Don't buy Lexmark printers.

R

Rizen

[H]F Junkie
Joined
Jul 16, 2000
Messages
9,487
So here is why you should never buy a Lexmark printer.

I purchased a Prevail 705 for my home office about a year and a half ago. I rarely print, but for some reason my black ink cartridge decided to go bad with about 35% capacity remaining. So I needed to replace the cartridge.

Lexmark offers two black cartridges: a 100XL, and a 105XL. They are physically identical. There are literally zero differences between the two. The difference is in price: a 100XL is $28, a 105XL is $4.99.

Now, my printer is one of the models "not supported" by the 105XL. If you try to use a 105XL cartridge in it, the printer will tell you that it is wrong. How do they do this? With an RFID chip that's under the label. So, I swapped the RFID chip from the old cartridge to the new cartridge and voila, it is recognized as fully compatibile and prints like new.

But wait: The print cartridge still shows as 35% full, despite being brand new. Why is that? Because Lexmark doesn't actually check the ink levels, the ink cartridge counts how many pages you print, and after X number of pages you have to change the cartridge. By re-using the old RFID chip, my printer thinks my brand new cartridge is at 35% capacity.

Here is where the total bullshit starts: If you continue to print, once you "run out" of ink, the printer will start fake printing bad black text. Yes, despite the fact that the cartridge is mostly full, it will still print black text with lines through it and other artifacts that indicate you are out of ink. Which means Lexmark intentionally programmed them to do this.

Why are they doing all of this? To scam you into paying for either A) A $200-300 printer to use cheap ink, or B) to make a shitload of money by selling you artificially expensive black ink cartridges.

Fuck Lexmark.
 
Last edited:
Most printers do this now a days. Epson is also notorious for purposely killing cartridges early. It's a pain in the ass and a waste of money but there's really not much we can do about it. :/ I remember a story somewhere where Epson printers are programmed to die after a certain amount of prints. The guy got around it by downloading some Epson software that required a serial key that is only given by Tech Support. Even then it was never the same.

http://consumerist.com/2011/11/your...elf-destruct-once-it-prints-enough-pages.html
 
Rizen said:
So here is why you should never buy any Inkjet printer
Click to expand...

Fixed that for you :D

While I would not be caught dead with Lexmark because of their cheap reputation, the problems you just mentioned are enabled by the purchase of inkjets (and their target market: home users).

Buy a laser and you will never be scammed like this again. While plenty of home users buy cheap laser printers, a good chunk are also purchased by business users who would never put up with that level of bullshit. So they will rarely scam you with the laser printers and toner carts (the worst you get is "starter" toner carts and expensive replacements, but at least the raping is up-front).
 
Last edited:
Rizen said:
So here is why you should never buy a Lexmark printer.

I purchased a Prevail 705 for my home office about a year and a half ago. I rarely print, but for some reason my black ink cartridge decided to go bad with about 35% capacity remaining. So I needed to replace the cartridge.

Lexmark offers two black cartridges: a 100XL, and a 105XL. They are physically identical. There are literally zero differences between the two. The difference is in price: a 100XL is $28, a 105XL is $4.99.

Now, my printer is one of the models "not supported" by the 105XL. If you try to use a 105XL cartridge in it, the printer will tell you that it is wrong. How do they do this? With an RFID chip that's under the label. So, I swapped the RFID chip from the old cartridge to the new cartridge and voila, it is recognized as fully compatibile and prints like new.

But wait: The print cartridge still shows as 35% full, despite being brand new. Why is that? Because Lexmark doesn't actually check the ink levels, the ink cartridge counts how many pages you print, and after X number of pages you have to change the cartridge. By re-using the old RFID chip, my printer thinks my brand new cartridge is at 35% capacity.

Here is where the total bullshit starts: If you continue to print, once you "run out" of ink, the printer will start fake printing bad black text. Yes, despite the fact that the cartridge is mostly full, it will still print black text with lines through it and other artifacts that indicate you are out of ink. Which means Lexmark intentionally programmed them to do this.

Why are they doing all of this? To scam you into paying for either A) A $200-300 printer to use cheap ink, or B) to make a shitload of money by selling you artificially expensive black ink cartridges.

Fuck Lexmark.
Click to expand...


