ink consumption for photosmart premium C309a

[Jim72]

Well Chris38, we can use Office Depot or Staples refilled cartridges.  They usually fill them full.  I just replaced all my regular cartriges yesterday after 4 weeks of empty warnings.  I was printing some pictures and wanted good quality so used the XL cartridges.  I see how quick they run out.  I print with normal quality too.

[ChrisATX]

I agree that this printer is not living up to my expectation at all.

1) Can't even handle legal size papers without ejecting them across the floor

2) Profiles that don't remember paper size settings and are just plainly confusing.

3) Drivers that are terribly slow. It takes up to 40s to bring up the necesary driver box and the options one level below even just before I can start a print.

4) Inability to have profiles 'stick' to a printer so I can just print to a printer copy and be assured that it will use the profile I set up in advance like I could do on my 4-year old Brother!

5) Terrible ink consumption in color (see below)

6) Huge bugs in the drivers such as.

When a page is printed in duplex (which is there for savings and to save on waste) all of a sudden the 'print in black only' becomes unavailable. All that is available with black is print in high quality. No more draft and black only. This can clearly be resolved in the driver.

The results I have seen this week is that while having printed NO color prints at all, my color ink has reduced by 50%!!!! Normal black usage has been OK but why do we need to replace color ink cartridges if we don't print in color?
 

I'm getting the impression that this is another nice marketing piece of printer that in fact costs the consumers more in time, ink and money than the savings people are led to believe. If I seem a bit edgy here it is because my other posts, regardless of having over 100 people reading it received absolutely no reply from HP itself.

Please fix these things as they renders the printer absolutely useless.

[Maxxy]

I am also experiencing the same problem with the longevity of the print cartridges.  The last Hp printer I had (c6100) significantly outlasted this model.  Maybe I should have bought a new one but was having problems with the feeder, so I thought that maybe a unit with a feeder capable of handling more pages would be a better fit.  I was wrong.  I have had the C309a for one month now and have replaced the cartridges 2 times.  I cannot afford this with moderate use.  I receive faxes, have printed apprximately 30 4x6 pics and do 100% black and white printing for work.  Is there any settings that I can change to at least get back to the quality of my old printer?  Is HP aware of this and have some sort of a solution?  HELP...PLEASE!

[ChrisATX]

1) Remove the SOLVED icon from this thread as the issue is not solved at all and gives the wrong impression that all is well.

2) FIX THE INK ISSUE HP. My company is in the market for 46 new PC's and HP was our first choice until now. I don't care if it's another department or not, this is a company wide issue and it should be resolved.

A) Misleading marketing. The XL cartridges are meant to least for 800+ prints while lots of people are doing far less even in draft.

B) PRINTING in BLACK ALSO USES COLOR INK. (This has been confirmed before and clearly seems to be another way to get your audience (read: the people who would have a favorable opinion of your company and buy more of your products) to pay for more cartridges that they should not need.

C) Your printer is wasting resources. Far from being the eco-friendly printer.

D) Your printer cannot handle documents over 40-50 pages in the spooler.

E) Your printer does not support legal paper (oh doh... could we just have extended the paper ledge 3cm ?)

F) Your printer driver is using more memory and time than a full-working version of Adobe Photoshop!

G) Your printer profiles don't stick.

H) Your updates are not forthcoming

I) Your customers are very displeased with your product and service....

On the explanation that the printer needs to use 'some color ink' when printing in black to coat one side of the page so it can dry faster when we use the duplex function.... This is utter BS and you know it. You think that people won't notice it when they print in duplex when their color cartridges are gone when only printing black? Come on!

And YES, THERE IS A SOLUTION as outlined below. Just FIX YOUR DRIVER SO YOUR CUSTOMERS CAN USE THIS PRINTER LIKE THEY SHOULD WITHOUT THE INK RIP-OFF.

Solution (if you care about fixing the color ink rip-off and saving your reputation):

1) Since you don't waste color ink when printing non-duplex (single sided) [did your conscience come in, wasting both paper and ink??], it is possible. Your reason is that the page will need longer to dry. First of all, I put absolutely no credibility to the fact that first printing yelow, cyan or magenta and then black will make it dry faster. All of my prints were dry just as fast using manual duplex.

2) There is an option in your driver to let the page dry longer!!!! Use it when printing in duplex.

3) There is ABSOLUTELY NO NEED for your printing of color ink as well when people pring in black duplex, apart from your backward marketing idea of making people waste more color ink so you can sell more.

And yes, if these issues are not addresses, they will make for a great group, blog and page on Facebook, Twitter and Youtube.

I needed a topic for viral marketing. Thank you for helping me pick one. I have just spent half the price of the printer on 2 full sets of ALL inks in less than a month, printing only in black except for 32 draft color pages.

Chris

[ChrisATX]

or in short.... People won't mind and want the option of waiting 20% longer for their duplex prints to dry instead of wasting $50 per month on color ink that should not be printed in the first place.

Get your act together HP!

[dec1160]

I too have had issues with ink consumption with the black ink.  We print mostly on fast draft in order to conserve the ink but that has proven to be totally useless.  You can maybe get about 50 pages tops and calling in the problem seems to get you nowhere.  I have noticed though that there is a considerable amount of black ink sprayed all over the right rear of the printer which makes me wonder if this is the reason for the excessive ink usage.  Has anyone else discovered this in their printer?

[dontubelieveit]

I originally had a problem with this printer and finally contacted HP by phone (and of course, I have previously posted that issue here as well).  Their customer service was very responsive to my call and their solution was to replace the print head - which they did.  This helped a great deal, considering I was getting about a dozen copies per cartridge before.  However, I have been following this thread as people express their dissatisfaction with this printer.  CHRIS consistently and accurately describes what is happening with the ink value in his posts and solutions that HP should be implementing.  It is unfortunate and disappointing that HP is not listening and trying to resolve this situation with all of the customers who have purchased this product and filed complaints.   And in light of the current economy, it really should matter.  Prior to printing three front and back (duplexed) copies today, I replaced my three color cartridges, and they showed full.  After the three pages - down thirty percent in two of them and fifty percent in the other.  That is still an unresolved problem in my opinion.  

HP should hire CHRIS and pay him big bucks.  Then they would have awesome printers.  Right now - not so much.      

[tbanks204]

Printer Compainies plan on making big profits in printer ink, have you caculated how much per gallon the ink costs? I read it was quite profitable to hijack printer ink shipments.

[tbanks204]

I was abou ready to purchase one of these printers, now based on all the comments about ink consumpson, I think I will just keep my HP 2610v, it is a ink hog as well BTW. I don't think the ink consumpsion issue wil change though, too much money being made on it. Profits seem to be the rage these days.

[ChrisATX]

This printer prints COLOR even when you think it is printing DUPLEX BLACK and WHITE.It has been confirmed that HP put this scam in to 'coat' the back of the page (that is their excuse) with the 3 colors so it would supposedly dry faster and print the other side faster.

So, even if you see only black, in duplex mode it is wasting all of your color ink .... so it is wasting more (your money and ink) than it is saving.

HP IS FULLY AWARE OF THIS and by REFUSING to change their driver (they should simply allow us the option to use ONLY BLACK in duplex with a longer dry-time) is taking all of its customers to the cleaners.

Unless HP fixes this I for one will never buy any HP product again (be it printer, PC, monitor or any other device).

It shows of disrespect for its customer base, for the idea of conservation and for saving money in times of economical crisis. HP only cares about its own profits and this color-blank ink scam should be discusses in a group on Facebook.

If they don't care about us losing money on their scam, we should not care about keeping their reputation intact either.

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