI.
Yeah… and some are flashable and some are not… which is why I was offered my “ponder” as comment.
