I bought a Brother (HL-2170W) laser printer about 8 years ago, and it's still using its original cartridge. I do very little printing, but I do need it from time to time.
During my last move, I accidentally tipped a book shelf on top of it. Cracked a few plastic bits, and bent some metal things inside it. I unbent the metal, and glued the plastic, and the thing still prints like it's new out of the box.
I've talked more than a few people out of buying inkjets.
I have an HP LaserJet 4L. It's noisy and has an inconvenient Centronics interface. This is because it's over 20 years old, but it has been similarly reliable and repairable because it dates from the era when HP were a respected engineering company.
Second Brother lasers. My HL-3170CDW color laser is still going strong after four years. Works flawlessly with Linux, OS X, and Windows; toner lasts forever; and print quality is fantastic.
The Brother color lasers also are happy to print without color toner cartridges present.
By contrast, HP's cheaper color lasers require the cartridges to be present, and if they run out and are left in the machine, they cause banding over your printouts. This is due to their integrated drums wearing out, so you have to replace the color toners even if they're not being used (or hack around with transferring chips onto less-used old cartridges, even black ones so they're seen as colour ones).
I've had 3 of the Brother multifunctions in various offices (7920, 7940, 7960), and a couple of the color multifunctions (9340 right now). Generally happy with them in every way.
I was pretty surprised when network scanning worked out of the box on Macs. I scan about as much as I print. AirPrint works on the newest ones, too, from iPhone/iPad.
Their inkjet line of crap are the worst printers I've ever had to use and continually clean themselves out of ink, even when you aren't using it. If you unplug it and plug it back in, the damn thing will clean itself for a proportional amount of time. So it will use ink at a nearly constant rate regardless of whether or not you use it. It is totally some kind of fraud.
I bought a brother dcp7040 and am still on 1st full size cartridge after the sample toner ran out. Absolutely love this printer!! Ink junk can go to hell.
I feel like a laser printer evangelist now. I have a few laser Brother models I always recommend to people who complain about their inkjets based on their OS, the functions they need, and if they primarily print BW or color.
Sort of like high deductibles did to people's willingness to seek medical treatment, I know more than a few people with inkjets that actively avoid using them because "it's so expensive and never works".
They're afraid to use up their ink, so it ends up expiring(!) or drying out having been barely used, and the next time they desperately need to print something, they have to buy $50+ of cartridges before they can print anything at all.
The HL-2140 I got in '09 for $60 can print on transparencies for PCB masking, does manual duplexing and easy booklet printing under Linux and OSX, and with aftermarket toner refills I've only needed to replace the drum/cart once. Contrasted to the cost efficiency of all the low or mid range inkjets I've owned ($80-350), it's been an exceptional return.
I'm equally happy with our Brother HL-2150N. Already using the third cartridge in its fifth (?) year, but a very basic and cheap and capable laser printer.
even when you hit the end of that toner cartridge there is a small hack to get you another at least 50 pages, the brother printers use some kinda beam sensor that passes through the cartridge if the printer detects this is unbroken the cartridge must be empty because there is no toner all you do is block this there a small clear plastic window on the cartridge reboot the printer and you're good to go. you may get faded pages after a while try shaking the cartridge a bit.
also people just don't buy inkjet printers if your printing patterns are limited to just a few prints a month there always just going to dry out go with the laser printers they use toner and never dry out.
Well to be fair I bought an Epson inkjet printer (Workforce something) several years ago and never used up its original cartridge. Granted I don't print much but I was still fairly impressed.
Of course that doesn't invalidate the point of TFA. Also they have an ink dump that is chipped - when it is "full" they force you to buy a replacement rather than just empty it.
Get a cheap consumer black and white laser printer and never look back. I can't think of any time I've needed or wanted to print color. For photos and such send them off to be printed with real photo printers.
I print my occasional shipping label et al. at work (shh!), but did the same for my parents. I don't like Samsung with anything creative, but their simple black and white laser printers seem great and even have official Linux support.
We came to the same conclusion. My wife is a teacher and we often print her notes, tests, homework assignments, and worksheets to be copied at school. The B&W laser "just works" and is both fast and economical.
I don't own a printer, and I feel like when I have to print something I usually employ one of the following strategies:
1) Going to an office supply store, library, or university with the PDF of what I need to print on a USB drive.
2) My workplace providing a printer for work-related printing.
I can imagine good reasons why someone would need to own a printer, but it seems almost like a car these days. If you don't want to deal with one, and you can live your life effectively without, it might be better to rely on services to print for you.
