I will try to expand on it a bit so maybe other people are aware, and I will say this is not just Canon that do this.
You have a printer model XX4000.
The one sold in Europe will be XX4050
The one in Asia will be XX4080
American XX4020 etc.
All these printers use the same parts, same Cartridges, same ink, they may have different colour stickers on and maybe slightly different plastic shell, but are essentially the same.
The problem is the chip in the cartridge means that 4080 will only work on that model and they won’t supply the cartridge to different regions.
They do it to stop grey imports, but it also hits the individual who move country.
The only help I got from Canon Taiwan was, you need to buy a new printer from this region. They just seamed like glorified sales men.
Eventually I ended up putting the printer in the bin and getting another Epson and surprisingly a Brother printer, I got this because their customer service was really helpful when I was looking for a new printer, and it’s been a good little printer, a lot better than I expected.
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What’s your experience with HP?
Very well regarded. For black and white prints, a $200 brother laser is really tough to beat. It’s the closest thing to a old workhorse LaserJet 4 that just trucks away.
Yes I have noticed that with all the different names. No surprises there its a result of more sketchy business practices to F the customer.
It also makes it a pain in the ass when you want to find some specific info on a printer.
I had some bad experience getting a Wacom fixed here before. The pen was broke, but I didn’t know that. So I sent the thing to be repaired about 3 times and all they did was reset it then tell me it was fixed. So if something needs repairing I have to assume they might be as unable to think laterally as those guys were and make things as straight forward as possible for them.
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I have one with the high yield ink and for my style of home use it works out cheeper than a laser printer. The thing people don’t take into account for laser printers is heating cost, if you only printing one or two pages at a time this wipes out any savings, if your doing 100 page runs then the time alone can be the saving factor.
Saying that if I’m printing an A4 B+W text document I can get 30 pages in about a min actual (spec says 35 but we know specs work).
Despite what manufacturers say, laser printing hasn’t had any significant changes in the last 20 years, and inkjet for the last 10 or so. I mean if you think about it inkjet is basically just silkscreen and laser is powder coating.
This seems like a pretty balanced opinion
Inkjet Vs Laser Printers: Which One is Better?.
Home printers, not much. I was given a small desktop by a rep about 20 years ago when being shown around a factory. Used it for a bit then passed it on to my dad, I don’t remember any problems.
The bigger stuff (over 1m to 5m wide) quite a bit more experience but probably not relevant for here.
Some of it is trying to protect the business, and some it trying to protect the customer from dodgy middle men, both these I can understand. What I don’t like is when the you have a genuine customer in a bespoke situation and they just wash their hands of it.
This is not Taiwan specific and more companies are going this way, they will only test what you have told them to do.
I was told by an engineer a few years ago always ask for a full product diagnostic first, it was due to the liability insurance or something, (bloody annoying if you ask me).
How he explained it was, when you report the fault they will get a works order for that job, this will give an order of operations they need to follow, that will cover them for the costs/liability.
If they vary from this and anything goes wrong the insurance company can refuse to pay or put up policy cost next time.
Even if they know its something else thats causing the problem they still need a new works order, which they need to get themself or from the customer.
If it turns out to be something else the customer will refuse to pay for that, warranty repairs are paid for by insurance who could also refuse to pay and the company ends up footing the bill.
This added to time restrains/workload from the company results in engineers just following whats laid out in maintenance manual, it’s just not worth taking the initiative, it seams to get worse the bigger the company.
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I think for warranty they just replace it. Board level repair is too time consuming. They’re manufactured cheaply.
Are high yield ink water resistant? Laser prints are basically insoluble in water.
Depends on the ink, company substrate printed on.
But the paper is, all them ink particles will be around long after the paper has gone.