*Goes through and upvotes all the comments about getting a Brother laser printer*
Mostly true, but a few months ago there was some reports of an automatic firmware update that blocked 3rd party ink or toner. It was probably my fault since I just bought a Brother and this sort of thing always seems to happen to me.
This reminds me, I need to learn how to partition my network to keep thebprinter from reaching the internet.
If you need an ink jet, I can also recommend the Epson L3260 ink tank. You pay a bit more for the printer but the ink is fairly reasonable.
I have done this before!!!
Also note that printers come with a smaller cartridge. Buying another printer isn’t cheaper, even if it costs less.
This is true, and yet somehow when I buy the “XL” sized cartridges they don’t feel like they lasted much longer than the “S” size that came with it.
it is if you only print rarely
The key is to buy a brother laser printer
It’s black and white but most people rarely have a need for color. Meanwhile, the toner doesn’t dry out like an inkjet printer will
You buy that one $150 inkjet printer and you’re set.
My only regret about buying a brother laser printer is that I didn’t get one much sooner. I love it!
I bought a secondhand Brother printer from ~20 years ago for $20, with toner and drum all set, and it works flawlessly on modern systems. They even still keep the official page with the drivers and the stock of replacement parts is readily available should I ever need them.
Swear to god old inkjet printer don’t let the ink dry out. My old HP printer works fine with refills and I print like 3-4 times each year. Never had any ink dry out. I’m convinced they purposefully made later printers dry it out on purpose. Problem is that “later” was like 15 years ago or smth.
it used to be that way… then they came up with ‘starter’ consumables with a fraction of the useful ink/toner inside.
Anyone ever tried to assemble a compute cluster from these?
Pro life tip.
- Buy a printer that accepts off-brand cartridges.
- Buy off-brand cartridges in bulk for further discounts (I buy 12-packs of ‘Hicorch’ cartridges for my Epson Stylus)
- Relax never having to worry about running out of ink.
- don’t buy an inkjet printer
Ink is for chumps. Real chads buy toner.
Better pro-life tip.
1)Buy a laser printer instead of inkjet and never worry about ink again.
That’s it. That’s the only step.
Or an ink tank printer. Way cheaper.
- Don’t update the printer that might put DRM in after the fact.
Keep it far away from the internet.
Now for an idea time. Printer with WiFi that auto-connects to unsecured networks (read “public”) to install updates for user’s convenience. Or, the drivers could proxy host’s connection. Or, download the update to host in advance, then auto-update by pushing to the printer when connected, even offline. Or, build an LTE modem into the printer.
Calm your tits, Satan.
Pro life tip.
1) Buy a printer that accepts off-brand cartridges.2) Buy off-brand cartridges in bulk for further discounts (I buy 12-packs of ‘Hicorch’ cartridges for my Epson Stylus)3) Relax never having to worry about running out of ink.- Buy a ink tank printer
My advice, since as others have said inkjets are trash: If you only need to print something every so often, use your local library. Easier if you live close to one, and still a hassle loading it on a thumb drive, but to me it’s easier than having a printer taking up space in my home.
I’ve been doing this for over a decade now. I don’t use a thumbdrive though, I just email myself the thing I need to print. Go to library computer, log in to email, print right from there. Each page is 10 cents at my local branch.
Also, a lot of libraries will provide you with a “guest pass” so you can use the computers even if you don’t have a library card. 10/10 highly recommended.
And if you want to print photos, get it done at a lab. It’ll cost more or less the same or even be cheaper, and come out much better.
When you say “a lab,” what are you referring to? Do you mean shops that provide photo printing, or somewhere more dedicated to photography specifically?
I like to scrapbook, but I don’t know anywhere that only prints photos. The photo lab at CVS can suffice for a lot of things, but if there is a better option, I’d value advice about it!
I meant it as a generic term for a photo printing place. Typically online nowadays. Good ones will do colour proofing if you take that into account in your processing.
Love my Brother black and white laser printer.
It is important to point out that it isn’t the brand that makes it good, it is the fact that it is laser.
