Thankfully the demand for printers is fading. This will of course cause printer mfrs to double down on their lockdowns ("Sorry, your toner is too old so you'll have to go out and buy new a new cartridge"). But its their anti-consumer practices that drive people not to print.
My kiddo bought a new printer in 2015 because he had to print something for high school and the toner cartridge was empty. It was cheaper to buy a whole replacement brother with the starter cartridge than to just get a cartridge (and it was delivered for free within the a couple of hours!). I still have it, still use it once in a while, and it's still on that same starter cartridge and maybe the same ream of paper. Two more kids have finished high school using it...hardly at all.
In the past year I can remember two printer jobs, each a single page.
> It was cheaper to buy a whole replacement brother with the starter cartridge than to just get a cartridge...
This may not actually be the case, 'starter' cartridges often have significantly less toner than full-size. Also, Brother is among the better actors in the printer space - I believe that Louis Rossmann has one, and talks it up in [1] at around 11:30.
I print regularly, plenty of stuff requires signatures, and being safe when travelling.
Work stuff requires offline archives for contracts and legal stuff
Regarding travelling, is no fun when something happens trying to show the ticket from an app that for whatever reason decides not to start, or having the phone dying on me. Paper to the rescue.
Starter cartridge can be smaller in volume than the standalone ones you buy though. Unless you are certain they are identical, you can't compare price if a new printer to new cartridge.
Sometimes what you said is true though, because they want to sell you a product that keep you buying their cartridge so selling the printer "at a loss" can be profitable.
If that is the case, it is more because of a failing on our part to teach people the benefits of printing than anything else.
I'll hold onto my printer and print language stdlib and API reference docs til the day I die. There's just something about having it in print that helps me navigate the corpus of information more effectively.
Well, double down? When I check the shops here the open ink tank printers are everywhere from every manufacturer. Just pour ink in.
That's a lot more open than they used to be.
Ps: my printing needs are also minimal these days. A boarding pass here, a form there. A couple of pages a month. I have a Brother laser for that reason, no heads to dry out and consumables are cheap.
This is something irrelevant but I thought I'd share an anecdote from a mate who worked for HP a long time ago. He worked on their driver software for their printers. In one of the assignment he was asked to rebrand the same software with another manufacturer's name (can't recall if it was Canon or Epson)! HP may have shared some printer technology with another company.
There is nothing new in this space. HP hasn't exactly been the beacon of customer satisfaction thanks to their restrictive policies. Most of these printers are probably made in similar factories (probably a handful of places), somewhere in China. I'd buy from a brand that offers more flexibility when it comes to ink/toner than anything else.
HP has had partnership with Samsung an has bought its printer division in 2017, it has partnership with Canon too. I think there is not much invention anymore, it is just long tail market now. Other than for specialised use, people just buy printer once forever for ocassional use.
This way the printer market is really shrinking and consolidating, like HDD market.
Kinda wish this lawsuit also included the issue where many HP printers will not print a black and white page in situations where one has plenty of black ink but the color cartridges are empty.
Are we at the same stage today? An open source ink printer would be particularly hard to make because of the nozzle, and laser ones are complicated because of the drums?
Just curious if someone in 10 or 20 years might come back to these threads and reminisce at this unattainable open hardware ideal as they grumble about HPCanon's latest dystopian ""innovation"".
I bought an old HP LaserJet 2015 ages ago. Together with two 7000 pages toners for about 100USD. It just works. I can lea e it for two years, than plug in the USB cable and it jist spits out pages.
This is how printers should be.
During the pandemic I had a Canon all-in-one printer with ADF and bells and whistles that refused to let me use the scanner if one of the ink cartridges was empty, which happened all the time because the self-cleaning used a ton of ink and ran every time I wanted to use the ADF scanner, and while it did support pushing PDFs to a NAS via Samba, only a hopelessly insecure stone age version of Samba was actually implemented. The thing was an utter pos, it's crazy that it could be sold like that.
I've since replaced it with a standalone Brother b&w laser printer and an HP ADF scanner and lo and behold both devices just work, I can scan and process my mail using scanline and python and print the occasional document and both devices take up less space than the Canon pos.
So how does HP make money from that scanner? Is it limited to a number of pages per month or pay per scan? Oh I know, 1200dpi scanning is enabled with your subscription? I mean surely they don't just sell it to you as a physical product and then let you use it?!?!
I'm really curious what all the commenters here are printing so much of? I have some crappy inkjet which works fine, for the maybe 2 pages I print per year.
It's so infrequent it's hard to even generalise what I use it for. Very occasional government forms, things that absolutely have to be sent by snail mail, stuff like that. What is everyone else printing?
I jumped from HP printers long ago and bought some cheap Canon (yes I read the full article and saw Canon mentioned) as it was easier to buy cheap cartdriges. My usage is very low.
