this post was submitted on 07 Dec 2023
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This is a good opportunity to ask if there's a better printer company whose printers we should buy instead.
Oh Brother, Where Art Thou!
"I don't want Fop, goddamnit; I'm a Dapper Dan man!"
In addition to Brother, Ecotank style printers (printers that refill from ink bottles instead of cartridges) are pretty good even if they come from usually shittier printer companies. The ink is extremely cheap and there's no way to prevent people from using different brands of ink bottles.
You have to pay more up front for the printer, but that's because they're sold with the idea that the printer company makes its money upfront instead of overcharging you for ink later.
Just adding to this, toner printers are ideal if you’re printing only a few items per year. If ink dries, it makes for some intensely frustrating issues. I’m 90% of the way to finding HP’s CEO and bringing my clogged nozzle printer down on their stupid face.
Those printers are definitely gold for heavy users. Cheap ink. If you don't use it a lot, would the ink dry and damage the printer? Or evaporate and vanish?
Honest question because imk cartridges dry out all the time.
It is possible for the ink to dry out in the print nozzles if don't print often enough. I never print with yellow and I did have my yellow nozzle clog once. I bought a flush kit off Amazon, and flushed out the nozzle as directed.
It was somewhat annoying, but not too terrible.
that could happen regardless of cartridge/refillable tank though, no?
I'd think so. Back when we used ink cartridges they would sometimes become clogged. You could instruct the printer to go through a cleaning routine. Wasted a lot of ink to clean them. That or replacing the cartridge would work. These were HP printers.
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Both of my local libraries offer printing at $0.25 a page. For photos, I just go to the photo lab at the store and print them there.
Both are cheaper than owning a printer unless you're doing a ton of it, and in the former case, I get to support a library just a little bit.
Thanks!!
People often suggest Brother. I have two Brother printers and they are....tolerable. They are much better than HP, but that bar is very low. I think all printers kind-of suck. Lasers are better than inkjet for most uses, and much more affordable than they used to be.
I kind of feel like we haven't seen a significant advancement in home printer technology in a long time (except for 3d printing, but that's a very different animal).
I've had an Oki mono laser printer for so long, I gave it to my kids. It was a "cheap" printer in the scheme of things, but it was a compact duplex printer and I only ever needed a new $50 toner for it over the years.
It also didn't come with a 650MB printer driver package with a shitty tray application or a subscription.
At least with a paper printer you don't have to do a bunch of fiddly bed-leveling
Yup, and the cleanup is a PITA.
Go laser, at least for BW. It'll last years on one cartridge and ink never clogs because, well, no ink. My 1996 Lexmark just died.
I hear Brother is one of the better for consumer. I have a Canon color laser, and it's a POS. Fortunately I bought it second hand for $50.
I got a cheap cannon a few years back £20 brand new. It's purely wired and the print quality is meh, but i don't print a lot and it has a scanner. I've never really had any trouble with it and with Linux and when I used to have a Mac it's always been plug and play. Of course they still get you with Ink prices though. But it could be a lot worse.