If you have all of the proof on that documented up, you should contact Kyle, (and even Engadget/Gizmodo) and let them put that out there..
 
defaultluser said:
Fixed that for you :D

While I would not be caught dead with Lexmark because of their cheap reputation, the problems you just mentioned are enabled by the purchase of inkjets (and their target market: home users).

Buy a laser and you will never be scammed like this again. While plenty of home users buy cheap laser printers, a good chunk are also purchased by business users who would never put up with that level of bullshit. So they will rarely scam you with the laser printers and toner carts.
Click to expand...

I buy both, inkjet for photos and disc labels, and a laser for documents.
 
When you have inkjet printer you also should print at least one page per 2 weeks, the ink inside dries pretty fast and after very long time, the cartridge wont be working at all. And ofc I also prefer laser printers, I still have LaserJet 1015 which works fine for almost 8 years.
 
TheBluePill said:
If you have all of the proof on that documented up, you should contact Kyle, (and even Engadget/Gizmodo) and let them put that out there..
Click to expand...

my thought exactly if this could be busted open i see a class action law suit.
 
NickJames said:
Most printers do this now a days. Epson is also notorious for purposely killing cartridges early. It's a pain in the ass and a waste of money but there's really not much we can do about it. :/ I remember a story somewhere where Epson printers are programmed to die after a certain amount of prints. The guy got around it by downloading some Epson software that required a serial key that is only given by Tech Support. Even then it was never the same.

http://consumerist.com/2011/11/your...elf-destruct-once-it-prints-enough-pages.html
Click to expand...

Thats why I stopped buying epson many years ago. Shady Practice.
 
TheBluePill said:
If you have all of the proof on that documented up, you should contact Kyle, (and even Engadget/Gizmodo) and let them put that out there..
Click to expand...
http://www.reddit.com/r/hardware/comments/qp7vc/dont_buy_lexmark_printers/

I posted a lot more info and pictures there.

Here's my edits:

Edit 1: Additional information from the Amazon user reviews. Just want to post this so other people see I am not making it up: http://www.amazon.com/review/R3E5MY...W&nodeID=172282&tag=&linkCode=#wasThisHelpful

Edit 2: Pictures of said cartridges:

http://imgur.com/MKvwm - 100XL on the left, 105XL on the right. 105XL is higher because the safety cap is still on, they are physically the same.

http://imgur.com/BNgrp - another comparison, can you tell them apart?

http://imgur.com/NbjsZ - this is where the RFID tag is located, under the label.

Edit 3: I was asked to confirm that the printer will print bad black text. I originally read that problem here:

http://www.amazon.com/review/R3E5MY...PPJF3&cdMsgID=Mx134MUWOFFQBNM#Mx134MUWOFFQBNM

However, I had not personally experienced that as I had just swapped the cartridge. So, I decided to test this myself. I made a Word doc of nothing but full page text, set the printer to "automatic" quality, and printed it until I "ran out of ink". The cartridge is advertised as offering 1 cent B&W prints, so at $5 it should offer around 500 prints on a new cartridge. Mine failed at around ~150 pages of black and white text. It did NOT start printing erratically or print bad text in my case - it printed one final page, and refused to print anymore. This actually lends credence to the idea that the printers have a pre-determined # of prints per cartridge, set in the RFID chip, as the old RFID chip from my last cartridge had been reporting 25-35% capacity. However I cannot confirm the above users post. In either case, this is still most definitely a scam.




So, I cannot confirm the "fake printing" piece that was posted on Amazon, but it most definitely uses the RFID to arbitrarily lock out print cartridges from working in printers that they would otherwise fit in and work fine.
 
As an Amazon Associate, HardForum may earn from qualifying purchases.
Just want to say that this is awesome info. You should definitely contact Kyle. I've always bought HP inkjets and manually refilled them with a syringe, but with RFIDs it really opens the door for them to fuck you even harder.
 
Acer_Sheep said:
When you have inkjet printer you also should print at least one page per 2 weeks, the ink inside dries pretty fast and after very long time, the cartridge wont be working at all. And ofc I also prefer laser printers, I still have LaserJet 1015 which works fine for almost 8 years.
Click to expand...

+1

My 15 year old HP Laserjet 6Lxi is still printing like a champ. I've replaced the toner 6-7 times with the last two being re-manufactured ones from Cartridge World. ZERO problems.
 
