Friday, November 25, 2011

Hp OfficeJet 4500 Desktop Public Service Message!

I bought a new imac a little more than a year ago. I am still amazed with the quality of the imac, but when I bought the computer, there was an add on offer for an Hp Office Jet 4500 Desktop Printer/Scanner/Fax. I have owned quite a few printers over the years. I have had a few different Canon and Epsons which gave me years of virtually trouble free service.
I have to say that I have never had a trouble free easy printing experience with the Hp piece of garbage.
Badly designed, the paper feeder itself is a study in fast motion obsolescence. the fragile plastic parts snap at the least bit of trauma...which is usually removing or installing the tray. The loading of ink cartridges is always a night mare. Very bad design and always involve multiple attempts at alignment and reinstallation. Though I registered the product when I bought it, the Hp customer service is virtually non existent. The quality of the printing, when I can get the damn thing to work is inconsistent. I worked in the graphics industry for quite a few years, from design to actually running presses. When something works, it works, when it's a piece of shit, well, it's just a piece of shit.
I hear that Hp makes some decent products, but based on my experience with this waste of wire and plastic, I would never consider buying another piece of technology from them again and I would warn you to think twice before buying anything with their logo on it.
This has been a public service message from thebrainpolice quality control center!

12 comments:

microdot said...

I've left comments on the customer service review pages for this product on the HP website and it's no surprise that there is not one positive comment, only complaints.....

J.O.B. said...

Dottie- True dat dog. My HP was awful. I went back to Epson. Much more reliable.

boyd said...

have to concur with above comments this is a piece of trash and thats where its going in the trash, works when it wants to not when i want it to, epson i believe fills the bill

Anonymous said...

Too true. Never buy frm HP ever again. F-ing F-tard products. No support. Nothing but deaf ears and lies.

Not only will the 4500 printer begin frequent, 1 in 4, 1 in THREE or worse F-ing paper jams within a VERY short time...but it is brimming with other stupidities. My last HP printer (same low price range) worked for 4 years. No probs. Too bad the shyte-for-brains owners/managers have decided to p-ss all over their customers.

4500 also stupidly refuses to maintain the orientation of an image. Subtle to describe but worth describing because it is so insultingly ignorant: In other words, the portrait orientation function automatically re-orients every image back to landscape. It DOES NOT WANT YOU TO PRINT SMALL. And it won't let you. This is a really sick way to waste huge quantities of expensive ink. Want to print a small image across the center of a sheet with a PORTRAIT orientation? It won't let you. Portrait/landscape...whatever. And there's no way to stop it from doing this. It WANTS to fill the whole page. Sick. Stupid. Insulting. WASTEFUL.

Any recourse? What to do? NO RECOURSE. NOTHING TO DO.

Hey HP, thanks for STEALING MY MONEY. HP deserves to be tarred and feathered. Sadly typical. Computing products are truly in the process of being DE-evolved into the equivalent of clumsy EASY-BAKE-OVEN like devices...suitable for making lopsided cupcakes that your mommy might pretend to like...but no one else will. Shame on these jerks. And what's really sad is that this stuff occurs off of most people's radar-scopes. We are sooo looking at an increasingly dummied-down world for...a world full of dummies.

And the rising flood of shyte-for-brains products like this one belie the accuracy of this observation all too well.

microdot said...

wow, I had a very important but totally simple basic printing need last night. I had to print out some documents from the internet...what should have been a routine operation, turned into 15 minutes of stress...as the damn thing jammed repeatedly....I had to un jam it manually, shut it down, restart it, try to print the stuff again...finally it worked...why does this piece of crap decide to fuck up when ever it is doing something crucial? Needless to say, I have had to repair and true the paper tray many times. It was made to auto destruct.
I had Canons for years....but I think I'm going to invest in an Epson again...very shortly.
Did I mention that the HP customer service is non existent...?
You have my total sympathy dude!

microdot said...

I meant to say, finally it worked when I carefully hand fed each sheet of paper. If image integrity, or printer dependent imaging is a priority, then this machine is a joke!

Anonymous said...

Every instance of attempting to use this thing has me nearly going berserk. Error message, switch off, unplug power, unplug cable, wait, replug, switch on, error message, repeat - repeat -repeat.....maybe prints one page eventually then error again. Sheer torture.

Anonymous said...

Another vote for "this printer is a piece of shit." It will print several pages (I prefer to print double-sided to save paper) and then all of a sudden it tells me "incompatible cartridge" or "cartridge incorrectly installed." Bull! They're the cardridges that CAME WITH the thing, and they're firmly placed exactly where they belong (I already double and triple-checked!) I have other things to do with my day than spend an hour trying to print four pages. It's so obnoxious. And it won't print in landscape mode to save the world. Hunk of junk.

Unknown said...

It is poorly designed printer and not reliable. My officejet 4500 failed with "cartridge incompatible " error. The HP's video suggest unseat/seat and cleaning the cartridge contact do now help.
Will never buy HP printer again.

jimvt said...

Now try the whole shmear with PHOTO PAPER.

Piece of plastic whatever falls out of the back as soon as photo paper touches it.

My wife thinks I'm a maniac.

I'm going to ask her to read these
comments while I go buy something else.

Maybe HP stands for Hunan Province!

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