The latest generation of inkjet printers has arrived.  We may now see the rows and rows of ink cartridges from all the vendors and all the models with little ink and sky high prices disappear.  The vendors, stores, and customers could not deal with the enormity of the simple problem of ink and the sheer number of cartridge types, searching for just the right one and all of the logistics issues.  Today you might have to spend a bit more but you can buy a very nice printer with a standard set of 3 or more ink bottle, one for each color, and simply dump each bottle in its entirety into the appropriate tank in the printer.  The colors are clearly shown and there is no way to put the wrong ink in a tank.  The pouring spout is perfectly matched to the tank input fill slot and idiot proof.  Often the manufacturer guarantees that the tank has enough for 2 years of use.  And for my printer it would cost $72 for a complete new set of 4 bottles (Black and the 3 colors Cyan, Magenta, and Yellow).  This is the good news.  Now for the bad news.  I bought a HP 7602 Smart Tank Printer.  I used to work for HP and liked their products until now.  I decided that the printer was so good that I would use it as the main printer for the whole house and everyone in it.  It supports network printing from PC’s and mobile phones.  But i also wanted convenience and trays for standard size pager, legal, envelopes, and possibly specialized paper.  So I searched high and low and could not find any HP trays anywhere for my printer.  I called HP Customer Support and asked them how I could buy extra trays for my printer.  HP told me I could not buy extra trays because the printer only supported one tray.  I told him that I would remove the first tray and insert the second tray  already pre-loaded with the paper I wanted to print on.  The HP rep responded that I could not do that and they would not allow me to change trays.  This exchange continued for several weeks until I gave up. If this is the kind of nonsense that HP has degraded to then I will buy the first printer from another vendor that will better serve my needs.

But to clarify exactly how stupid this is, if you can use the same standard size 8.5×11 paper across different printer technologies and models and different vendor’s printers why do they have to make massive numbers of trays and printer tray support mechanisms instead of using a standard tray or tray with 100, 250, and 500 sheet capacities and make this easy on themselves and the customer?