BTW, I’ve had my Brother laser MFP for 11 years and still on the original toner.
If you are a casual printer user, just use the local print shop. It’s cheaper that way.
The last printer I got cost 40€. Print shops charge 10ct per copy. That’s 400 prints just to amortize the cheapest garbage printer you could buy 10 years ago. And the ink doesn’t last 400 prints. Owning a printer just doesn’t make sense.
Toner in laser printers is powder. Can’t dry out what’s already dry. If you get a brother laser printer, it will last forever.
A “printer”? Oh right, those things we used to spray ink on dead trees back in the 20th century.
Come to Germany, the only country in the EU where paper usage is still going UP.
My (German) roomie’s father called us a while back to excitedly tell us that his doctor has digitalised. By digitalised he meant that the doctor will fax any prescription he issues to whatever chemist the patient requests.
Here in Sweden, I log on to 1177.se to refill my prescription, usually a nurse will call me with some general questions, then I can log on to any chemist’s website (both systems are tied to your national identity), and have the prescription delivered to my door the next day. I live in a small town of like 20k inhabitants too, so it’s not like it’s a big city only type thing.
We clearly have very perspectives on the term “digitalisation.”
the doctor will fax any prescription
It’s always the late 1900s in Germany!
I honestly don’t remember my printer brand. And that’s a good sign. I bought it years ago, and it now lives under my basement stairs on a static IP via wifi, accepting the on average bimonthly print job that I need from it. Then I walk down, fetch the print, and close the door on it again. I should name it Harry Potter.
It runs arch btw
And Doom
You may not remember the brand, but sounds to me like you got yourself a Brother laser printer.
Harry Printer
Harry Plotter ?
I hope it’s at least in standby mode, and not always on.
Nah, it’s been running since '11 and because of a critical network vulnerability that op never patched, it’s been a bitcoin slave since '15. But the paper is always nice and toasty.
If any representative from Brother is reading this, hear me.
DON’T ENSHITTIFY! You see this? You can own the market if you just LEAVE IT ALONE.
They have started chipping their toners, or so I’ve read. They’re still the least shitty printer manufacturer, AFAIK, though.
Let’s hope it’s just for quality of life and not to bully their customers…
Unfortunately, I don’t think it is. I used to use knock-off toner, but after a firmware update, the printer would no longer recognize those cartridges. Luckily, I had bought them on Amazon, so I just explained the problem to customer service and got a full refund. I still love the printer though.
Bruh
Brother
Exactly. You can join the club of “Do Nothing and Win” club along with Gabe Newell
DON’T ENSHITTIFY!
They kind of already did, at least they did in the past.
They fought pretty hard to make you only use their toners, and they would warn you to change your toner cartridges way earlier than it was necessary to do so, disabling the printer if you didn’t. I remember having to put tape over the optical device in the printer that looks at the toner cartridge, just so I can keep using my toner cartridge.
Don’t get me wrong, I love my brother mfc7840w printer, but it’s so weird to hear so much praise for Brother, it’s like there is group amnesia about how they used to be on some of this stuff themselves.
Mine just broke and I was so upset :(
Brother kinda let me down recently, how can I trust any printer brands?
Brother printers are great. Probably the only decent printer brand for home usage. My university has free printing, and those are Canon printers. They seem to work fine, so I guess the commercial market is a little different.
Weirdly, my parents have this Samsung M2020W printer, and I gotta say, it’s pretty neat. Takes any off-brand toner cartridge. They only need a cartridge every year or so. It’s been 3+ years, but no problem so far. That might be an exceptional case, though.
I used to have a Samsung laser for quite a few years. Went through maybe three toner cartridges. Eventually it started slipping and I didn’t bother finding out if there’s a repair available and bought a brother laser instead. Worked pretty great otherwise.
Haven’t tried toner transfer on this, but regular printouts are fine and it’s much faster.
Eventually it started slipping
If you still have the printer (you may not but I’m going to put this out there for others too) that sounds like a simple roller replacement, and rollers/pickup pads are usually considered “consumables” instead of “parts” because they all wear out over time. This is true for most if not all consumer printers, ink and laser alike.
Replacements should be pretty easy to find for even old printers, and the installation is usually pretty straightforward. Last year I was still able to buy a roller replacement set for a 19 year old HP, and it took me ten minutes and one Phillips head screwdriver to replace them all.
You can also just take out and clean the hell out of anything rubber with isopropyl alcohol, letting it dry thoroughly and then putting it back in, or if possible rotate the rubber on it to present an unused side, I’ve done all that a few times too.
For pretty much any model printer, search on the printer model number and “maintenance kit” to find available roller/pickup pad replacements for sale, and printer model number plus “service manual” to get replacement instructions if you need them.
In fairness you should do this on Windows as well.
95% of home printing needs can be handled by a mono laser. If you need a photo, usually cheaper to print it online or at a supermarket. Only for larger prints might it be cheaper to do it at home, and you’d better be sure to use it often because most inkjets clog like a motherfucker when not in use.
most inkjets clog like a motherfucker when not in use.
If you have an inkjet printer, even an expensive one, you have to leave it plugged in and in standby mode so it can do it’s regular cleaning cycle.
A good middle-range inkjet printer (like a Canon MB2700) can be economical and durable; unfortunately most people’s experience of inkjet are the ultra-cheap ones sold in big-box stores, sold at a loss, to sell over-priced cartridges, and not left plugged in/don’t have cleaning cycles.
I have a 10 year old Canon MP280 still going strong. It’s one of the ultra cheap ones, I believe originally sold for something like 20$ at a sale. The only problem it has nowadays is that it occasionally makes some ink blotches in a corner of the page.
Maybe a regional market quality thing, but mine fucked up it’s cartridge pretty soon and has a long procedure of changing them, not plug and print like in older models. Sometimes it happens. Jusging by youtube videos it seems some models are just rare unlucky picks.
can you recommend a good printer ?
Get a brother laser. 👨
can you tell me how to kill a High Ganzonian ?
Get a laser, brother. 👽
I use a canon… so yeah… better get a brother
Interestingly a Lemmy user in another thread has a very negative view of Brother because he only uses Brother cutting machines (for craft projects) and it’s filled with DRM and HP style lock in.
We need to lobotomize our “smart” devices …
There need to be open source “smart” devices. Like, I’ve read and edited the source code running on my 3D printer. I was able to do that in my own home because it’s got an Arduino Mega for a motherboard.
I’ve used tons of dot matrix, inkjets and lasers since the 80s. I’ve used them in MSDOS, ProDOS, Linux, BSD, Windows, MacOS, OSX, and BeOS. I don’t know how many I’ve owned or how many different OS versions but I know I’ve had exactly 1 printer that wasn’t constantly a problem and its a Brother laser printer.
I’m a big proponent of buying government surplus office printers. I have this huge print center collater thing that came with more toner than I’ll ever use in my life. $55
Oh gods yes. Government surplus equipment is amazing when you can find it.
My state used to send all their decommissioned IT equipment to a warehouse where the public could buy it. It was a wonderland. My first few laptops all came from there (was poor and that was the only way I could afford one).
About 5 years ago, though, they stopped that and only send old furniture there. Anything electronic now goes to some 3rd party e-waste service where it probably ends up in a landfill in some poor country.
