I got a new Hewlett-Packard LaserJet P3005X. I unpacked the device, connected power and ethernet, went to HP support page and downloaded the firmware upgrade for it.

After carefully reading through the whole readme, I initiated the firmware upload. After successfull flashing cycle, the printer reboots and freezes with this message on the display:

	Downld file now
	SEND RFU UPGRADE

...and the printer is dead, just after ten minutes of unpacking it.

How comes? HP equips some LaserJet P3005X with a formatter (that is the embedded "computer" inside the printer) that is not upgradeable. Brilliant.

And that is why Hewlett-Packard sucks beyond belief:

1. It is not possible to know for the customer that some formatters are not upgradable - there is at no point any documentation of this issue, neither on HPs homepage, nor in the shipped documentation (ironically, HP ships two yellow sheets with errata for the printed manual to correct typos in serial numbers of supplies - warnings to kill your printer with a legitimate firmware upgrade is oviously not considered worth the paper).
   
   
2. Once you learned the reason for this mess from searching the Internet, there is no way to avoid it with another P3005 - there is no way to distinguish an upgradable and not upgradable formatter. All P3005 customers thus shall stick with old firmware (and e.g. not getting the fixed power saving mechanism by newer firmware).
   
   
3. Dead printers have to be send to a HP Repair Center at your own costs (and the HP support hotline you need to call in order to initiate the resend is expensive as well).
   
   
4. Although this happens with a brand new device covered by warranty, HP even charge you to exchange the formatter for fixing their own shortcomming.
   
   
5. The whole issue is know at least since December 2007 (see HP Forum).

Thanks Hewlett-Packard, you definitely did not make my day today.