What printer would be the good one to go these days?
I couldn't be happier with my Brother HL-L3290CDW all-in-one.
I posted this response to a similar question here 3 months ago:
>"I got tired of the user-hostile shenanigans, bad software, low-quality output, and high TCO (5 or 6 HP or Canon devices over the years), finally came to my senses and bought a Brother. It "Just Works", is fast and quiet and reliable, does exactly what it's supposed to, and is in such stark contrast to the typically terrible printer UX it's almost funny."
Coincidentally, just yesterday it warned of low black toner (for the 1st time) and I realized I actually believe it, given all the printing my family's done this year. I've read that it supports non-OEM cartridges, will find out for myself in a day or two.
I'm kinda at the point where I think someone needs to kickstart an (Semi)open Solid Ink printer design.
1. The tech has been around long enough that any/all patents should be done with.
2. In general they are much more eco-friendly, the 'cartridge' is just a specially shaped wax block.
3. Prints wind up being extremely robust due to the wax ink, I remember when salespeople would spray photo prints with water and show it just run off.
Of course, the challenges would be providing a sufficient filter for ink, any foreign particles can clog up the print heads after all, as well as making sure users understand that there are processes in moving them.
I bought a black-and-white Brother laser circa 2000. It ran an ran until around 2020 when it finally broke (physically) in ways that weren't worth repairing. I bought a Brother 3770CDW colour laser to replace it. It has run and run with no problems.
Everyone seems to repeat that brother lasers are the way to go, but I’ve found that for home use (photos and documents) that the canon eco tank is superior to the brother is basically every way.
Be careful of some Brothers models as the ones to avoid have "Refresh" option.
"Refresh" is just a way for a centralized Brothers server to monitor your printer and your local subnet (for what ever purpose they wanted). HP/Epson/Canon have few or no models without "Refresh" option, unless you spring for a more expensive business-class printer.
I love all technology - except printers. Don’t make me have to own a scanner, printer or (god forbid) fax machine. That’s you, governments, accountants, lawyers and insurance companies.
If you only use your printer occasionally but can't fully get rid of it, like me, I can recommend getting a pocket thermal printer. I got a Peripage A4 sized one [1] and I use it whenever I can't fake having printed something (by adding a signature in software and deepfrying the document to look scanned if the other side requires it) or when I want a printed backup (like for travel documents in case my phone died or I lost it).
It has no consumables other than the thermal paper which I believe is easy to come by from any vendor. The printed documents look like trash and obviously aren't in color, but they are readable and frankly, they'll do.
I have yet to run into a situation where this thermal printed document is not accepted by the other party in case the other party requires a printed document and I can't work around that requirement digitally.
Aaand I don't have to deal with any sort of ink or anything of the sort.
Someone downthread mentioned the idea of an open source printer and how complicated it would be for the maker community to build one. I wish people gave building an open source thermal document-sized printer a shot, because the only thing I don't like is that I need to use a Chinese app on my phone to print through this printer. I am sure it would be easy to reverse engineer, though, so I could reuse the hardware and just get a clean app, but I didn't put the effort into that.
Check out the Epson Eco tank. There is no cartridge with a microchip. You just fill the ink tank on the printer with bottles, so if third parties can make it for cheaper than Epson it'll work just fine.
>> I wonder if it's cheaper to just buy a new ink-jet printer instead of refilling?
Unless you are printing color, a Brother laser is the way to go. I purchased my printer 5yrs ago and purchased only a single toner replacement over the years. Best no-nonsense purchase ever.
I don’t know if it’s still the case, but it used to be that the cartridges that came with a printer were way underfilled. If so, you’re likely much better off buying the new cartridges.
I believe the ink cartridges that come with (some) new printers aren't close to full size, so you wouldn't be getting a full set of new ink cartridges with every purchase. I would speculate that if they went to that length, they probably calculated the break even point for the price of cartridges vs. the price of a new printer. My guess would be no, but it would be very funny if that was wrong.
Depends on amount and frequency of printing needs. Some low amount and low frequency, it probably is. When you don't fully use the cartridges it makes sense to get the cheapest option.
Actually, I am quite happy with using my budget HP all-in-one printer; private usage. I also chose to subscribe to the Instant Ink service. I took the smallest one with 10 pages p.m. This plan was, and still is for me, free of charge. So I have not payed for ink in the last 6 yrs. If I print more than 10pages, which happened once, I pay 1€ for another 10 pages. Also why I am happy with HP, is that there is quite decent support in linux (hplip). All in all at least I am happy.
One drawback is, that the printer needs to send some telemetry back to HP. But that is the service, if the ink get low, they'll send me cartridges without my interaction.
