Also, nothing the Google llm said was in any way specific to brother. I’m wondering if that’s by design and they made it brand-agnostic to appease advertisers.
Comment on Best printer 2024: a humorous critique of the Google search engine and printer enshittification
dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Google’s LLM got one critical fact wrong, of course. If you only need occasional color printing, an inkjet is still the wrong answer. The right answer is probably just to have Staples or your local print shop print for you, honestly. The ink dries out in disused inkjet machines and that’ll cause you no end of headaches. Or force you to buy a set of expensive cartridges just to print one damn page, because the last thing you printed was three months ago.
Color laser printers aren’t even that expensive anymore. Sure, a set of color toner cartridges may cost well north of what a set of inkjet cartridges would run you, but the difference is that the laser toner will probably last many home users a lifetime.
restingboredface@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
dojan@lemmy.world 2 months ago
I’ve never needed photos urgently, so I’m glad to just have a professional printing company print the photos for me using high quality photo paper and printing equipment. It’s going to beat the quality of a regular consumer inkjet any day of the week.
frezik@midwest.social 2 months ago
I’ll take it one step further: if you don’t print much at all, you should use a print service.
Yes, I bought a Brother because of convenience. Just realize that you’re going to spend a lot more money for that convenience.
Zehzin@lemmy.world 2 months ago
They came up with a “solution” for the drying problem. You need to keep the printer on forever so it doesn’t let it dry.
InfiniteFlow@lemmy.world 2 months ago
I wish that would work. My Epson was always on and the ink kept drying. After it clogged the print head once too many times and I could not fix that in less than 10min, I just gave up on the piece of crap. I now go to a print shop to print what I need which, admittedly, nowadays is just a couple of times a year.
RobotToaster@mander.xyz 2 months ago
If you only want 6x4 photos a dye sub printer like a canon selphy isn’t a bad option, it’s what I use. Kinda expensive per print but quick and the ribbons don’t dry out.
wjrii@lemmy.world 2 months ago
At this point, 4x6 prints at my nearest Walgreens are like fifteen cents a pop with a random coupon code and are ready within the hour. I imagine a dozen other chains are comparable.
sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
Apparently, Costco stopped offering photo services, so Walgreens is probably your best option.
DrCake@lemmy.world 2 months ago
It’s also worth checking your local library which might offer some basic printing services. Could work out cheaper
sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
Yup, ours is $0.10 for B&W, and $0.25 for color. Computers are free (if you have a library card, which is free), and the staff is available to help you with whatever you need. I’m guessing they’d let you print for free if you really couldn’t afford it.
So your typical school essay would be $1 or so.
ItsMeSpez@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Definitely look at the library. Mine allows me 20 free pages of B&W, or 10 pages of colour per month. After that it’s $0.10 for B&W and $0.20 for colour. Pretty hard to justify actually buying a printer to myself at this point. Definitely not as convenient as having a unit at home, though.