I used to have a Brother “multi function center” printer/scanner/photocopier/fax that used inkjet and it was pure asshole design. Wasting expensive ink just by remaining plugged in and refusing to do anything if one cartridge was low on ink (but was actually still half full)
But if I had to single out a brand that should absolutely be avoided for printers it is HP. They do asshole DRM to a whole new level. They bricked a brand new ink cartridge because I didn’t put it in properly at first.
Now I have a laser printer and the nightmare is finally over.
Nah. Brother inkjets were the inky ones that didn’t require chips on the inktanks. Don’t know how it is nowadays but they were the only company that didn’t make everything shitty.
We now have a brother color laser and it’s a godsend.
My Brother inkjet printer didn’t have electronic DRM on their cartridges, but it would still waste a ton of ink through periodic “cleaning cycles” (in which it dumps a bunch of ink into a sponge hidden inside the printer) and would declare a half-full cartridge “empty” unless you put electrical tape on the sensor window. Even if I didn’t print anything it would run out of ink every few months. If you unplugged the printer to avoid those cleaning cycles it would eventually clog up. I agree that other companies like HP make it extra shitty with stupid DRM chips on their cartridges. But even without that, inkjet is just a bad technology.
Now I have a Lexmark laser printer and I’ve printed through a whole stack of paper in the over 8 years I’ve had it and it’s still running the original toner cartridge. No cleaning cycles, no clogging and if I haven’t used it in months I know the toner level will have remained completely unchanged when I eventually use it again. And when it finally runs out I know there are 3rd party toner cartridges available for it because no DRM.
As a rule, lasers make everything better.
Printer must have kept seeing the cartridge as half empty.
I have a Canon laserjet that absolutely sucks and a Brother inkjet that works great. Both were about the same price (the Brother can do 11x17) and were top recommendations from a bunch of sources. Unfortunately I think buying a printer at this point is just a crapshoot of whether it’ll actually be good.
Huh, our canon works great. Even lets me ignore the low toner warnings.
This Canon decided the cartridges it shipped with were expired and would pop up a “warning” on the printer that you had to acknowledge every print. After a while, it didn’t even let you get past that.
With my old brother inkjet, it would say it was out of ink in like 2 weeks because it used an optical sensor on the printer looking through a window on the ink cartridge at aimed at a floating piece of black plastic in the tank that would drop when the ink level went down.
The thing is, the sponge in the cartridge would soak up the ink and cause the floater to drop when there was still like 90% of the ink left.
So the key was to just put some black electrical tape over the window on the cartridge and keep using it until it actually stopped printing that color.
This is exactly what my Brother MFC did and I also put some tape on the window to extend the cartridge life. The problem is that it still went through “cleaning cycles” every few days, in which it will dump a bunch of ink into a big sponge hidden inside the printer (I took it apart after it broke). It will eventually run out ink even if you don’t use it because of that. And if you keep it unplugged to stop it from doing that it will eventually dry up and clog up. Even worse, if you leave it plugged in with tape on the cartridges and it tries to print with an actually empty cartridge, it will burn the printer head.
The absolute worst part is that you have zero control over when it did those cycles in which it would make all sorts of loud clunking and whirring noises and if it detected that an ink cartridge was low it would also beep loudly. It was in my bedroom at that time and it would wake me up in the middle of the night every time. I don’t care what people say about this company, I will never buy anything from it again.
The problem is that it still went through “cleaning cycles” every few days, in which it will dump a bunch of ink into a big sponge hidden inside the printer (I took it apart after it broke). It will eventually run out ink even if you don’t use it because of that. And if you keep it unplugged to stop it from doing that it will eventually dry up and clog up.
In other words, inkjet printers are inherently unsuitable for anybody who doesn’t need to print on a regular and consistent basis, but the initial purchase price of the hardware is cheaper so that’s what a lot of people who only need to print occasionally end up buying.
Here’s the catch: They’re not suitable for people who print frequently either because the cost per page is higher than laser. The only upside is the lower upfront cost but you very quickly make that difference in running costs no matter what your use is.
They’re only suitable for people who want high-quality color prints almost all the time, for things like photos and posters and banners, not just normal documents. The only inkjets that have a good reason to exist are the high-end ones mostly found at print shops and sign shops and the like; the cheap consumer ones are just e-waste from the moment they’re manufactured.