Thus, I never ran out of ink and did not face the situation of a non working printer/scanner. And I got blinded by the good working service, that I did not realize the lock-in situation I am in. I dislike vendor-lock-ins like these, but for home printing I got used to it, due to the many benefits.
Also wish someone would do something about single player computer games that you find out won't work when the Internet is down (I assume because of telemetry but I don't know for sure), until it's too late to request a refund.
If only there were ways to get superior versions of games that don't have these lousy, baked-in restrictions that break a perfectly good set of bits...
They should just better more expensive printers that function really good.
They are too busy min maxing the profits. All big and great companies today that survive and endured the years survived because they put the product first. A sign a company is about to die is when they start cutting corners to maximize profits. A good executive only gets paid when his/her ocmpany turns a profit. Of course a living expense is always given, you can't eat ramen noodles forever. Not the Japanese kind.
If the printers are so bad, can a fax machine be used (that would not have any internet and not have any auto-updating software, if they still make them that way)? Can a FOSS program on the computer to emulate the fax signals? Would that work?
I used to use Epson for this reason, but unless they've really polished their drivers I will be sticking with my HP. Yes, HP is more expensive and anti-consumer but when I want to print something it just works. My last Epson worked fine at first but soon got to the point that I needed to clean and reinstall the drivers nearly every time I wanted to print something.
I am the only one in my immediate family with a printer so I am constantly emailed with requests to print things out. It’s actually kind of nice, and leads to impromptu family interaction when they come over to pick it up.
I have one of those ink tank printers and it has been revolutionary in the printer space. I can’t believe we went this long with cartridges
[+] [-] gumby|2 years ago|reply
My kiddo bought a new printer in 2015 because he had to print something for high school and the toner cartridge was empty. It was cheaper to buy a whole replacement brother with the starter cartridge than to just get a cartridge (and it was delivered for free within the a couple of hours!). I still have it, still use it once in a while, and it's still on that same starter cartridge and maybe the same ream of paper. Two more kids have finished high school using it...hardly at all.
In the past year I can remember two printer jobs, each a single page.
[+] [-] LeonB|2 years ago|reply
“Printer mfrs”
As we all know it isn’t just an abbreviation for “manufacturers”
[+] [-] arcticbull|2 years ago|reply
This may not actually be the case, 'starter' cartridges often have significantly less toner than full-size. Also, Brother is among the better actors in the printer space - I believe that Louis Rossmann has one, and talks it up in [1] at around 11:30.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGszSj0BLeg
[+] [-] pjmlp|2 years ago|reply
Work stuff requires offline archives for contracts and legal stuff
Regarding travelling, is no fun when something happens trying to show the ticket from an app that for whatever reason decides not to start, or having the phone dying on me. Paper to the rescue.
[+] [-] KolenCh|2 years ago|reply
Sometimes what you said is true though, because they want to sell you a product that keep you buying their cartridge so selling the printer "at a loss" can be profitable.
[+] [-] salawat|2 years ago|reply
If that is the case, it is more because of a failing on our part to teach people the benefits of printing than anything else.
I'll hold onto my printer and print language stdlib and API reference docs til the day I die. There's just something about having it in print that helps me navigate the corpus of information more effectively.
[+] [-] wkat4242|2 years ago|reply
That's a lot more open than they used to be.
Ps: my printing needs are also minimal these days. A boarding pass here, a form there. A couple of pages a month. I have a Brother laser for that reason, no heads to dry out and consumables are cheap.
[+] [-] _a_a_a_|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Dalewyn|2 years ago|reply
Maybe in your little corner of the world, but for the rest of us we need ink (or toner) on paper to just conduct life.
[+] [-] jp0d|2 years ago|reply
There is nothing new in this space. HP hasn't exactly been the beacon of customer satisfaction thanks to their restrictive policies. Most of these printers are probably made in similar factories (probably a handful of places), somewhere in China. I'd buy from a brand that offers more flexibility when it comes to ink/toner than anything else.
[+] [-] imhoguy|2 years ago|reply
This way the printer market is really shrinking and consolidating, like HDD market.
[+] [-] seltzered_|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] techhazard|2 years ago|reply
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machine_Identification_Code
[+] [-] liquidpele|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gregsadetsky|2 years ago|reply
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24786721
Are we at the same stage today? An open source ink printer would be particularly hard to make because of the nozzle, and laser ones are complicated because of the drums?
Just curious if someone in 10 or 20 years might come back to these threads and reminisce at this unattainable open hardware ideal as they grumble about HPCanon's latest dystopian ""innovation"".
[+] [-] tomas789|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dividedbyzero|2 years ago|reply
I've since replaced it with a standalone Brother b&w laser printer and an HP ADF scanner and lo and behold both devices just work, I can scan and process my mail using scanline and python and print the occasional document and both devices take up less space than the Canon pos.