NickJames said:
Most printers do this now a days. Epson is also notorious for purposely killing cartridges early. It's a pain in the ass and a waste of money but there's really not much we can do about it. :/ I remember a story somewhere where Epson printers are programmed to die after a certain amount of prints. The guy got around it by downloading some Epson software that required a serial key that is only given by Tech Support. Even then it was never the same.

http://consumerist.com/2011/11/your...elf-destruct-once-it-prints-enough-pages.html
Click to expand...
I second this. They all pretty much suck these days. Canon has been using little chips on their ink cartridges for years for example. I'm pretty sure HP does this too. You can look for aftermarket ink cartridges that will be cheaper and many come with a chip that has been reset so it will read full.
 
Rizen said:
......So, I decided to test this myself. I made a Word doc of nothing but full page text, set the printer to "automatic" quality, and printed it until I "ran out of ink". The cartridge is advertised as offering 1 cent B&W prints, so at $5 it should offer around 500 prints on a new cartridge. Mine failed at around ~150 pages of black and white text. It did NOT start printing erratically or print bad text in my case - it printed one final page, and refused to print anymore. This actually lends credence to the idea that the printers have a pre-determined # of prints per cartridge, set in the RFID chip, as the old RFID chip from my last cartridge had been reporting 25-35% capacity. However I cannot confirm the above users post. In either case, this is still most definitely a scam.
Click to expand...

I applaud your attempt, but these printer companies know how to cover themselves. You probably have to go read the fine print very carefully to see how they define a page of text. I would bet their definition of a page of text would not mean a page that is 100% full, maybe more like 40 to 50% or even less.
 
Go buy a brand new cartridge that's programmed for your printer and put the new RFID label on the "incompatible" cartridge and see if the cartridge starts printing again.
 
I've known for 10+ years now to avoid the hell out of Lexmark. They are disposable printers. But as for cartridge BS, pretty much all of them are like that. If you think Epson and HP and Canon don't screw you over... well, then you would be wrong. Epson, I believe, was even sued over their cartridge lock-out shenanigans.
 
Brother laser printers do this as well. You have no choice but to change the toner.*

* On the new ones.
 
defaultluser said:
Damn that sucks. I used to recommend Brother like crazy, and now I really can't (except for people with light workloads).
Click to expand...

Yeah it sucks. We got stuck at work that we couldn't print out work orders because it wanted a new toner. :/

My HP CP2025n has an override option, it says to change the toner but you can still use it.
 
yAwN ! old news........on which friggin planet have you people been living for the past 10 years or so...........inkjet makers have been doing this almost since day 1......the REAL money has ALWAYS been in the ink, n O t the machines, which have been nothin more than commodity items for quite some time now :eek:

And just for the record: I would not EVER, NEVER, under any circumstances, be caught dead in a whorehouse burial ground with anything, printer or otherwise, that has the lexmark name on it !
 
kindasmart said:
+1

My 15 year old HP Laserjet 6Lxi is still printing like a champ. I've replaced the toner 6-7 times with the last two being re-manufactured ones from Cartridge World. ZERO problems.
Click to expand...

+2

We have a Laserjet 4 with an parallel to USB adaptor and that thing is a work horse. 970,000 prints on it. Toner carts are about 10 bucks a pop on ebay. It doesn't print pretty, but it prints CHEAP.
 
After doing the HP thing for years, I got a printer that I'm completely happy with. I bought a Canon Pixma 870. This thing is THE BOMB. Print quality is better than anything I've ever had, and it's quick, quiet....if a bit of a desk hog, space wise. Canon's 5-tank ink jet engine seems to really work well. This one isn't made anymore, but this one looks like the near equivalent. Very easy to recommend.

I solved the ink issue by buying ink from these guys. Got the kit with 4 black pigment inks and two each of the color tanks and the black dye, with a nice long shelf life at a really decent price.

In terms of page cost, lasers are probably cheaper, but we are using the crap out of this Canon and I'm really liking it.
 
So who makes Lexmark now. IBM used to make them and then all of Dell's were Lexmark's re-branded and then i thought Lexmark was bought out by someone else, does anyone know?
 
IlW15.png
 
LOCO LAPTOP said:
Brother laser printers do this as well. You have no choice but to change the toner.*

* On the new ones.
Click to expand...

I believe you can nuke the page count warning for the toner by just turning off the warning. The drums will only print a fixed number of pages though.
 
1) After 3 Lexmarks I learned my lesson. They could make the best printer in the world at this point and I will not throw more cash at them. They took enough of my money already.