Using a laser printer in your home comes with negative health consequences.
Sure, but the health impact of a modern laser printer is on par with other daily health hazards at worst. Modern toner shouldn’t contain anything dangerous, nanoparticles could be a problem depending on amount of printing and the printer model, but if you live in a city you will breathe in more by opening a window. Ozone is emmited during printing but in small enough amounts that it will be problematic only in a small room with shit ventilation and tons of printing, and I mean tons, atleast a couple of books worth.
I mean we know that it is harmful because we observe harm being done to people. It’s not some kind of theoretical risk, or even a statistical risk like getting hit by a car. It’s not risk, it’s harm.
If you have information that technology has changed in the last few years to address the harm, I’d be interested if you shared it.
Are you suggesting there are people who die each year as a direct result of having a laser printer in their homes? If so, is there a source?
I’m curious because the person you’re responding to seems to be aware that the risk (harm) is real, but negligible. You seem to suggest the harm is so bad and unavoidable that it’s not worth buying a laser printer.
Just so we are on the same page, could you share an example of this harm being observed?
HP has lower profits!
TIL I should get a vent hood for my printer.
FYI, Brother seem to be acting a little shady in the last couple of years.
It doesn’t surprise me, I feel like I’m navigating a labarynth trying to reset the drum/toner count on my brother printer. It feels like they have the framework in place to make laser just as bad as inkjet brands.
All inkjet printers have to waste ink when they are not in use. Otherwise the ink in the print head dries out and clogs it up. Inkjet printers are the worst possible choice for infrequent use.
They’re also a bad choice if you’re a frequent user because the cost per page is higher than laser. The only upside is the lower upfront cost but you quickly lose that difference in running costs.
The ink tank printers are pretty cheap to run if they work with generic ink. They are a decent option if you need to print a lot of graphics. A laser printer will always produce higher quality text though.
Did they walk back their recent less than well liked choice to get into the same pool as HP? They were my go-to recommendation for the longest time.
Not sure, mine is several years old now.
Mate, they sold you a printer that prints white?
Had to pay twice as much for two colors but it was worth it!
Well, if it would only print black, you could not see the text!
yup. If I need color I can make sure it looks good in black and white and then head to the library and print it out. Its so rarely necessary but love the hassel free nature of the laser. Real question is how long it will take me to get through the starter cartridge. May end up being the same as the comic with as how often I print. Man though its great to have it work right away with no pre print clean out of such needed.
Buy third-party toner, it’s cheap.
Ate ink, ate cartridge, ate HP, luv me laser, luv me brother, luv me black and white, simple as
I’m convinced this is the only good printer in existence. They are an absolute workhorse.
Or you can buy a safety razor and a 100 pack of blades and never have to think about razors again for the rest of your life.
Shaving is one of the most basic of human grooming techniques going back hundreds of years, we figured that shit out ages ago. Ignore Gillette’s marketing, ignore BIC’s “cheap” prices. Just get a no-name safety razor and some blades and you’ll be sorted for the rest of your life. You don’t need fancy shaving creams either, lather up some soap and rub it all over your face. Done. Easy. Cheap. Sustainable. Now you can use your time on picking your nose or playing video games or whatever you wanna do for fun!
I went a different route and just didn’t shave for six years, then chopped it off in one go with an electric razor.
When I did leave the house and worried about being presentable, I did enjoy a safety razor. I also had good luck with a shavette. Never got a really good shave with a straight razor, but I did both damage my (cheap) sink and sport a stylish but gnarly cut for a few days. That is, of course, a skill issue rather than tool issue.
This will cost like $30 and you might not need to buy blades for years and years.
Another way they get you: the ink cartridges that come with new printers are often only half full.
Way less than that. They put demo cartridges that are like 1/8 normal capacity, so you get a few pages and then gotta cough up.
half full is a very optimistic view. I’ve taken apart HP cartridges that were defective at my last job, the starter cartridges are maybe 1/8 to a fourth of the container when being generous, the instructions back when they used to have paper instructions would say there is only enough ink in the printer for about 10 pages worth
Keep in mind pages talks about 5% coverage, too.
deleted by creator
I had to print maybe 3 times in the last 10 years and just used one of those coin operated printer things. Does anyone still print that much to justify owning a printer?