I own a printer, because I need to print shipping labels. I didn't own one until I started doing a lot of shipping. Even in college the CS lab let us print for free (the library charged) so I used that to print out assignments. I bought the cheapest black and white only laser printer in existence - $25.
I pretty much exclusively buy Epson XP-420's nowadays. What other all-in-one option is there that meets the following criteria?
1. Complete and free Linux support
2. Wireless
3. Affordable - remember, we are competing with a printer that regularly retails for $40 and whose cartridges cost around $10 per set. "Just buy the $200 Brother with $40 a set toner" isn't satisfactory to the people I recommend printers to.
HP printers are known to be draconian with their cartridge DRM, and their Linux support is kind of a PITA with how they use their own protocol and suite of tools and every HP printer I have tried has never played nice with Cups management.
Since most folks only print black and white for occasional stuff (forms, taxes, resumes, etc), something like the Brother HL-L2320D mono laser printer is a good bet. Works with Linux (rpm and deb available from their site), wireless, affordable. It's under $90 and toner is $30 for 1200 pages (2.5 cents per page) or $49 for 2600 pages (1.9 cents per page). Compare that to $13 for 175 pages (7.4 cents per page) with the Epson.
If you don't need wireless, bump down to $68 for the HL-L2320D. For both printers, good 3rd party toner is about $10 for 1000+ pages to save even more. I listed only first-party numbers above.
If you really want to print pictures at home, you can on a "cheap" inkjet. But it'll cost you overall more per print (due to ink drying out, etc) and be worse quality than you can get from a local pharmacy, office store, or printer. A good quality inkjet for photos is another story, but quite a bit pricier.
I've never had anything but plug and play it just works with HP network/wireless printers. The Linux stuff works far more reliably than the Windows drivers.
For $100, you get a wireless/ethernet dual sided printer that can also has a sheet fed scanner.
The main downside of the HPs is the cartridge cost, along with the DRM and the annoying "this cartridge is expired" messages you need to click through.
This is not unique to Epson, so if you go out an buy an HP thinking you'll be safe... do your research first.
I have an HP Officejet 6700 Premium right behind me that works the exact same way. If I run out of Magenta, it won't even print in black.
I've been thinking of trying to find a way to inject some water or something into the empty cartridges to trick it. The strange thing is - I almost never print in color, yet somehow, I run out of color ink. I don't get it. And it's costing me way more than I want to spend to print.
Has anyone tried Epson’s Ink Tank series? They have a ridiculously low cost per page, with new inks costing as low as $5/bottle. I’m thinking of buying one to replace my aging Lexmark E-232 which has printed more than 70k pages without a hitch.
How hard would it be to hack an open source printer hardware, say using some standard black toner cartriges (any brand), and make a Kickstarter out of it?
Epson recently found through customer research that anxiety about ink cartridges was one of their biggest problems and so they are launching printers with refillable ink tanks, currently available in the form of the Epson EcoTank L355. Given that the company has understood this problem and released products to address it it seems that never buying Epson printers might be an incorrect response.
The concept is nice but the EcoTank printers themselves look like junk, in the store at least. Given how expensive they are, you'd have thought they'd make the design more durable-looking or used better materials. That said, I haven't seen the ET14000 or two-tray workforce in person, and maybe they work better than they look :)
1) That's not just Epson. Many manufacturers do that.
2) That's a cheap consumer all-in-one. You're buying a subsidized product which pays for itself via expensive ink cartridges. Requiring all of them in order to print is called "leverage". It's at least ten years that such products exist - if you didn't know, it may be your fault as well.
3) Want a reliable printer with a decent cost per page? Aim at the SOHO market, at least. There you won't get a subsidized price, and printers would actually need to print more than 10 pages per month - hence the higher price tag.
Just an example: I've got an Epson Workforce Pro 5620. It's an inkjet, color all-in-one printer with double sided printing and scanning. It works great, the price-per-page using original Epson cartridges is on par with most non-heavy duty color laser printers (i.e. those in the $400-$600 range) but it's much cheaper ($280 on Amazon right now).
At least the Epson stuff I've owned is easy to install with Linux and doesn't break after a few months of use (contrary to various Canon and HP devices). If there exists a non-terrible printer manufacturer (in a consumer budget range) do tell me.
Maybe you got to have them inserted, yes, but they can be empty. (My HP OfficeJet 6500A Plus also prints with empty color cartridges. I just replaced them today after weeks of emptyness).
