Are HP printers losing their mojo?

While following up this week's article about the best multifuction printer for a small home office, I began to wonder whether HP still merits its reputation as the champion printer manufacturer.

When I needed a small office printer about four years ago, my decision was almost automatic, despite the eye-watering £59 price tag for the HP 1015's toner cartridge. But that machine developed a fault that was not economic to fix and I started looking for a replacement.

My mum is something of an inkjet demon (she uses them for laying out artistic handbag designs) and has a stable of three machines of varying vintages: an old Epson Pixma, an HP InkJet 2355 and a newer HP Photosmart 4380 - a special offer, apparently, that she couldn't resist. In use, she found the new machine's interface was much more complicated and finnicky than the older model, and with the arrival of a new Dell PC running Vista, the drivers threw a strop.

It took ages for Dell & HP to come up with new drivers and they still occasionally unload themselves for no apparent reason. Other people I consulted confirmed that HP's interface software is "clunky".

The company has gone on a big acquisition drive and moved into more profitable IT services - but has this affected what was once its strong point: its reputation as THE leading printer manufacturer with a strong commitment to R&D?

If other people have similar experiences to me, I may delve more deeply into the subject to confirm whether an era has come to the end. And if it has, which supplier would succeed HP as the printer king?

John Stokdyk
Technology editor
AccountingWEB.co.uk
John Stokdyk