Oh dear HP

I set up my new printer today - an HP Photosmart something-or-other with a Touchsmart screen. The printer is nice, it looks sleek. It is Energystar complaint (hooray) and the quality of printing is excellent. So why the title of this post? Well......

I took a good look at the packaging, something which has been at the forefront of my mind recently. I went to the extent of doing an inventory of all the stuff in the box and frankly it made me very cross.

Here is a list in no particular order:

1x box
2x polystyrene blocks
2x user manual, 96 pages each (only 8 pages in English. I read 2 pages. Printed in Malaysia)
7x bits of blue tape
2x film covers on bits of the printer
3x thin poly-bags covering various bits of the printer
1x plastic cover over the plug pins
1x sheet of A4, printed in Malaysia. No English on it so no idea what it's for
1x sheet of A4, printed in Singapore (says can't use some software in Firefox)
2x normal poly bags containing stuff like the power supply (1 with no recycling symbol on it)
1x sheet of stickers with the printer cartridge number on it (2 stickers, only need 1)
4x cartridges, each with a hard plastic cover and a film cover
1x cardboard wrap holding the cartridges together, also with a plastic wrap around
1x electric lead + cable tie
1x PSU + cable tie
1x USB cable + cable tie
1x packet of photo paper (wrapped in plastic)
1x sticker thing I had to peel off the printer (serves no useful purpose)
1x film sticker + sticker over the screen
1x big plastic insert in the cartridge holder in the printer
1x CD and CD sleeve
1x paper leaflet remingding you again which cartridges you have
1x small cardboard reminder telling you about the cartridges again
oh, and a 1x printer

So.... if you include the cartridges then about 10 things (including the box and one of the manuals) that I will keep. 12 things which have gone in the bin and the rest has gone into the recycling STRAIGHT AWAY.

Apart from the TOTAL AND UTTER WASTE it actually made for a pretty appalling customer experience (and the sheer madness of having stuff printed in different countries). I had to sort out all the useful stuff from the crap, and deal with it. Setting up was a pain, purely because of all the unwrapping etc that I had to do (the software wasn't terrible, but not easy either).

SORT IT OUT HP - the box proclaims the Eco-credentials of the product, but the customer experience debunks it.....(see the mess below)