No more HP printers for me…

I’ve been grappling with HP’s CP1025nw printer for over a year and have concluded that HP is no longer capable of making a decent printer. This is sad because HP used to be the premier printer company.  I’ve been buying HP lasers for a very long time; I had an HP Laserjet Plus back in the 1980s when they cost a fortune, but after several dismal HP printers over the last 5 years, I will no longer purchase from them.

I bought this particular color laser printer mainly for its “network” feature. Unfortunately, it seems to disconnect from the network whenever it goes into power save mode and requires manual power cycling to re-connect. When disconnected it cannot be awakened or accessed by ping, http, or any other protocol. I have tried wired and wireless connections, static and dynamic IPs…no luck.  Many others have reported the same problem on multiple HP printer models.

Aggravating this is HP’s “technical support” whose goal seems to be to dissuade you from calling by repeatedly engaging in massive time-wasting exercises designed to help you understand how thoroughly ignorant they are of IP networking basics.  This too is sad as it reflects a change in many technology companies: they no longer attempt to reduce support costs by improving documentation and product quality but instead focus on reducing support costs and quality by outsourcing to folks who have little connection to or interest in their company or products.

On the plus side, I’ve had great experiences with Canon laser printers for the last several years and their supplies are cheaper too!