Lexmark Inkjet Printers Run into Red Ink

CommanderFrank

CommanderFrank

Cat Can't Scratch It
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Lexmark announced today that the company will be laying off 1700 employees and discontinuing its inkjet printer manufacturing. Lexmark will continue to manufacture its line of laser printers, focusing on enterprise and business sales rather than the home consumer market.

The layoffs represent around 13 percent of the company’s workforce, including 1,100 manufacturing jobs.
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Inkjet systems are bullshit 75% of the time anyway. Their laser printers are much more cost effective for operational use.
 
Doesn't anyone want to spend $80 USD on two ink cartridges that will print 300 pages anymore? What's happened to the world?
 
LeninGHOLA said:
Inkjet systems are bullshit 75% of the time anyway. Their laser printers are much more cost effective for operational use.
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This. Inkjet is a shitty technology anyway. With ink cartridge costs reaching parity with a new printer they just aren't economical. Lasers have come down quite a bit and are far better in almost every conceivable way.
 
I bought a Lexmark Z-something or other once for $25 USD at a retail outlet. Two ink cartridges cost ~$70. I bought a Brother laser printer for ~$120 instead of buying more ink because I didn't really need color output anyhow.
 
Dan_D said:
This. Inkjet is a shitty technology anyway. With ink cartridge costs reaching parity with a new printer they just aren't economical. Lasers have come down quite a bit and are far better in almost every conceivable way.
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Depends. For high quality art prints, Glicee is preferred, which is inkjet. Photos too.
 
I say good riddance. Lexmark was the worst of the inkjet market, anyway. Selling those machines only hurt their reputation for the larger machines that are much better.

Inkjet still has it's place, but they need to be decent machines with decent ink prices. Lexmark was neither.
 
Lexmark was the result of IBM spinning off its printer division.

With laser printers so cheap, there's not much reason to buy inkjets, anymore.

I snagged a Brother B/W laser printer for $60 at Office Depot a couple of years ago. It's still going strong, with dirt-cheap toner refill. Recently, I've seen that they had a color laser for $120 on sale.
 
Lexmark Laser printers are junk too. A couple of years ago our company decided to replace all the HP printers with Lexmark. They are constantly breaking and jamming. We do a high volume of printing and Lexmark printers just cant handle it.
 
There is this Canon printer at walmart that's always on sale for ~$20. The printer comes with black and color ink.

The refill ink cartridges cost like $27 for both, so everytime I need more Ink I just buy a whole new printer.

I have like 3 of them sitting in my closet.
 
david_ said:
That's funny. Sell them on Craigslist for $5.
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Nah, the printers are rather low quality, the rubber wheels for feeding paper will harden up and then have problems pulling in paper.

The 3 I have in my closet will eventually get used.
 
leeleatherwood said:
There is this Canon printer at walmart that's always on sale for ~$20. The printer comes with black and color ink.

The refill ink cartridges cost like $27 for both, so everytime I need more Ink I just buy a whole new printer.

I have like 3 of them sitting in my closet.
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What's funny is that the 2 carts for $27 have more ink in them than the starter carts in the 3 printers you bought.
 
25756309.jpg
 
Dan_D said:
Dye-sublimation is better. Just not cost effective in any way shape or form. Inkjet blows. Always has.
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Glicee isn't really the same as a normal inkjet, there is a massive difference in quality. There's always "better" things, but it has to be cost effective for how much better it is, otherwise it's not really worth doing from a business point of view. As glicee gets great results (if done well can look like the original), and is cheap, there isn't much impetuous to move onto something not so cheap.

leeleatherwood said:
There is this Canon printer at walmart that's always on sale for ~$20. The printer comes with black and color ink.

The refill ink cartridges cost like $27 for both, so everytime I need more Ink I just buy a whole new printer.

I have like 3 of them sitting in my closet.
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Aren't the cartridges that come with the printers normally 1/10th of the size?
 
Zepher said:
What's funny is that the 2 carts for $27 have more ink in them than the starter carts in the 3 printers you bought.
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In that case, what's even funnier is the printer probably wouldn't last long enough to go through a whole ink cartridge anyways.

