My dad had a HP Deskjet 720 and after several years of using it, it had been sitting for at least 2 years without a single print or maintenance. Then one day I needed it for a school project, with all its colors due to some graphs.
Printed a simple test page with some colors twice, then the colors were back in action. Successfully printed 20 or so color pages after that without issue.
So clearly inkjets that doesn't dry out was a solved problem, however I realize that doesn't exactly drive ink or printer sales so yeah.
These days I just have a monochrome laser printer at home for the two-three times a year I need it. Always just works, no fuzz.
The copyright on the 750c manual is 1997. It was a different era. The printer market was in a different place. And HP was a different company. Occasional home use is not the market segment it was twenty plus years ago. My 550c didn’t clog either.
One of the the big changes is inks print and dry faster. Those early inkjet inks needed thirty seconds or so to dry and similar times to print...at best - a full page of color in the 1990’s was minutes per page.
I have a brother MFC-J6520DW scanner/printer. It is inexpensive and I bought it mainly for its large format scanning capability.
Problem #1: I don't use it much. But every night (or two?) it does a self cleaning cycle which uses up some ink apparently. Despite saying the ink cartridges saying "500 prints", I might actually make 50 pages before it runs out of ink after a few months.
Problem #2: I only ever need it for black and white, yet I have to buy expensive color cartridge sets as it refuses to print B&W pages if it is out of color. And it runs out of color despite my not using it because of problem #1 above.
Problem #3: After it gives the ink low warning, if I ignore it for a while until it actually starts making splotchy prints, when I put the new ink cartridges in, I have to literally print dozens of test pages before the quality is acceptable again. I have no idea what is going on there. By that time the B&W cartridge will report it is at 60% capacity.
Once this set runs out in a few months, I've already decided to get a monochrome laser printer, and regret not doing it long ago.
My dad had a HP Deskjet 720 and after several years of using it, it had been sitting for at least 2 years without a single print or maintenance. Then one day I needed it for a school project, with all its colors due to some graphs.
Printed a simple test page with some colors twice, then the colors were back in action. Successfully printed 20 or so color pages after that without issue.
So clearly inkjets that doesn't dry out was a solved problem, however I realize that doesn't exactly drive ink or printer sales so yeah.
These days I just have a monochrome laser printer at home for the two-three times a year I need it. Always just works, no fuzz.