In January 2020 I wrote a post saying how much I enjoyed the HP Instant Ink scheme (I have now taken that post down). And in theory I do think it is a great idea but the reason HP offer such a good price for all that printing is because they are banking on the fact that your HP printer is going to break after about 18 months and then you will need to buy a new printer. Yip you get a good price on Ink but every 18 months to 2 years you are expected to buy a new printer.

Okay so the printer is not earth shattering expensive (mine cost about £100) but what about the fact that you now have to throw away your old useless printer? What about all the excess rubbish this so called business model is generating?

I don’t normally write negative posts, I like to keep this site more positive and I enjoy sharing reviews of the good products that I discover but I was left so upset by this blatantly wasteful business model idea and by the fact that it is IMPOSSIBLE to get hold of anyone at the company to talk to that I decided it was time to delete my earlier post and instead write a more up to date post about using HP printers and their HP instant ink service.

Yes on the surface it seems like it is a good cost-effective way to print and it would be incredibly appealing to us home educators who do tend to print a lot. But stop and think about the fact that you are going to be replacing your printer every 18 months to 2 years. Add that cost of having to buy a new printer in and then think about your old printer. Think about the fact that every 2 years you are going to throw out a broken printer.

And okay some people may argue that items these days are just not made like they used too (in those good old days when an item lasted for years). Well I also have a Canon Printer which is over 6 years old and guess what it is still working perfectly, never had an issue with it, never needed to try and contact someone at Canon nor have I needed to replace it in the 6 years that I have owned it.

My honest recommendation is avoid the HP printers if you can. (The photo below is before my printer broke after only 18 months of use).