$25 of Nothing from HP
About two years ago I shelled out $299 for Hewlett Packard's Office Jet K60, an all-in-one machine with a printer, scanner, fax and copier. Mostly I've used it for printing and copying, but it got a little bit of use as a fax and scanner. It's now dead except as a printer. Sadly, HP doesn't care.

Their tech support people were very nice, but ultimately gave me only one absurd option to fix my problem: Buy a new one. The e-mail support was free, but ultimately didn't fix my machine. Today I finally broke down and paid HP $25 for a "seven business-day warranty" to talk to tech support. "Mike" determined it's a hardware problem, possibly electrical. Mike said I could take it to Radio Shack to get fixed for an unknown cost. I went with option B, which was to talk to the trade-in/trade-up department. Unfortunately, the K60 has no upgrade option, but I could exchange the machine for a price as low as $161. At the time, I was looking at a new HP all-in-one machine on Amazon for $199.

So if I was foolish, I could have given HP $186 today to fix my K60 - which would again be out of warranty as soon as it arrived at my home. Maybe I've gotten spoiled, but I expect my devices to last more than two years -especially if I haven't been very demanding of the equipment.

Now I'm in the market for a replacement. I have limited space so would prefer another all-in-one, but if I'm getting only mediocrity for a higher price, I'm willing to buy separate devices. Any advice much appreciated.
- posted by Amy @ 10/01/2003 02:26:00 PM