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General discussion

Is my printer shot? HP D4360 Inkjet

Mar 28, 2010 11:20PM PDT

I've exchanged inkjets, one generic, one OEM and the printer is printing "shadows". In other words, faint. I've had this printer for at least a year. It's printing, but the ink isn't printing. Is there anything I can do to the ink or the printer to correct this?

Discussion is locked

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How many cartridges have you gone through and
Mar 29, 2010 12:03AM PDT

about how many pages have printed? As well, have you generally purchased generic or refilled cartridges? This seems to be a low end model with less than stellar reviews for longevity. I'm thinking that a set of HP cartridges might run nearly the price of the printer and that many will consider it not worth the price for higher quality ink...but I don't know your usage. You could try running the cleaning program, clean electrical contacts for the cartridge or buy HP branded cartridges to see if that would work but I'd have to recommend giving up the bargain line of printers. Sometimes they are no bargain over time.

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Give up the bargain printers?
Mar 29, 2010 5:15AM PDT

What would you suggest?
Currently, I do a lot of printing from home. I printout student assignments and mark them. I print news articles from the internet. On a daily basis, maybe 20 pages.

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If you've done that much printing on a printer that
Mar 29, 2010 6:51AM PDT

goes in the 50 dollar range now, you've gotten your money's worth. Unless you absolutely need color for a good deal of your work, a laser printer gives you much less cost per page. I keep both a laser and and inkjet. The laser does over 90% of the work. Mine are both HP and I've gotten good service and both are several years old. I did hand over at least $300 each but prices for the hardware are are down now and ink has gone up. I never refill or buy refills anymore...too many problems. I can't recommend a model but expect to pay at least $150 for anything of decent quality but consider it to be a throw away. My HP laser is about 12 years old and starting to get cranky but has printer over 30000 pages. My inket is 5 or more years and works fine but a pair of cartridges costs 60 bucks and give fewer than 200 pages of mixed B & W and color print per set. My laserjet cartridges are about 75 bucks but yield 2500 to 3000 pages each. That should give you some idea of how much less it costs to print B & W on a laser printer

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I need color
Mar 29, 2010 7:51AM PDT

B&W laser wouldn't work for me. i'll look at Photo printers -- would they be better quality?

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If you need color and need to print photos
Mar 29, 2010 9:01PM PDT

one specifically designed for photo printing will be best. I've not bought a printer in a while so can't make a personal recommendation other than what I'd be doing if I was printer shopping. I'd be reading reviews from several sources. I'd go to places that carry printers and look at them myself. Some offer test prints right there in the store. Photo ink is going to cost more so know what you're willing to pay. 20 pages of color printing daily on an inkjet printer is going to cost dearly.