Sunday, March 20, 2005

Printer Problems

I bought a new printer yesterday ... sounds simple enough, but no ... nothing could be so easy really. I wanted a new laser printer because the toner had run out on my old one which I've had for 5 years or so, and the replacement cost was immense. So it seemed to make sense to buy a new printer which has cheaper consumables. So off to PC World we go, and browse through their Printers ... and there's one which is a Which Best Buy - a neat colour laser from Epson which, as it was ex-display, I got some more money off as well, bringing it down to less than the other black and white ones which we were looking at. So we get it home, and of course it doesn't work. The thing just flashes red and green lights at me when you turn it on. I poked and prodded it a lot but nothing could make the thing work. So I phone PC World ... not a single one of their stores has this model in stock so they can't get another from somewhere else ... so I check Epson online and find a local store which does repairs ... but they don't do lasers ... so I phone Epson and after about 15 minutes get through to their helpline ... to find that I'd chosen the wrong option ... but that the laser helpline isn't open at weekends anyway so I need to call back on Monday. The good news is that hopefully Epson do on-site maintenance for the warranty period so they can just come and take this one away and bring me one that works. Otherwise it's back to PC World next weekend to take this one back and to see which other ones they might have which would be good ... It seems to be a factor of life that nothing you ever buy ever works right first time, and that you always have to mess around phoning people, taking things back to shops and whatever before you get what you wanted. Oh well ... for the next week then, all my printing will have to be on the back-up HP deskjet printer ... still going strong after about 8 years now I think.

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