Are printers being made worse?

The past few months I have seen an alarming number of customers with printer problems. I know that printers aren't being made as well as they were five or more years ago. In fact, while attending CES and talking with some of the reps from well known printer companies, they stated that plastic gears and other parts have replace sturdier metal alloy parts. We can all feel it...printers are much lighter in weight that they used to be.

One thing that isn't lighter, unfortunately, is printer software. Printer software used to fit on a floppy disk or maybe two and the printer would run for years without problems. Now, many printer installations can take up to fifteen minutes because the of massive printer software installs sometimes approaching 1000 megabytes! Any time a printer manufacturer gives me the option to do a minimal or laptop installation, I take it. Ninety-five percent of the software installed is extra junk that slows down a computer and the printer process. I personally think that all printer manufacturers should give a driver only installation option for those of use who don't want or need the extra fluff.

Thankfully, I don't do much printing these days (maybe 30 pages a month and most of that is kid's homework). I stay as digital and paperless as possible and get all my pictures printed by a service. I honestly can't tell you when the last time I bought an ink cartridge was. And with printer malfunctions and failures happening at alarming rates, I'm not eager to join the disposable printer society yet.

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