The rubber wheels always dry out and have trouble feeding paper.
 
Everyone bitching about the cost of inkjet cartridges... sigh...

Hasn't anyone ever heard of a continuous ink system before?
For $60 I have enough ink to last me years of heavy printing.
 
It takes 600 people to design a line of consumer printers, and 1100 people to manufacturer them? No wonder ink is so expensive...:p
 
leeleatherwood said:
In that case, what's even funnier is the printer probably wouldn't last long enough to go through a whole ink cartridge anyways.

The rubber wheels always dry out and have trouble feeding paper.
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Here's a tip I've learned from one of our 3rd party repair technicians. You can take something like Gojo (non pumice) and gently rub the rollers in that and it will soften the rubber again and greatly increase the lifespan of them. I've even just used soft hand soap as it basically moisturizes the wheels and keeps them from cracking.
 
Hofy said:
Lexmark Laser printers are junk too. A couple of years ago our company decided to replace all the HP printers with Lexmark. They are constantly breaking and jamming. We do a high volume of printing and Lexmark printers just cant handle it.
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Why would you do high volume printing on a desk printer?

The C736's we have only jam due to user error, it seems.
 
joblo37pam said:
I say good riddance. Lexmark was the worst of the inkjet market, anyway.
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This.

They always had some of the most expensive ink, and generics where few.

I like my old Epson inkjet. Prints great photos and DVD's, with cheap $2 generic ink carts.

Same as the Brother all-in-one I got for the kids, uses cheap generic $2 ink carts.

Even better, I save the empties and take them to Staples for $2 credit, so the ink is basically free :)
 
Dan_D said:
This. Inkjet is a shitty technology anyway. With ink cartridge costs reaching parity with a new printer they just aren't economical. Lasers have come down quite a bit and are far better in almost every conceivable way.
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Color laser that does 11x17 is still very difficult to find and expensive :-(
 
We used to use a pair of these Kodak Dye Sub printers a few years back,
kodak7.jpg


but we upgraded to a pair of 8x10 Shinko Dye Subs. they are much faster (30 seconds/page vs 90+ seconds/page), cost less per page ($1.35 vs $2.25), and are roll fed so less chances of paper jams.
shinko.jpg
 
I had a HP Deskjet 660C for like 15 years. Worked great but nowdays HP consumer level printers are shit. I picked up an Epson WorkForce 633 and it works fantastic. Been using it for about two years and they actually updated the software installer when a Windows 7 patch broke it.
 
Zepher said:
but we upgraded to a pair of 8x10 Shinko Dye Subs. they are much faster (30 seconds/page vs 90+ seconds/page), cost less per page ($1.35 vs $2.25), and are roll fed so less chances of paper jams.
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Oooh, nice printer!
 
LeninGHOLA said:
Inkjet systems are bullshit 75% of the time anyway. Their laser printers are much more cost effective for operational use.
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Not only that, but there's so much that they do to get you to throw out your carts early. (Unfortunately, laser manufacturers are doing this, too)

When I shopped for a new laser printer because my trusty 4L finally bit the dust... I didn't shop based on price. I shopped based on which printer would actually be the most reasonable printer to use in terms of long term cost.

Lexmark completely missed that point with their printers, lockout chips... selling cartridges for more than the printers themselves would cost.

I ended up getting a Brother HL 2140 printer. Regular price was about $99 at the time and the replacement toner carts were about $35.

Printer for $50 and carts for more than that? Go fuck yourself.

Bonus: Turns out the Brother printers are among the easiest to refill. I got over 4000 pages on my starter cartridge alone once I looked up how it senses toner level. It uses light through two clear caps at each end on the cart. Cover it with tape and it'll keep printing even after the toner is completely exhausted.

Just for THAT alone... My next printer WILL be a Brother printer... and I've told countless people to buy that brand/model whenever possible. Even if you're not the type to refill carts like I am, their cart prices are still far more reasonable than everyone else's.
 
techrat said:
Not only that, but there's so much that they do to get you to throw out your carts early. (Unfortunately, laser manufacturers are doing this, too)

When I shopped for a new laser printer because my trusty 4L finally bit the dust... I didn't shop based on price. I shopped based on which printer would actually be the most reasonable printer to use in terms of long term cost.

