Cartridge woes

For over a decade I have had an HP Photosmart C4580 inkjet printer/scanner. It cost about £60 from Curry’s in Lewes (which disappeared many years ago). It has suited me well, as it is versatile and I do very little printing. It works by wireless from Linux with CUPS and HPLIP. One of its few disadvantages is that it has to be loaded with a tricolour ink-cartridge as well a black ink-cartridge to work, even if the print-job is only black and white. Today the black cartridge (HP 350XL) ran out. I had bought two spares from Amazon on 05/12/2020 (for £19.48) but neither of them will the printer recognize, despite an identical specification to the now empty cartridge (which the printer does recognize). Amazon’s return policy appears to be limited to 30 days. It is not a huge loss, but it makes me nervous about buying spares speculatively.

Thinking that maybe it was time to get a newer cheapo printer I started looking on Amazon for possibilities. Unfortunately Amazon’s website does not make it easy for Linux users. Most items talk of Windows and MacOS and laptops and tablets (by which I presume they mean Android and iOS – the sales-copy writers are evidently confused about the difference between hardware-platforms and operating systems). The website https://www.openprinting.org/driver/hplip/ is useful for getting an idea of which HP models work with HPLIP but Amazon could make the search easier. I would welcome advice.

It’s more difficult than you might imagine to get full information about printers, as I’ve been discovering recently. But it may turn out to be easier than you think…

Epson doesn’t turn up at all in the IPP PWG’s list of supported printers, and the Epson ET-4750’s specification on Epson’s web site doesn’t claim IPP compatibility, but nevertheless it actually does support IPP.

IIRC Rick Murray pointed out that any printer that doesn’t support AirPrint is dead in the water.

Linux supports both protocols, and that means most if not all printers will work from Linux.

However, I’m in no position to provide a guarantee, as I’m sure you will appreciate!

@Gavin: the cartridges for that printer are still obtainable (at least in the Netherlands): https://www.123inkt.nl/Inkt-cartridges/HP/Printer-type/HP-Photosmart/HP-Photosmart-C4580-All-in-One-p13106.html

Thanks for the link. All working again now using an HP350 cartridge. I have no idea why the HP350LX cartridges bought in December 2020 did not work. They were cheap, so maybe nasty is not so surprising.