Does Technology Sometimes Make You Mad?

I bought a z1300 Lexmark printer (at walmart, but that is beside the point) and IT CAN'T PRINT THE COLOR RED. So I returned it and got an identical one, SAME DARN PROBLEM.

Any Ideas? Stories of faulty technology?

Lexmark are crap. Get an HP, or a Canon.

Actually, a pack of crayons will do a better job than a Lexmark printer.

I've had problems with printers ever since they took out the dot matrix (even then). Better yet, I've had printer problems since the time I got rid of my Atari 8-bit and it's fabulous 1027 printer.

http://www.heimcomputer.de/english/comp/atari1027.html

The letters were crooked and misaligned, but it never failed.

Not faulty, but ages ago, I bought a dialup modem from PC World... Got home, opened the box... No modem! lol

Dabz

Woulda loved to be a fly on the wall when you took that back! PC World don't like returns at the best of times.

I've always wanted to know what a tortoise looks like outside of its shell. I mean is its back dome-shaped like the shell, or is it flat?

I'm trying to remember the last time a read a post from you that wasn't weird. :)

lexmarks are pants, they are always supplied 'free' with all in one PC deals and make you so mad you would actually pay someone to take it away and do bad things to it.
Like fragmenting it on the guy-who-sold-it-to-you's head

It's in keeping with the thread title though.

All this internet technology and I still do not know the answer.

Hedgehogs can be born without spines - surely a tortoise can be born without a shell? I must see one without a shell - even a dead one will do.

You freak me out.

Puki: you really need to learn to use google.



Anyway -- Personally I've long since given up on cheap inkjets. The quality tends to be mediocre, ink prices outrageous, and they are just shoddy-made.

I've been using an old HP Laserjet 5 for years now, and am never going back to inkjet. Loss of color-printing ability is no match for fast, reliability and much cheaper printing per page.

The thing was, when I took it back, they admitted it happens often! They take a return, rewrap it and sell it on. But sometimes they forget to put it back in the box before they rewrap it! :D

I wanted an internal PCI modem, but that was the only, erm, box they had left that had a picture of one on... After a bit of higgledy piggledy, they agreed to replace it with a more expensive external Zoom thing.

Now its collecting dust. Bless its cotton socks! :)

Dabz

Take it back and demand "WHERE'S THE DAMN LAPTOP I PAID FOR?!"

(this probably won't work)

I had an Epson RX425 which I bought from PC World for £60, it lasted 2 years before the paper feed mechanism failed. I ordered another Epson (Stylus DX5050) recently and this one too had problems with the paper feeder mechanism. I swapped it for a HP which I have found to be more reliable from past experiance.

There's only one problem, the ink tanks contain only 5ml of ink which is enough for about 150 pages of print but I sourced a third party company which sells 20ml cartridges for the price of a 5ml one so I'll be using them.

Ink cartridges are a rip-off, but its commonly known that this covers the loss they make with the actual printer.

I get mine from a bloke at a boot sale... £5 for a black cartrige, £7.50 for colour...

In the shop (PC World for example), I could end up paying £45 for both!!! I'd rather go back to pen and paper than that price.

Dabz

Its cheaper (although messier) to refill them.

You can get a cartridge full of isopropyl now for Epson printers to flush through the print head.

I did try refilling an Epson ink cartridge and resetting it with a chip resetter ... it was a very messy experiance and I woundn't attempt it again. I had problems with the ink leaking from the bottom of the cartridge while I was refilling it from the top.

I just found out HP has a printer choosing guide on their webpage, had I known about this I would have chosen a better printer (with bigger ink tanks) than what I curently have. They have some inkjets which can print up to 5000 pages from a single cartridge.

I love ebay for printer toner. My color laser printer uses 4 color toners that cost $1000 to replace with high capacity 12000 page ones at retail prices. And yet on a good day I can get a set of genuine OEM boxed and sealed ones on ebay for $100 :)

For the first couple of years of owning the printer I only used it for proofing graphic design print jobs because I couldn't afford the toner, now I use it for everything, beautiful glossy magazine quality prints even on standard paper for next to nothing now the printer paid for itself :).

I work for a stationery company, so I get extremely cheap printer inks. Unfortunately, my new Canon Pixma IP4300 does not have 3rd party inks available (last time I looked). However, it's a seriously good printer so I don't mind paying for the inks.

What GfK and others have said. Lexmark printers are so bad, they should not be sold in good conscience. I don't even think they qualify as "technology".