Hey, I own that printer! It’s a good printer.
Best printer 2024: a humorous critique of the Google search engine and printer enshittification
Submitted 7 months ago by Sibbo@sopuli.xyz to technology@lemmy.world
Comments
BombOmOm@lemmy.world 7 months ago
pearsaltchocolatebar@discuss.online 7 months ago
Yup, I’ve had it since like 2006. The nic is dying now, but the printer works fine.
Assman@sh.itjust.works 7 months ago
Same, and the only maintenance I’ve ever needed for mine is putting paper in it
impudentmortal@lemmy.world 7 months ago
I’d agree with the exception of artists who sell their printed work (ex: photographers, graphic designers). They’re not only making money from their prints but also printing in color frequently enough that the cartridge doesn’t dry out.
lemmyvore@feddit.nl 7 months ago
All the photographers I know have a deal with a local professional printing service. It’s not just the higher printing quality, the service can also do bound albums, hard covers and other stuff that’s impossible on a home printer.
dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world 7 months ago
We have three of them at my office. I am certain we exceed the duty cycle they were designed for by several times. The one at the front desk has been bitching about needing an imaging drum replacement for I think three years at this point, and it still prints just fine. I’ll put a new drum in it when the existing one stops working.
SonicDeathTaco@lemm.ee 7 months ago
I also have that printer. I have to read so many papers for school right now and that thing is a life saver. Is it weird to have feelings for a printer?
Ghostalmedia@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Anyone have a recommendation for a small color laser printer? Like shoebox size.
My place is pretty small, and I don’t have much desk or shelf space. It doesn’t make sense for me to waste desk space on something that I use 1-3 times a year.
I’ve been using one of these tiny HPs. The ink is a fucking racket, and I’d love a laser alternative. This size is great. I can fold the trays and throw it in a drawer. It’s only 16 x 5.5 x 7in.
stankmut@lemmy.world 7 months ago
I don’t think you’ll find a color laser printer that size. They use pretty large drums to hold the toner. It’d be hard to find a mono laser printer in that size.
sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 7 months ago
If you only need it 1-3 times/year, why not just go to your local library? In my area, it’s $0.10 for B&W, $0.25 for color, and I can get some books to read at the same time (I go almost weekly).
Zak@lemmy.world 7 months ago
I don’t own a printer because it’s 2024 and the only good reason to own a printer is photo/art prints at a scale where outsourcing it isn’t economical.
I’m aware other reasons exist, but they’re bad reasons that mostly boil down to someone being bad at computers.
dojan@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Nah, there are definitely cases where you need to print stuff on paper, and need said paper fast enough to warrant a printer. If I use my company credit card for expenses I need to account for that, and for legal reasons I need to send that to our accountant in printed form. I can’t legally mail it to him.
Now I could obviously take 30 minutes and print it at the library, but those 30 minutes would add up fairly fast, making a printer the more accessible and economical option.
Ghostalmedia@lemmy.world 7 months ago
I use it a lot for construction. Printed job specs are much easier / faster to deal with than a computer on a job site. You can staple them to a wall, quickly draw on them, use them when your hands are filthy, have multiple large copies floating around, etc. Paper is usually just a better solution for that environment.
oatscoop@midwest.social 7 months ago
the only good reason to own a printer is photo/art prints
… how do you read your emails without a printer?
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 7 months ago
All printers are bad and the Brother Printers are consistently the least bad.
Pretzilla@lemmy.world 7 months ago
My Brother was giving a toner end of life message and refusing to print.
I took the toner end cap off and reset the gear toggle, and now it prints again.
Cool story.
n3m37h@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 months ago
I’ve got 2 brother printers, never had a problem. I’ve used Epson, HP and both were an absolute shitshow to setup
SkyNTP@lemmy.ml 7 months ago
What makes you say Brother printers are bad? I’ve had no complaints with them at all.
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Maybe “bad” is the wrong term. But every printer - Brother included - has its own little set of firmware to maintain and special connection protocols to support. The interface between OS and printers, generally speaking, sucks. Wifi connections are unreliable. Its very easy to get into contention with multiple devices. And that’s for a simple little household printer.
