Eric Mitchell
Its been over 10 years since I last bought an HP printer. Their calculators were the envy of students in the 1970s, but thats a far cry from their inkjet printers, which have always suffered from dumb design decisions. I tried one again in 2017. Hardware-wise, its very good and Ill keep using it but, unless they fix this problem, it will be my last HP. I just ran out of ink for the first time (its a home printer). The pop-up message said I was out of black ink and no, I couldnt simulate black with the color inks; the message said the printer will not print with an empty cartridge. Off to the store I went. I popped the new, high-capacity cartridge into the printer and no(!), it will not print with an empty cartridge the dialog box said - cyan, this time. It would have saved me a trip to the store if the first dialog box had told me both were low - doesnt seem like a lot to ask of the programmers. (Worse, I could have bought a set of all four cartridges for a few dollars more than buying two individually.) But bottom line, I should have checked all of the ink levels before going to the store. So I checked all of the ink levels before going to the store again. Good, magenta and yellow were fine. I come back with a new, high-capacity Cyan cartridge, and the printer again says it will not print with an empty cartridge! Lo and behold, magenta and yellow now show bone-dry. Heres my advice: 1) Buy a full set of cartridges on your first re-fill. If the printer doesnt want them all, save them for later. Either way, youll have saved time and money. 2) Be prepared to toss out cartridges that still have ink in them. Maybe the printer raised the "empty" threshold when two of the four cartridges were high-capacity or full, but it *will not* print unless I go spend another $80 on ink. Add that to the $90 I spend last night and today and its $50 more than a full set - plus I dont get to finish the ink I have. Ive applied all software updates, but I cant get over the feeling that this bug makes HP money so its so high on the fix list. Once again, Im disappointed with HP; Im not likely to give them the chance to "fool me thrice".