Not too long ago I bought a cheap printer (don't remember the brand), took it home, and returned it after seeing the horrible quality of the print. Then I brought home another cheap printer of a different brand, had the same experience, and returned that.
The reason I was buying cheap printers is that they were the only ones locally available, other than one very expensive model, the epson XP800. Apparently the market has been shrunk to only people that don't care about quality. They give the printer away and make a killing on the ink.
In the end I bought the expensive Epson and have been very happy with it. I'm not happy about the state of the market though.
It's the business model that is the problem no the tech. This dude spent 5 hours trying to hack his printer. He is the problem! Just value your time and go out and buy a decent printer ffs. To get a printer this bad you have to spend next to nothing on it :-)
It's not worth it; you'll never be able to make it cheaper than a good small-office printer.
If you want a nice printer that is reliable, has ultra-cheap cost-per-page, is rated for 50,000 pages per month, uses Postscript, etc., they're out there, but you're not going to find one for less than $50. But you can find one for $300-1000 (depending on if you want color or B&W). Your kickstarter project isn't going to be able to beat that.
[+] [-] JensRex|10 years ago|reply
During my last move, I accidentally tipped a book shelf on top of it. Cracked a few plastic bits, and bent some metal things inside it. I unbent the metal, and glued the plastic, and the thing still prints like it's new out of the box.
I've talked more than a few people out of buying inkjets.
[+] [-] pjc50|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] colanderman|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] motti|10 years ago|reply
By contrast, HP's cheaper color lasers require the cartridges to be present, and if they run out and are left in the machine, they cause banding over your printouts. This is due to their integrated drums wearing out, so you have to replace the color toners even if they're not being used (or hack around with transferring chips onto less-used old cartridges, even black ones so they're seen as colour ones).
[+] [-] rdl|10 years ago|reply
I was pretty surprised when network scanning worked out of the box on Macs. I scan about as much as I print. AirPrint works on the newest ones, too, from iPhone/iPad.
[+] [-] whatnotests|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fapjacks|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sweetbabyjesus|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] washadjeffmad|10 years ago|reply
Sort of like high deductibles did to people's willingness to seek medical treatment, I know more than a few people with inkjets that actively avoid using them because "it's so expensive and never works".
They're afraid to use up their ink, so it ends up expiring(!) or drying out having been barely used, and the next time they desperately need to print something, they have to buy $50+ of cartridges before they can print anything at all.
The HL-2140 I got in '09 for $60 can print on transparencies for PCB masking, does manual duplexing and easy booklet printing under Linux and OSX, and with aftermarket toner refills I've only needed to replace the drum/cart once. Contrasted to the cost efficiency of all the low or mid range inkjets I've owned ($80-350), it's been an exceptional return.
[+] [-] jschulenklopper|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bingobob|10 years ago|reply
also people just don't buy inkjet printers if your printing patterns are limited to just a few prints a month there always just going to dry out go with the laser printers they use toner and never dry out.
[+] [-] unknown|10 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] IshKebab|10 years ago|reply
Of course that doesn't invalidate the point of TFA. Also they have an ink dump that is chipped - when it is "full" they force you to buy a replacement rather than just empty it.
[+] [-] cm2187|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ShaunK|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jschwartzi|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dongsheng|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] walrus01|10 years ago|reply
If you have the space and print a lot of black and white, buy an eight year old used HP LaserJet with an Ethernet interface.
[+] [-] csomar|10 years ago|reply
1. The printing functionality is flawed. A cartridge will not last for more than 100 pages. (I tried Epson, HP and Canon).
2. The cartridge will dry and not function after a few weeks only.
3. The original cartridge cost almost as much as a new printer with the cartridge.
4. The printer will not function (Scanner or Fax) without the full cartridges (black and colours).
5. They are buggy and noisy as hell.
[+] [-] StreamBright|10 years ago|reply
"I am going to spend the rest of my career focusing on the hard problems of computer science: printers, projectors, and screen sharing."
https://twitter.com/britt/status/611996866146779136
[+] [-] soneca|10 years ago|reply
I never heard of startups making printers, not even those dreamy kickstart projects.
Why we have this product that annoy People for ages and no one fix it? Anyone could give me any insight?
[+] [-] tdicola|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] abrowne|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] johnminter|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] danbolt|10 years ago|reply
1) Going to an office supply store, library, or university with the PDF of what I need to print on a USB drive.
