Well, They GOT ME!

I went looking for a new printer. I did my Internet research and then I spend hours in the stores comparing the different printers. I looked at the initial cost of each type of printer. I examined the cost of the ink or laser cartridge refills to see the long term cost. I even read the information on the outside of the boxes. I thought that I had figured it all out.

Well I was Wrong.

I got my new HP printer home and decided to research it some more. I had looked at so many printers over the last few days that my head was spinning with all the different details. It was looking at a HP and a Lexmark. HP has the reputation and I have had an HP IIIP laser printer for over 10 years and it served me well. The Lexmark printer has a lot of very nice features. It would print duplex and it was already setup to do Wi-Fi or wireless printing. But I would have to get a wireless router and set that up and I don't have time to mess with that right now. It had a fax, and it would take memory cards and input them into the printer and print them out without ever going though the computer.

So I decided to not open the HP printer ... yet. I went to bed last night and figured I would sleep on it.

Got up this morning and started to do more research. Then I looked at the Box holding the HP Printer and noticed a picture of the USB cable on the box.

The one end of the usb cable looked different than the one I bought to work with my new HP printer.

Then it dawned on me. HP got me! They didn't put the USB HP PROPRIETARY printer cable that connects the printer to the computer. The $15 ten foot long USB cable that I had bought will not connect to the new HP printer. HP uses a Proprietary type USB Printer cable that you can only buy from HP.

This is the catch. I can't even use my new HP Printer for Christmas as I don't have the proper cable.

This is the second time HP got me. My first HP Printer didn't have all the memory installed inside. I had to buy extra memory cards to get it to print graphic images. And I had paid over $800 just for the HP IIIP printer when it was brand new.

So if you in the need for a new Printer be careful and make sure you get everything that you will need to make it work when you get it home.

Mean while I am going to take my HP printer back to the store and return the all the ink cartridges that I bought for it along with the photo papers. The paper and ink cost almost more than the printer itself. $20 for 10 ml of blk ink is outrageous.

I think I'll look for a simple laser printer that can print black text on regular white paper.

Hey Moose,
Ha ha, I went through the same thing a few weeks ago. I started out wanting an all-in-one printer but as I read the specs and reviewed the prices I decided to just get a basic inkjet for now. I settled on an HP from Walmart ($40) and it does well for me and my daughter. I too forgot the cable but for some reason I had a cable here at the house? Who knows how or why, never had a printer before? Oh well karma I guess.
The Lexmark inkjet I have at work has been flawless for 6 years and I work the piss out of it on a daily basis. So I'm convinced either will work just fine and I'll just keep my eye out for a good deal on a better printer but I'm in no rush. Hope you had a great Christmas!

They're doing everything they can. The printer industry is dying out. I haven't had a printer for more than five year. There are too many devices that let you view your documents without printing them coming out.

OK I said it! I admit that I made a mistake. I saw the picture of a USB cable on the HP printer box and thought it was a special type of USB cable that I had never seen before.

But that picture was wrong on the outside of the box. Not opening the box to make sure that I could take the thing back I only had that picture on the box to go by.

I finally decided to open up the box and look at the actually printer usb connection and discovered it was a normal USB 2.0 A To B type connection.

So the new regular USB A to B cable that I purchased with my printer from Walmart worked fine. I was able to hook up the printer OK.

The only problem I had was that since I already had another HP Scanner an HP Scanjet 4850 the software for the new printer was not going to install OK.

After spending all night on the phone with the HP customer service rep ( great guy) I found out that I had to uninstall the Scanjet 4850 software and take that scanner off my computer and then uninstall the new partially loaded software for the Officejet 5610V Multifunction device. Then I had to check the Windows XP Home Registry to make sure that the HP uninstall software worked properly. It didn't as it left some files in my registry which I had to remove manually. I knew how to do this because in the past other software makers had also failed to program their software to uninstall everything that was installed on my computer's hard drive. So I finally got all the old software files of my hard drive and was able to reboot the computer and install the new software. Then my new Officejet 5610V multifunction printer/fax/scanner and copier finally started to work. I then found out that I had misplaced all the paper work for my HP Scanjet 4850 unit. After searching though the house for three days to find the quick install paperwork I decided to try to go ahead and install the HP Scanjet 4850 without the quick install paperwork. I was successful and now I have two HP devices hooked up to my Dell Computer and so far so good. I am putting the new HP Officejet 5610V though it's paces and and enjoying this experience. It's a lot easier to use than my old HP III P laser jet printer that only has 3 MB of memory in it. The old HP III P Laser printer gave out on me for a while. It would no longer turn on. When I turned it on it failed to start for some stupid reason. It was only about 15 years old now. I was told that the power supply may be going out on it. I screwed up by shaking the thing trying to get it to turn on and all I did was shake the toner all over the inside of the unit. When I finally got it to turn on and print the page was all black. I was told how to clean it up and get that problem fixed. I still have a of Laserjet HP paper and HP transparencies to use up so I want my laser Printer back in good repair. I am going to open up the toner cartridge compartment and clean it out really good. Hopefully I can do this myself. If not I know a company that gave me a quote of $20 to clean it for me. But if the power supply is going out for good (right now it works sometimes and not other times) I'll have to order a new power supply and install it. That will cost about $70 if I do it myself and more if I hire that work out.

Crossing my fingers and hoping that I can get the work down as cheaply as possible.

But it's nice to be able to print stuff again. I missed my HP Laserjet III P for the last few months.

Tonight I plugged the HP IIIP into a power supply and turned the on/off switch on. And by golly the thing came on OK. Next time it will probably not work so I still need to get that new power supply installed before I can trust it to work every time.

I spent the entire night of Christmas Eve getting the New HP Officejet 5610 v setup and working. It was a long night but in the end things worked out.