No Instant Ink for Color Laser Jet

[Rich88888888]

     When I first wrote about this through the HP Community on 8/21/21, I mentioned that I had recently purchased a Color Laser Jet Pro MFP M283cdw to replace our old HP Office Jet 4650, planning to get Instant Ink for the new printer. We saw it at Costco at a good price and thought, “We can get Instant Ink, it’s so convenient.” AT THAT POINT WE HAD BEEN GETTING INSTANT INK FOR FIVE YEARS AND WE LOVED IT. Nowhere on the box did it say that the printer did not take Instant Ink, which was surprising and disappointing because we didn’t find out until later. We were surprised to learn that HP offers Instant Ink for some but not all printers.

     Since I first wrote, the problem has become worse. When the time came to replace the toner of the Laser Jet, it turned out that there is NO Instant Ink for the Laser Jet. In addition, when I had cancelled the Instant Ink for the OfficeJet, it stopped working because the cartridges were remotely locked, so we couldn’t even use it as a backup, yet I was charged $15 for a month’s worth or printing that I didn’t use. So the money leakage continued as we had to spend the $95 dollars for the black ink for the new printer. With the busy beginning of the school year, there was no time to return the new printer and get one that either accepted Instant Ink or took cheaper toner.

     Now the other color cartridges of the new printer are running low and we have to spend $75 EACH for the regular yield or $100 EACH for the high yield. We can’t find them at a reasonable, affordable price, and we want to do everything possible to stay away from buying knockoffs.

     If you review my Instant Ink records, you will also see that last year, I spent about $114 on Instant Ink, which is within my budget. So, I have two requests:

1. Can you please provide me with a generous discount on the three high yield color toner cartridges, yellow, cyan and magenta, 206X? At this point, that would *really* help make things right.
2. More generally, it would also help customers like us if HP could put on printer boxes whether the product accepts Instant Ink or not.  Thank you.

[Bob_Headrick]

Sorry about your misunderstanding.  Instant Ink was a program introduced years ago for select Inkjet printers.  At this point many new models of HP Inkjet do support Instant Ink.  You can find a list of models supported by Instant Ink at the HP website here:  https://www.hp.com/us-en/shop/slp/instantinkprinters. 

Laser printers use an entirely different technology.  They use toner rather than ink.  In about the last year HP has added a few monochrome Laser printers to the Instant Ink category.  There are no color laser printers with Instant Ink available at the current time.  [I am not implying there may be in the future, I have no information about that one way or another.]

As for the Instant Ink billing issues, there are a few things to consider:

• Instant Ink billing is in arrears, the bill is for the services that have already been provided rather than for services in the future.  When the program is cancelled the last bill will happen afterwards.
• Once the Instant Ink program ends the Instant Ink cartridges will no longer be usable and they need to be returned to HP as outlined in the agreement.  The Instant Ink program charges for a monthly subscription for printed pages, the cartridges remain the property of HP.

It is unfortunate that the printer you purchased does not meet your expectations.  HP (and other manufacturers) offer a wide range of printing solutions with different pages per month targets and per-page costs.  Generally, laser printers are less expensive on a cost-per-page basis than inkjet printers, and higher-cost printers have a lower cost per page than inexpensive printers.  It is best to do homework before buying. 

EDIT - By the way, the cartridges for your new printer are rated as follows.  The "X" cartridges, while a bit more expensive then the A cartridges give more than 2X the pages for the black cartridge and nearly 2x for the color cartridges. 

Number of print cartridges	4 (1 each black, cyan, magenta, yellow)
Replacement cartridges	HP 206A Black LaserJet Toner Cartridge (~1350 yield) W2110A; HP 206A Cyan LaserJet Toner Cartridge (~1250 yield) W2111A; HP 206A Yellow LaserJet Toner Cartridge (~1250 yield) W2112A; HP 206A Magenta LaserJet Toner Cartridge (~1250 yield) W2113A; HP 206X Black LaserJet Toner Cartridge (~3150 yield) W2110X; HP 206X Cyan LaserJet Toner Cartridge (~2450 yield) W2111X; HP 206X Yellow LaserJet Toner Cartridge (~2450 yield) W2112X; HP 206X Magenta LaserJet Toner Cartridge (~2450 yield) W2113X
Replacement cartridges footnote	Replacement 206A (AMS+APJ) and 207A(EMEA) cartridge average composite (C/Y/M) declared yield ~1250 and average black yield ~1350 pages; replacement 206X(AMS+APJ) and 207X(EMEA) cartridge average composite (C/Y/M) declared yield ~2450 and average black yield ~3150 pages based on ISO/IEC 19798 and continuous printing. Actual yields vary considerably based on images printed and other factors. For details see http://www.hp.com/go/learnaboutsupplies.

The host cartridges (included with the printer) were smaller:

What's in the box

HP Color LaserJet Pro MFP M283cdw; HP LaserJet Black Introductory toner cartridge (~800 page yield); HP LaserJet Cyan Introductory toner cartridge; HP LaserJet Magenta Introductory toner cartridge; HP LaserJet Yellow Introductory toner cartridge (~700 color composite C/Y/M page yield); Installation guide; Power cord; USB cable; Phone Cord; 30-sheets HP LaserJet Brochure Paper

The Laserjet Pro MFP M283cdw is rated at a much higher duty cycle:

Monthly duty cycle

Up to 45,000 pages

compared to your previous printer, the Officejet 4650:

• Duty cycle: Up to 1200 pages per month

https://support.hp.com/us-en/product/hp-officejet-4650-all-in-one-printer-series/5447930/document/c0... has specifications for the Officejet 4650.

https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c06509663 has specs for the HP Color LaserJet Pro MFP M283cdw

[Rich88888888]

This type of "it's not HP's problem" response on your part is unacceptable. HP leads one to believe that Instant Ink is easy to get and nowhere does it say the service is exclusive to certain printers. HP should make it clear whether a printer doesn't accept Instant Ink right on the box or at least on the package inserts. When you install the printer, it forces you to install "HP Smart," which when it opens up shows a tile with a picture of an Instant Ink mailing box, toner supplies and a smartphone and says "Never run out & save. Up to 50% on ink or toner, delivery, and recycling. View Plans." Why, then, would I question whether my printer accepts Instant Ink, until it runs out and I click on the tile and discover that it doesn't?? "My misunderstanding" was caused by "HP being misleading" in its Instant Ink marketing materials. And yes, "it is unfortunate" that my expectations weren't met, but the problem isn't the printer, but HP's lack of transparency instead. At this point I've already shelled out the $400+ on high yield ink. I do suggest that HP makes it very clear in all its advertising that not all of its printers are in the Instant Ink program. I do believe that, after being a faithful Instant Ink customer for so many years, I would deserve a more accommodating response from Customer Service. "It's not HP's problem" doesn't cut it.

[Bob_Headrick]

OK, A few points here:

• I do not represent HP in any capacity.  I am not an employee or contractor here.  I am a user who happens to know a lot about HP products and have been awarded the "HP Expert" title in recognition of my activity in the forum.
• There are lots of different printer technologies and products.  Understanding the differences and the advantages and disadvantages of different technologies is important.  It would be best to match the printer technology and model to your printing needs *before* you purchase.  Inkjet printers use ink, Laser printers use toner.

Sorry I cannot help you.