[+] [-] badcppdev|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stevage|2 years ago|reply
It's so infrequent it's hard to even generalise what I use it for. Very occasional government forms, things that absolutely have to be sent by snail mail, stuff like that. What is everyone else printing?
[+] [-] hashtag-til|2 years ago|reply
What printer would be the good one to go these days?
[+] [-] chrisweekly|2 years ago|reply
>"I got tired of the user-hostile shenanigans, bad software, low-quality output, and high TCO (5 or 6 HP or Canon devices over the years), finally came to my senses and bought a Brother. It "Just Works", is fast and quiet and reliable, does exactly what it's supposed to, and is in such stark contrast to the typically terrible printer UX it's almost funny."
Coincidentally, just yesterday it warned of low black toner (for the 1st time) and I realized I actually believe it, given all the printing my family's done this year. I've read that it supports non-OEM cartridges, will find out for myself in a day or two.
[+] [-] to11mtm|2 years ago|reply
1. The tech has been around long enough that any/all patents should be done with.
2. In general they are much more eco-friendly, the 'cartridge' is just a specially shaped wax block.
3. Prints wind up being extremely robust due to the wax ink, I remember when salespeople would spray photo prints with water and show it just run off.
Of course, the challenges would be providing a sufficient filter for ink, any foreign particles can clog up the print heads after all, as well as making sure users understand that there are processes in moving them.
[+] [-] rodgerd|2 years ago|reply
It just works. Even The Verge agree: https://www.theverge.com/23642073/best-printer-2023-brother-...
"...it does not feel like the CEO of Inkjet Supply and Hostage Situations Incorporated is waiting to mug me..."
[+] [-] shiftpgdn|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] egberts1|2 years ago|reply
Be careful of some Brothers models as the ones to avoid have "Refresh" option.
"Refresh" is just a way for a centralized Brothers server to monitor your printer and your local subnet (for what ever purpose they wanted). HP/Epson/Canon have few or no models without "Refresh" option, unless you spring for a more expensive business-class printer.
[+] [-] osigurdson|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tomashubelbauer|2 years ago|reply
It has no consumables other than the thermal paper which I believe is easy to come by from any vendor. The printed documents look like trash and obviously aren't in color, but they are readable and frankly, they'll do.
I have yet to run into a situation where this thermal printed document is not accepted by the other party in case the other party requires a printed document and I can't work around that requirement digitally.
Aaand I don't have to deal with any sort of ink or anything of the sort. Someone downthread mentioned the idea of an open source printer and how complicated it would be for the maker community to build one. I wish people gave building an open source thermal document-sized printer a shot, because the only thing I don't like is that I need to use a Chinese app on my phone to print through this printer. I am sure it would be easy to reverse engineer, though, so I could reuse the hardware and just get a clean app, but I didn't put the effort into that.
[1]: https://www.peripageglobal.com/products/peripage-a40-mini-pr...
[+] [-] sillywalk|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kyrra|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TuringNYC|2 years ago|reply
Unless you are printing color, a Brother laser is the way to go. I purchased my printer 5yrs ago and purchased only a single toner replacement over the years. Best no-nonsense purchase ever.
[+] [-] bshacklett|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] karaterobot|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Ekaros|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yonrg|2 years ago|reply
Thus, I never ran out of ink and did not face the situation of a non working printer/scanner. And I got blinded by the good working service, that I did not realize the lock-in situation I am in. I dislike vendor-lock-ins like these, but for home printing I got used to it, due to the many benefits.
[+] [-] yencabulator|2 years ago|reply
If so, then you're special, because the cheapest tier is $0.99/month, and has been since 2020.
https://instantink.hpconnected.com/
https://www.theregister.com/2020/11/12/hp_free_printing/
[+] [-] backendanon|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] basilgohar|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] matkoniecz|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Sparkyte|2 years ago|reply
They are too busy min maxing the profits. All big and great companies today that survive and endured the years survived because they put the product first. A sign a company is about to die is when they start cutting corners to maximize profits. A good executive only gets paid when his/her ocmpany turns a profit. Of course a living expense is always given, you can't eat ramen noodles forever. Not the Japanese kind.
[+] [-] djmips|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zzo38computer|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] RedShift1|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] x3m157|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Decabytes|2 years ago|reply
I have one of those ink tank printers and it has been revolutionary in the printer space. I can’t believe we went this long with cartridges
[+] [-] pxeger1|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ColoursofOSINT|2 years ago|reply
1. You get DRM inc, which increases the cost even you buy the "required toners" [^1]
2. Don't get to control what they print:
- Adds stuff to your page [^2] - Won't let you print certain patterns [^3]
[^1]: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/01/chip-shortage-ha...
[^2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machine_Identification_Code
[^3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EURion_constellation
[+] [-] sva_|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] throwaway914|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zapataband1|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|2 years ago|reply
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