Over the
past weekend I finally broke down and bought a laser printer to replace the
10-year-old behemoth laser printer I was using before. And, while the old Epson
ActionLaser 1500 still worked, it needed a new toner cartridge which costs
about $149. (Online is the only place you can find it these days.) Coincidently,
or perhaps not coincidently, a new small laser printer was on sale at Best Buy
for $149. So I got the Samsung ML-2010 it’s faster, has more memory and is about
½ the size of the old Epson.
So, whats the
problem? The Samsung is USB, not parallel like the Epson, which meant I had to
buy a USB cable with the special square connector that printer manufacturers
have standardized on. Fine, but it cost $30. It seems to me that USB cables
were almost free not too long ago now they have LEDs and gold shielding and
all kinds of other gimmicky accoutrements. Since when are USB cables sexy? Maybe
I’m just showing my age (this is an old man’s rant worthy of my father), but
should a cable cost 20% of the thing it is connected to?
What
do you think? Are USB manufactures getting a 200% markup? 300%? More?