Suspicions confirmed. HP screws ink cartridge users in Mexico.

If you have a bought in Mexico HP Deskjet 2030 or 3050 and you buy an HP #122 cartridge (black) for it, that cartridge contains 2ml of ink.

If you bought an HP Deskjet printer 2030 or 2050 NOB, it uses an HP #21 cartridge that contains 3.5ml of ink.

If you try to use a #21 HP cartridge in your Mexico printer, it won't be accepted.

The price of the #122 cartridge in Mexico is 40 to 70% higher than NOB.

Source: HP USA website at http://www.hp.com/pageyield/en-019/yields/DJ2050J510_310_page.html?cCode=us

FYI: On the average, black ink in a printer cartridge costs over US$2,500 per gallon.

And lastly, if you contact HP and push the issue, they will tell you how to configure your Mexican HP printer to use NOB cartridges.

Standard marketing for different markets.  You sound like a lawyer to me LOL.

Without a study of the cost of the printers your numbers are incomplete.

Cheap ink expensive printer.
Cheap printer expensive ink.
If you think that you are paying full cost for that $100 All in one you are dreaming. So you pay a huge amount for ink.

Don't forget to take the IVA tax off the Mexican printer price to compare to US price.

Now you bring up some interesting points but to really understand the true costs in the printer market you need more data.  I know more about this business as I was an insider.

¿What was the retail prices of the ink cartridges?

Zedinmexico wrote:  You sound like a lawyer to me LOL.

He used to be one.

Two types of ink and printheads.  On the cheap printers you put the printhead and ink in one little box. On more expensive office machines you have four separate ink boxes with separate printheads. You buy ink separately from the printheads. On a cheap printer you throw away the printhead every time you put in  a new cartridge.  I use office machines they work better and have low costs but I print out manuals which are long. I can put four pages on one page front and back. If you just print 10 pages a week mostly black you don't care how much the ink cartridges are as  cheap printers favor low quantity users. Print a lot and you can save money with a more expensive off axis ink and printhead type office printers. You pay one way or another or they would stop selling them. Its a dying business as young people don't print out much anyhoo.

I purchased a Mexican  Epson L355 which has the separate ink tanks to avoid all the hassles of cartridges. Initial outlay for the printer was higher (I forget now, but I think it was about MX$3600) but the long term savings on ink is worth it and I don't print a ton.

Yes, Ajijic, it's worth it. After years of fuming about overpriced ink cartridges containing approximately a half-teaspoon of ink, we were happy to shell out MX$2600 for a HP8610 with separate ink tanks included, set up and filled at one of the kiosks in Plaza de la Tecnologia. The same kiosk sells Brothers with slightly more convenient refill tanks but my husband prefers HP. Finally, a way to beat the smartypants manufacturers who practically give away the printers but totally screw you over on the ink.

So what's new about that?

arbon wrote:¿What was the retail prices of the ink cartridges?

Too much....

Does Costco here have refill service ?

borderreiver wrote:Does Costco here have refill service ?

Yes... They will sell you a package of 5 new cartridges.

I finally opted for a Brother DCP-L25400W (no color) since I almost never have a use/need for color.

This printer does it all and I can refill the toner drum myself for very little money.

Most printers today seem like they follow the model of the old Polaroid instant camera where it cost about US$0.50 for each print. The camera was somewhat cheap but the film, as I said, had you paying for each print no matter how it came out.

Time marches on.

Consumers choose to pay the Polaroid price model.  As myself and others have shown off axis color printers offer a very good price per page. Consumers like the cheap printer even if it has an obscene price per page number. Sometimes so called consumers don't do enough research. In five years you won't have a printer but you will have a 3d printer that can do everything including making spare parts for itself. Only hope for the printer market is something like 3d to rescue it. So how does a broken printer fix itself? It doesn't but it might be able to predict that it will break and react accordingly to its programming. 


Z

Zedinmexico wrote:

arbon wrote:¿What was the retail prices of the ink cartridges?

Too much....

This Op is priceless!