Talk to my IT staff about how much of a pain in the ass commercial printers are. More machines, each machine has to connect to multiple printers, and the software to handle these cases generally sucks. Brother’s are the least-bad, but they’re still annoying to configure and periodically unreliable to access.
IllNess@infosec.pub 7 months ago
I bought two printers in the last 2 decades. One looked like the model in the article, which I gave to a family member. The other one is a Brother Laser printer with a scanner.
I’d rather get a 50 pack of markers and start coloring in my printouts than buy a crappy inkjet printer. Plus it’s bonding time with my nieces and nephews. I pay them in cookies.
sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 7 months ago
Or you can just go to your local library or office supply store and print in color. My library is $0.25 for color prints.
I also have a B&W Brother printer, and I finally needed to replace the toner after almost 10 years. I bought it when doing a ton of government paperwork, and then random printouts for a weekly community volunteer project. I got something like 3k prints. My new toner cartridge should do 25-30k prints, so I’ll probably never need to replace it. It’s a multi-function device, and I used the scanner a ton during COVID at-home schooling, and I’ve never really had an issue with it (I’ve printed from Windows, macOS, and Linux, all w/o issues).
perviouslyiner@lemmy.world 7 months ago
“Also this strikes me as a very lazy reviewer. Which makes him profoundly qualified to review printers”
😂
Gointhefridge@lemm.ee 7 months ago
Maybe I’m in the minority, but I like my EcoTank. I got it cause we print a decent amount of pictures and laser can’t do even passing quality photos. Having no cartridges to worry about is much less of a hassle than it used to be.
That said, laser is fine for most people.
realitista@lemm.ee 7 months ago
Epson Ecotank is definitely the least bad option of the non laser printers. Mine still clogs more than I like but it’s the first inkjet I’ve been able to live with. And that’s including the canon ink tank which clogged weekly.
Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works 7 months ago
Just get a 3d printer and put it in 2d print mode as needed so you aren’t gunking up your home and network with so many devices.
datavoid@lemmy.ml 7 months ago
Is this actually a thing?
RobotToaster@mander.xyz 7 months ago
Kinda, you can 3d print a pen holder for a 2d printer.
GeneralVincent@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Yeah basically
Nomecks@lemmy.ca 7 months ago
Sorry, the printer of the year is still the 2008 HP 4730mfp. Still going strong 16 years later!
Crack0n7uesday@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Until HP figures out how to brick it remotely when your credit card expires.
RizzRustbolt@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Literally just a bunch of HP goons throwing bricks through windows.
Ghostalmedia@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Weird thumbnail. Why is the printer pixelated, but the logo is super crisp?
AlolanYoda@mander.xyz 7 months ago
Because the article itself says at some point, maybe multiple times: “whichever Brother printer you want”
dirthawker0@lemmy.world 7 months ago
For whatever reason, it’s intentional (the text says “A blurry photo of a Brother laser printer.”)
dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Even so, it’s clearly identifiable as a Brother HL2370DW or one of its myriad similar variants.
ChihuahuaOfDoom@lemmy.world 7 months ago
I’m buying my 3rd brother printer today, I got rid of my first when consolidating households even though it was working fine and only needed new toner once in 10 years. Recently I convinced my MIL to ditch HP but she insists we need a color printer so I’m picking up a second hand mfc-9340cdw to finally break free of instant ink. I look forward to not thinking about printers for another 10+ years.
simon574@feddit.de 7 months ago
I can print at my workplace, and there is a library 5 minutes walking distance from my apartment. These huge commercial printing machines are so much better than anything you can buy for your home, and I don’t have to maintain them. I’m very grateful I don’t have to own a printer.
AtmaJnana@lemmy.world 7 months ago
From the title and picture, I thought this was some weird diss on the depicted Brother laser printer and stopped by to defend it. Fortunately it is, instead, tauting the superiority of Brother laser printers.
I own the depicted printer, or one very close to it, and it is a workhorse. Brother laser printers are the way.
dirthawker0@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Mine is 9 years old, I’ve bought toner for it once, and it shows no signs of age. It also looks pretty identical to the picture, and with its layer of dust, even a little blurry too.
