All printer ink is more expensive than gold

similar idiotically central eastern characters have appeared inthe past on TVMalta so tell the turk he copied the Maltese - Malta Yok!

Don

SUBJECT: Ink prices incorrect?

I got a used HP LaserJet 4000 off ebay last May $115 came with a 10,000 page toner. The toner cartridge is cheap also like $17 or so on ebay for a reman cartridge or OEM. I figure if it last a year it paid for itself. HP retail cartridge is $175+ I don't care about color so laser is fine with me.

I brought a really nice HP all in one a month before I got the laser but took it back to Wal-Mart after I found out the cartridges was only rated for 137 pages at 5%.

That is just plan nuts. At least a ink cartridge should do a ream of paper which is 500 sheets.

Actually if you make the comparrison with HP's average black cartridge- #98 (11ml) @ 19.99 it's $1.82 a ML.

However, what none of the press tells the readers is that ALLLLLLL printer companies' ink is priced this way. What you don't tell us is that over the last 5 years, ALLLLL printer companies have improved the effiency of printing by being able to print as many pages using less ink. You do a disservice to your readers when you don't say which cartridge you are commenting on.

All of the major ink-jet printer companies now have "economy" ink based printers as well as "medium use" and "heavy use" printers.

You can't always go by the amount of ink in the cartridge- Epson and Canon both put more ink in the cartridge because priming wasts so much when you turn the units on and off.

You in the press are always concentrating on HP's high prices... when you do your tests you don't do them based on how home users would use a printer, turning the unit off and on..you do a straight through non stop multi page test and users don't print that way.

If you really want to give your readers something to read, do some investigation on how the major 3 printer companies compare to real world tests (not lab test). Explain to your readers what the company's rated page yields are and what you got out of them. If a printer can use a larger cartridge- use that one instead of the lower capacity one and telling the readers how expensive that lower capacity one is.

I'm not saying ink isn't expensive, but you would think that at some point you guys would mention how expensive Lexmark (the number 2 printer company) is on ink and how much ink Canon and Epson wasts in their priming of their individual tanks during real world use such as turning the units on and off and installing replacement tanks. They're better than in the past but still wasts more than HP or Lexmark. To sum it up... be real to your readers.

Josh

Subject: Grotty keyboards

Martin,

I am a pediatric hospital physician, as well as a geek by training and long experience.

Any "fomite" (medical term for an inanimate object that can transfer contagious disease) can be a problem. Keyboards are certainly one such, and they are hard to clean. (Not as hard to clean as stuffed animals and toys in a hospital playroom, but I digress.)

"Hospital-grade" devices that can be cleaned more easily might conceivably help, but are certainly no panacea. The proper time for cleaning, certainly, is immediately after someone touches them with contaminated hands, after all, and not at some arbitrary "maintenance interval". Most highly contagious organisms don't sit on keyboards for weeks, biding their time - they need living hosts.

Where I work, we have a rather different solution: we wash our hands, before and after patient contact. Each room has a dispenser of waterless sanitizer outside, and we are expected (at the pain of losing hospital privileges) to use it or one of the publicly-visible sinks before and after every patient contact. Any patient who is known to have MRSA or any other problematic pathogen is placed on "contact precautions", which add disposable glove and gown protocols. We have not had a nosocomial outbreak of anything in more than two years, which is what would be expected if these "universal precautions" are properly followed.

The single biggest danger to patients in most institutions (beyond the condition which caused them to be admitted, of course) is provider error. This is why we are moving so rapidly to IT systems as close to the bedside as possible. A keyboard which feels or works like crap (which describes most of the "flat" sanitizable keyboards I've used) is likely to increase provider frustration and distraction, which may be more dangerous to patients than any nosocomial infection ever could be.

I would be interested in reading overall-outcomes data between this keyboard and others, but I suspect it won't happen because I suspect there will be no observable difference. But maybe I'm just being cynical.

DT

Subject: "Lenovo losing out in western markets"

Hi Nick,

I'm on my third Thinkpad (A-31), which is about four years old. I love these laptops because of their excellent keyboards and trackpoints; I really dislike touch-pads. I've been following Lenovo's progress, particularly with Thinkpads, as I consider a replacement for my A-31.

A recent PC World magazine review states that Lenovo has changed the keyboard on at least one model, the Thinkpad R-60. (see: http://pcworld.com/article/id,127249/article.html) I've been thinking that my next notebook will have a bit more "UMPH" than Thinkpads usually offer, particularly in the video department. Lenovo's keyboard change, assuming they apply it across the board, is one less reason to buy a new Thinkpad when the time comes.

Thanks,

Mike

Subject: Gold

Hi,

Last time I checked printer ink was more expensive than gold when looking at the volume.

Greetings,

Indan

Subject: This is why I went to a laser

I got a used HP LaserJet 4000 off ebay last May $115 came with a 10,000 page toner. The toner cartridge is cheap also like $17 or so on ebay for a reman cartridge or OEM. I figure if it last a year it paid for itself. HP retail cartridge is $175+ I don't care about color so laser is fine with me.

I brought a really nice HP all in one a month before I got the laser but took it back to Wal-Mart after I found out the cartridges was only rated for 137 pages at 5%.

That is just plan nuts. At least a ink cartridge should do a ream of paper which is 500 sheets.

Randall.

Subject: wiki

Have you ever explored Mike Magee and the inquirer on Wiki?

There seem to be a number of combative revisionists at each other.

Bill

Subject: Lenovo Thinkpads

If you've used the new Lenovo Thinkpads you'll see the reason for the sales drop pretty fast. Old IBM Laptops are extremely sturdy, nigh-on-unbreakable beasts. You can pick them up by the corner of the screen and carry them, and they don't complain and it's for reasons like this that so many people bought them.

Lenovo laptops bend worryingly. In fact, Lenovo laptops carry a similar price tag but lose a lot of the strength and build quality that Thinkpads are renowned for. If you want a cheap, average build laptop, Dell are probably going to be cheaper than Lenovo.

TP

Subject: RIAA TV show

"...and has all the credibly of a doctor who insists that "masturbation makes you go blind". "

But it does! I have some proof around here somewhere but i can't seem to see it...

Jwp