2) My workplace providing a printer for work-related printing.
I can imagine good reasons why someone would need to own a printer, but it seems almost like a car these days. If you don't want to deal with one, and you can live your life effectively without, it might be better to rely on services to print for you.
[+] [-] nommm-nommm|10 years ago|reply
I own a printer, because I need to print shipping labels. I didn't own one until I started doing a lot of shipping. Even in college the CS lab let us print for free (the library charged) so I used that to print out assignments. I bought the cheapest black and white only laser printer in existence - $25.
[+] [-] zanny|10 years ago|reply
1. Complete and free Linux support
2. Wireless
3. Affordable - remember, we are competing with a printer that regularly retails for $40 and whose cartridges cost around $10 per set. "Just buy the $200 Brother with $40 a set toner" isn't satisfactory to the people I recommend printers to.
HP printers are known to be draconian with their cartridge DRM, and their Linux support is kind of a PITA with how they use their own protocol and suite of tools and every HP printer I have tried has never played nice with Cups management.
[+] [-] JohnTHaller|10 years ago|reply
If you don't need wireless, bump down to $68 for the HL-L2320D. For both printers, good 3rd party toner is about $10 for 1000+ pages to save even more. I listed only first-party numbers above.
If you really want to print pictures at home, you can on a "cheap" inkjet. But it'll cost you overall more per print (due to ink drying out, etc) and be worse quality than you can get from a local pharmacy, office store, or printer. A good quality inkjet for photos is another story, but quite a bit pricier.
[+] [-] unknown|10 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] russdill|10 years ago|reply
For $100, you get a wireless/ethernet dual sided printer that can also has a sheet fed scanner.
The main downside of the HPs is the cartridge cost, along with the DRM and the annoying "this cartridge is expired" messages you need to click through.
[+] [-] dpcan|10 years ago|reply
I have an HP Officejet 6700 Premium right behind me that works the exact same way. If I run out of Magenta, it won't even print in black.
I've been thinking of trying to find a way to inject some water or something into the empty cartridges to trick it. The strange thing is - I almost never print in color, yet somehow, I run out of color ink. I don't get it. And it's costing me way more than I want to spend to print.
[+] [-] elorant|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 8jef|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] m0llusk|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lstamour|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alanfranzoni|10 years ago|reply
Just an example: I've got an Epson Workforce Pro 5620. It's an inkjet, color all-in-one printer with double sided printing and scanning. It works great, the price-per-page using original Epson cartridges is on par with most non-heavy duty color laser printers (i.e. those in the $400-$600 range) but it's much cheaper ($280 on Amazon right now).
Don't cry for something we all know about.
[+] [-] marijn|10 years ago|reply
At least the Epson stuff I've owned is easy to install with Linux and doesn't break after a few months of use (contrary to various Canon and HP devices). If there exists a non-terrible printer manufacturer (in a consumer budget range) do tell me.
[+] [-] e-nouri|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bsilvereagle|10 years ago|reply
[1] https://w2.eff.org/Privacy/printers/index.php
[+] [-] derFunk|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jayrox|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mchahn|10 years ago|reply
The reason I was buying cheap printers is that they were the only ones locally available, other than one very expensive model, the epson XP800. Apparently the market has been shrunk to only people that don't care about quality. They give the printer away and make a killing on the ink.
In the end I bought the expensive Epson and have been very happy with it. I'm not happy about the state of the market though.
[+] [-] gherkin0|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] atroyn|10 years ago|reply
Along with non-apple laptops and notebooks, printers seem to be one of the things people complain about the most.
[+] [-] t3ra|10 years ago|reply
Injects can be refilled at home with a simple injection and syringe! All you need to buy is some good quality ink from eBay (or aliexpress)
If not that There are "compatible oem cartridges" at 1/4 the cost available EVERYWHERE!
or if you do the slightest bit of printing : Invest in a CISS (Continuous ink supply system).. Even Epson makes original CISS systems.
[+] [-] 8jef|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bbcbasic|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Grishnakh|10 years ago|reply
If you want a nice printer that is reliable, has ultra-cheap cost-per-page, is rated for 50,000 pages per month, uses Postscript, etc., they're out there, but you're not going to find one for less than $50. But you can find one for $300-1000 (depending on if you want color or B&W). Your kickstarter project isn't going to be able to beat that.
[+] [-] vardump|10 years ago|reply
Needs to work fine under Linux.
Any suggestions?