Star letter

I was looking for an inkjet printer for one of my clients. In the past couple of years I’ve often recommended HP printers with their Instant Ink subscription service (where the user pays a small monthly fee to print a set number of pages; any unused pages are rolled over and can be used the following month).

What really makes it great value is that pages can be black and white, colour, or full photo prints for the same price per page. Anyone who’s printed photos on their inkjet knows just how much ink these can use up.

So it was interesting to see that many new HP inkjet printers now come with something called HP+, which includes Instant Ink. However, in the terms and conditions it states that “HP+ requires… exclusive use of Original HP Ink cartridges for the life of the printer” (my emphasis).

So if you activate HP+ when you first set up the printer, that’s it. You’re blocked from using cheaper, compatible cartridges forever! It’s one thing to recommend using original HP cartridges, but to block the use of them completely and permanently brings a nasty taste to the mouth.

HP tried this a few years ago by automatically upgrading the firmware in some printers to block compatible cartridges, but the outcry that followed forced it to roll back the changes with a further firmware update. This time it seems it’s saying, “We told you when you signed up, so tough!”

Even more worrying, the small print now also says: “This printer… uses dynamic security measures to block cartridges using modified or non-HP circuitry. Periodic firmware updates will maintain the effectiveness of these measures and block cartridges that previously worked.”

So even if you don’t sign up to HP+, the company will try to stop you printing with non-HP ink anyway. This has changed me from being a fan of HP’s inkjet printers to being extremely wary of signing up for this scheme and inadvertently blocking the use of compatible ink forever.

I think it’s nasty, anti-competitive and shows how little HP thinks of its customers. What do other readers think? Mark Phillips