RizzRustbolt@lemmy.world 7 months ago
I like that the AI generated “cons” of the brother printer are just gripes about laser printers in general.
antlion@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 months ago
I actually think the Google LLM produced a really good summary of trade-offs. I didn’t choose a laser printer because it’s more expensive and larger and I don’t print very often. I got the Canon TS702, which has AirPrint and cheap knock-off ink available on Amazon. The older Verge article mentioned seeing Brother printers in the background of video calls. You won’t see a printer in my background, it fits in a cabinet. Why would I want a huge appliance that I use once or twice a month sitting on a table top in the background of my video calls?
If you can find an inkjet that removes the ink-racket of the business model, it’s a really good value. The company making the printer maybe even loses money on it. That’s a win in my book.
Grass@sh.itjust.works 7 months ago
Infrequent printing is actually a reason to choose laser though. Toner cartridges are already dry but I have had to refill ink enough times due to dried out that the money could have bought three laser printers. That is only partially affected by the “no black print until you replace cyan ლ(ಠ益ಠლ)” thing.
thegreekgeek@midwest.social 7 months ago
Yeah IDK what they’re talking about, I’ve got a 8yo cartridge in a 19yo printer. When’s the last time you saw an inkjet last that long?
antlion@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 months ago
Yeah, but the ink is very inexpensive.
PrunesMakeYouPoop@kbin.social 7 months ago
I just use the printer at work.
downpunxx@fedia.io 7 months ago
After being an idiot for 15 years, and repurchasing inkjet printers with their insanely expensive inks and guaranteed to dry out, gunk up, and quit working, I went ahead and bought a Pantum laser from Amazon, it came with a full cartridge good for 1600 B&W prints, and there was a special on for another 1600 B&W cartridge for free, the whole thing printer, two cartridges $99 bucks out the door. Steal. Works like a charm. I have, and have had, no real reason to print in color, I'm not handing out presentations, and mostly the only things I actually print are Amazon return labels sometimes, but whenever I've needed to print I no longer worry about the print head clogging up, and it's like freedom from bondage.
autotldr@lemmings.world [bot] 7 months ago
This is the best summary I could come up with:
It’s been over a year since I last told you to just buy a Brother laser printer, and that article has fallen down the list of Google search results because I haven’t spent my time loading it up with fake updates every so often to gain the attention of the Google search robot.
Pointing out that incentive structure and the culture that’s developed around it seems to make a lot of people mad, which is also interesting!
Both of them have reliably printed return labels and random forms and pictures for my kid to color for years now, and I have never purchased replacement toner for either one.
Neither has fallen off the WiFi or insisted I sign up for an ink-related hostage situation or required me to consider the ongoing schemes of HP executives who seem determined to make people hate a legendary brand with straightforward cash grabs and weird DRM ideas.
Don’t feel compelled to do it; my only ask is that you make this article go viral by sharing it in faux-outrage that the EIC of The Verge has published an article partially generated by AI, because after the buttons I am going to include a bunch of AI-generated copy from Google’s Gemini in order to pad this thing out.
Brother laser printers are strong contenders, especially for black and white printing needs, but weigh the pros and cons against other options like inkjets before deciding.
The original article contains 428 words, the summary contains 239 words. Saved 44%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
theparadox@lemmy.world 7 months ago
I’m still using my HL5280DW. The w (and later the n) both stopped working, so I connected it to an old pi I had laying around to print to it over the network.
Only downside is no Windows 11 (thanks new work laptop) driver support if I connect directly via USB.
I think I changed my toner for the first time like 2 years ago. The high capacity toner I bought with the printer worked just fine (after 16 years in my closet) when I installed it. I don’t expect it to run out of toner until I’m long dead.
TomMasz@kbin.social 7 months ago
Our HP inkjet scanner/copier/printer stopped recognizing cartridges were installed. We replaced it with a Brother laser and it just works.
CaptPretentious@lemmy.world 7 months ago
I might be in the mood to buy a new printer. I have a Brother HL-2070. And I’ve long since forgotten the admin password.
dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world 7 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.
DrCake@lemmy.world 7 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 7 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 7 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.
restingboredface@sh.itjust.works 7 months ago
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.
dojan@lemmy.world 7 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 7 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 7 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 7 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 7 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 7 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.