2) I have a laser now so I dont have to worry about ink drying out. And although Brother has some of the same shenanigans, at least they are easy to bypass.
 
BlindedByScience said:
After doing the HP thing for years, I got a printer that I'm completely happy with. I bought a Canon Pixma 870. This thing is THE BOMB. Print quality is better than anything I've ever had, and it's quick, quiet....if a bit of a desk hog, space wise. Canon's 5-tank ink jet engine seems to really work well. This one isn't made anymore, but this one looks like the near equivalent. Very easy to recommend.

I solved the ink issue by buying ink from these guys. Got the kit with 4 black pigment inks and two each of the color tanks and the black dye, with a nice long shelf life at a really decent price.

In terms of page cost, lasers are probably cheaper, but we are using the crap out of this Canon and I'm really liking it.
Click to expand...

I picked up a Canon Pixma 5220 (http://www.walmart.com/ip/Canon-PIX...-Full-HD-Movie-Print-Mobile-Printing/15042568) for $59 at Wal-Mart after my Dell branded lexmark took a dump for no reason. I've printed roughly 20 high quality color photos with this and a fair amount of text and my ink levels are still 90% full. It's quite, fast and the quality is great. I recommended it to a friend too.

I just hope that it doesn't make me regret anything 6 months from now.
 
I've had a Brother brand HL-5240 for around 5 years now, and it's still going strong.
My dad's HP Laserjet IIIP (circa 1990) was only recently retired.

I don't print much, but I checked, and I can get a replacement toner cartridge for about $15. I'm happy with the thing, and, so long as it works, I'm keeping it.

There's no reason why a printer shouldn't last for a *long* time... except for greedy companies that design the stuff to break.
 
I have had a great experience with my HP so far, for the most part. I printed over 600 pages on the starter cartridge and it said I still had like 20-30% left in the cartridge. The only down side to the printer is that the auto document scanner, scans very slightly crooked...
 
The first printer I ever bought was a Lexmark 5150 All-in-One. It was OK for a few years, then it started to pull pages in sideways. I then bought a Epson RX680. Out of the box it didn't work so I RMA'd it and Epson sent me a new one (and told me to keep the old one, so I tossed it). So far my RX680 has been holding up after 4 years. I don't print a lot from it though so if there is a pre-determined failure I haven't reached that yet.

Are there any inkjet printers who don't scam you on cartridges/pre-determined printer death?

As for you guys with those oldschool HP lasers, HP used to build very good lasers. The newer ones are still decent but the old ones were built more rugged. It's no surprise they are still printing.

I also read something once before that said new ink cartridges, per ml, cost more than human blood.
 
Last edited:
*pats his Lexmark x264 that has "Cartridge low" message on it. I don't care. I just keep refilling the toner for $3 a refill off Ebay.

When it burns up from this, I'll maybe buy a new cartridge. I got the printer on a hot deal from Lexmark a few years back $199 for it shipped. Can't complain here.

As far as your detective work. Hey good for you. Don't buy inkjets, they are designed to rip you off on every page.
 
This is bloody ridiculous, and here I was thinking of buying a new printer at some point.

I wonder if there's anyone who both makes a decent printer and doesn't pull this crap?

I'll be sure and ask for suggestions here before I buy anything in the next few months though, geez.

Edit: Oh, wait, are they just doing this on InkJets? I could maybe avoid the issue by buying a Laser Printer instead? Honestly I don't even know the difference and always thought of them as more or less the same in my head.
 
Come on man now you tell us, Just joking I have the same exact printer and been through same thing. Only reason I'm keeping it cause it came with a five year warranty. But after this one dies, it most likely be last inkjet for me. I would probably go with a decent price laser printer to get away from the bs.

Printer History:
HP DeskWriter 600 - Bought it at Compusa, then return it next day for a printer with better specs.
Lexmark 3200 - Simple printer never had a problem with it.
Lexmark X75 - All in one, had to replace this one time
Lexmark Pro 705 - replace this once too, when scanner lid broke.
 
Last edited:
I threw out my old LaserJet 1012 and an Epson 9000 a couple years ago. Neither could be bothered to print straight anymore. HP used to the the printer to buy, at least for lasers. Epson can suck my ass.

I bought a cheapo Canon Pixma MP560 at Best Buy on clearance. Works great. Scans, has wireless, Mac compatible, no ink shenanigans. When it breaks I'll happily toss it and buy another one.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top