Lexmark Printer Loathing
Lexmark’s US patent # 6099101 – which describes their method of rendering inkjet cartridges useless by frying its own brain or head out, once it senses that the ink has ran dry. It’s a fully self contained process that will work even when the cartridge is out of the printer, powered by its own miniature battery.
The cartridges that come supplied with Lexmark printers are special ones… they only have a dribble of ink in them to get you started; you’ll maybe print three sheets of A4.
Lexmark cartridges cost two or three times as much as the actual printer. Lots of them get binned when owner’s find this out.
They actively discourage recycling, by employing a prebate scheme. Prebate is their system of selling cartridges at a discount, if you promise to either throw it away or send it back to Lexmark. The seal across the box says that by opening it, you agree to abide by their scheme. Yet another attempt at stopping recyclers getting their hands on the empties to remanufacture.
They’ve taken or threatened many small companies with court action. They ‘win’ cases by either exhausting their funds or scaring them off with the thought of costs and perhaps losing the case, clearly they oppose people recycling their cartridges.
Lexmark make printers that take cartridges (#2 #3) that they exclusively supply to the Dixons group of companies. Price fixing by controlling who can sell them.
Their number 1 cartridge is a joke, it’s got three colours, cyan, magenta and yellow. When you print a letter (with black letters) it mixes all three colours to make black, obviously these don’t have a high page yield.
In some of their black inkjet cartridges – they mix ink with a chemical that reacts when it meets air to gunge up the printer head. Another attempt to sabotage empty ink cartridges from being re-used.
Their inkjet printers are really flimsy and designed to work just a day or two longer than the warranty period.