Lexmark completely missed that point with their printers, lockout chips... selling cartridges for more than the printers themselves would cost.

I ended up getting a Brother HL 2140 printer. Regular price was about $99 at the time and the replacement toner carts were about $35.

Printer for $50 and carts for more than that? Go fuck yourself.

Bonus: Turns out the Brother printers are among the easiest to refill. I got over 4000 pages on my starter cartridge alone once I looked up how it senses toner level. It uses light through two clear caps at each end on the cart. Cover it with tape and it'll keep printing even after the toner is completely exhausted.

Just for THAT alone... My next printer WILL be a Brother printer... and I've told countless people to buy that brand/model whenever possible. Even if you're not the type to refill carts like I am, their cart prices are still far more reasonable than everyone else's.
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Brother printers are unique in that waste toner (the toner that remains on the drum after a page passes through it) is returned to the primary toner hopper rather than to a separate waste hopper. This decreases waste but waste toner doesn't hold a charge as well as fresh toner. As the toner cartridge gets used, there is a gear that turns that increases the voltage of the charge applied to the drum.
 
Azhar said:
Color laser that does 11x17 is still very difficult to find and expensive :-(
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check craigslist, I picked up a nice color copier that does 11x17 for not that much
 
is Garbage. A printer should just go from the factory to the garbage directly, because that is where they belong once they're made.
 
Dan_D said:
This. Inkjet is a shitty technology anyway. With ink cartridge costs reaching parity with a new printer they just aren't economical. Lasers have come down quite a bit and are far better in almost every conceivable way.
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You need to have a broader view of printer technology.
It mostly breaks down in to segments where the technology value and cost meet the market. Looking at Lexmark in general; their manufacturing of these took place in (where else) Lexington KY. This is really another example of we cannot built them cheap enough. Plus I think the consumable driven model here is one that always eventually fails. This is because it communicates that the product is "junk" to the customer.

for monochrome printing; who would waste their time on a B&W inkjet? Today nobody.
But 20 years ago it was a different story because a laser printer was an extremely expensive piece of equipment. For the consumer a FAST B&W inkjet printer was a wonder to behold. It was small, quiet (the alternative was a noisy dot matrix) and gave you GREAT quality printing.

Today the tables have turned. Most of the major players have sub their manufacturing to China and now you have a B&W laser printer of your own for less than $200.
Is the inkjet tech dead? Not by a long shot.
If you want true color and photographic printing; producing this with a color laser is still on the expensive side. Sure you can print photos with a color laser; but one rated to deliver true photo quality costs a premium. Most color laser are rated for "business graphics".
Most professional shops use a large format inkjet tech printer for this task.
 
Dr. Righteous said:
You need to have a broader view of printer technology.
It mostly breaks down in to segments where the technology value and cost meet the market. Looking at Lexmark in general; their manufacturing of these took place in (where else) Lexington KY. This is really another example of we cannot built them cheap enough. Plus I think the consumable driven model here is one that always eventually fails. This is because it communicates that the product is "junk" to the customer.

for monochrome printing; who would waste their time on a B&W inkjet? Today nobody.
But 20 years ago it was a different story because a laser printer was an extremely expensive piece of equipment. For the consumer a FAST B&W inkjet printer was a wonder to behold. It was small, quiet (the alternative was a noisy dot matrix) and gave you GREAT quality printing.

Today the tables have turned. Most of the major players have sub their manufacturing to China and now you have a B&W laser printer of your own for less than $200.
Is the inkjet tech dead? Not by a long shot.
If you want true color and photographic printing; producing this with a color laser is still on the expensive side. Sure you can print photos with a color laser; but one rated to deliver true photo quality costs a premium. Most color laser are rated for "business graphics".
Most professional shops use a large format inkjet tech printer for this task.
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Standard inkjet is dead for general consumer use, as it should be.
 
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