[conspire] Bad hardware categories (wasL: July 13th CABAL meeting cancelled)

[Rick Moen]

I wrote:

> I don't buy computer hardware often, but I never have driver
> problems.  Why?  
> 
> o  I avoid brand-new (newly introduced) chipsets.
> o  I avoid bottom-dollar options.

Corollary to the second point:  Some entire categories of hardware 
so obviously reek of cut corners and general chinziness that y'all
really ought to avoid them on general suspicion.


Example1:  Multifunction printer / fax / modem / copier / scanner units,
like HP OfficeJets.  Seems like a great idea for a home office, right?
Takes up minimal space and you get four devices for the price of one.
Oh, no, grasshopper.  You've missed the implication:  Despite the win
that a multifunction device _could_ be, the thing will be built with the
worst possible components for each of the functions, in order to hit
rock-bottom pricepoint.  And it'll be nothing but trouble.


Example2:  Winprinters.  Some genius a couple of decades ago got the
brainstorm of omitting from the printer hardware _all_ of the
rasterising electronics, and instead offloading all print processing to
a host-based software engine bundled into the MS-Windows drivers.
Essentially, the printer is _not_ a complete printer.  All of the smarts
that are normally inside the printer get emulated on a nearby windows
machine, chewing up tremendous amounts of workstation CPU and RAM (not
to mention job-processing time), and then spewing out bits at a
tremendous rate to send raw raster data across the interconnect (usually
USB) to the lobotomised printer.

How to avoid a winprinter:  Make sure the packaging doesn't say it works
with Windows and then is suspiciously vague about everything else.  Or 
look for 'supports PCL5', 'supports PCL6' or 'supports PostScript'.  
(Any level of PostScript.  Doesn't matter for these purposes.)


Example3:  Inkjet printers.

(Oh, and now all of the subscribers who've ever wasted money on an inkjet
printers are going to want to haul out an edge-case scenario that makes
_some_ inkjet printers justifiable in _some_ situations.  Please spare
me.)

Inkjet printers examplify what is called the razor blade and razor scam,
whereby you are sold a vendor-subsidised, ultra-inexpensive fancy razor
that accepts only a certain vendor-captive variety of razor refill, and
you then pay through the nose for each refill.

Vendors know that consumers fall for this scam _all the time_, so they 
bring inkjet printers to market at incredibly low prices knowing that 
credulous people will buy them because they're 'cheap' -- and then
they're locked in to single-source, hideously expensive supply refills.

I just heard a story about one of the many ways this lock-in gets
enforced.  A co-worker had bought an HP DeskJet in Switzerland, brought
it home to the US with him, and bought an (overpriced) US inkjet
cartridge for it when it ran out.  It didn't run, though it was the
right part number and connected up fine.  He called HP.  After much
diagnosis:  'Oh, sir, you need to use a Swiss-sourced cartridge for 
that printer.'

Notoriously, many inkjet manufacturers have built into their units chips
in their inkjet cartridges that cryptgraphically identify them as not
being off-brand, so they can lock you into buying only vendor-branded 
cartridges.  Or, in some cases, they merely subtly sabotage offbrand
cartridges like refusing to use more than 70% of their full capacity.
However, according to my co-worker, HP has gone one-better on this
customer-abuse:  You are not only forced to use HP-branded refill
cartridges, but are blocked from using them from a country where you can
get them cheaper than in your own.

Don't be a sucker:  Don't fall for razor-blade-and-razor scams like
inkjet printers (unless you're very sure one of those edge cases really
applies -- and, if an inkjet is your primary printer, I really don't
believe you).


Example4:  'Home market' product lines.

HP Pavillion isn't the only one of these.  Dell Inspiron is the other
one that comes immediately to mind, though there are probably others.
Note that multifunction devices, winprinters, and inkjet printers are
all strongly marketed towards 'home market' or 'home/office' users.
The assumption is that you'll be too ignorant to recognise excessive 
compromise and will buy solely based on price, so you get sold
underengineered gear that gives poor long-term satisfaction.