Yes. But I use a cheap Brother laser printer.
Yep. Can anyone explain why this is?
Basically the business model is that if they can sell you a cheap printer at a loss, you won’t consider a less cheap model from a company that isn’t as shitty. Then they can lock you into years of buying their ink, which is overpriced deliberately.
Last I checked, if you need an inkjet printer, get a Brother or an Epson. All the rest will rip you off in various ways.
Even better, get a laser printer if you can afford it (or don’t mind forgoing colour with a b&w model). For these, the above two brands, plus Ricoh, Xerox & Canon have a pretty good reputation last I looked into it
Never ever buy HP anything
deleted by creator
I am onboard with the Canon lasers. I got a color mfp/scanner. Off brand toner is less than half the price, and even the Canon toner is less than other brands.
Also, seriously consider if a library might be a better choice than owning a printer for your use case
A caveat to the HP thing, they split off their enterprise hardware division years ago, and it’s actually a decent company.
On top of this, the starter cartridges that come with the printer are often sized smaller than the refills.
This didn’t used to be the case, starter cartridges used to be the same size if not a little bigger than standard cartridges because the expectation was they wanted you to buy the printer be impressed with how efficient it was and buy more ink.
The problem with that was, printers were too reliable, people weren’t buying new printers anymore they were only buying the ink so what they did in return was lowered the price of the printers to try to incentivize buying a new printer.
But then people realized well the ink is so expensive that I can just buy a whole new printer which would be the upgraded form and not have to worry about buying ink, which meant no one was buying their ink anymore
So as such they made it so starter cartridges have Jack crap for ink to try to disincentivize the same thing that they incentivized in the first place.
Then of course like every good thing in the world, some executive realize that they could just lower the reliability of the printer and make it a piece of junk, which will accomplish the same effects. But by that time the consumers were used to having nothing for ink and printers anyway so why would they go out of their way to add more ink in the starter cartridges when people were buying it with little to no ink in the starter cartridges, which is how we got to where we are today. Thankfully the laser printer company is while our starting to go in that direction haven’t quite become as bad.
TLDR? ; inkjet companies are greedy cash hogs, and was willing to lose a little bit of face in order to make some money. Buy a laser printer, the base cost is quite a bit more, but the toner cartridges last forever and they are significantly more reliable
The amount of ink that comes with an inkjet printer is tiny. So a new printer comes with 10mL of ink, and the refills are 35mL or more. You quite literally get what you pay for.
The other reason is that inkjet printers need to be used on a regular basis, or the ink can dry out. But manufacturers have handled this by having the printer drip out tiny bits of ink all the time, so it’s literally using the ink even when you aren’t using it.
For the vast majority of people, a cheap laser printer is the far better option. Unless you want to produce art prints, but at that point you’re looking at spending a ton of money anyways.
Unregulted corporate greed
Because printer manufactures are money grubbing bastards.
Why is it the cyan that’s low in the comic? It’s always fucking yellow that they scream about.
If I recall correctly it always screams about yellow because many printers print microscopic dots that make a code allowing law enforcement to ID the printer
I have bought a “starter” cartridge inkjet, a "premium“ AIO inkjet, and (supposedly) one-of-the-better-ones monochrome laserjet. All of them gave me nothing but grief. I used to think this was an accepted loss with the entire printing landscape, that it’s a problem of the domain itself.
Turns out it was because I had always bought HP.
The last final printer I bought is a Brother inktank. It is not without its quirks, granted, yet I have never felt so easy.
God knows how much of a grief stricken, pain inducing, blood boiling, poisoned my life was– because HP. Once I switched to a different vendor, a burden of sorts was lifted.
i have had a total of 5-6 products in my lifetime from HP, and I’m pretty sure each one has easily taken out years from my life expectancy.
![[System32] No but like for real](https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/7ac069c7-788b-4b40-ae8f-078b95a1c4a3.jpeg){kind=link}