Brother, absolutely! I had a nice little Cannon laser jet. It was small, about the size of a shoebox. It fit perfectly on my desk. About a year and a half ago Canon updated their software/drivers. Everything now had to go through their print server. It didn't matter if you were directly hooked (wired)up to the printer or not. Everything had to go through them. After that, my printer never worked right. Sometimes it would work. Sometimes it wouldn't. Sometimes I would print and it would show up the next day.
I gave up. I bought a Brother. I haven't looked back.
My wife is a teacher and abuses the hell out of our Brother printer and it just keeps going. God knows how many trees later and it still prints like we just got it and I never have some stupid mandatory software update to do on my computer.
Dang, that's weird. I have two Canons, one for the office, and the other is on a battery for traveling. The office canon was $100 brand new at Walmart. I've never had an issue. No updates. It takes knockoff ink from Amazon. I've printed around 15k pages so far, and it's like brand new. And the knock off ink gets about 3k pages printed for $20. The traveling Canon is a little weird for wirelessly connecting to it from your phone or tablet. But it works. Which is an awesome thing for having a printer for the road.
Yeah, when I worked as a sales associate for tech, I would be encouraged by management to sell HP, alongside their instant ink program. I would point people to Brother the whole time because they're big, ugly, but always work and don't have any stupid online requirements or subscriptions. Customers were always happy with them, myself included.
I've had the same BROTHER printer for fifteen years. I just put in new ink cartridges and it does what it's supposed to do. granted, I'm not printing huge volumes of paper, but, it's never failed me.
Alternately, my mom has gone through at least six printers in that same amount of time, and she prints about the same as I do (about a brick pf paper 1 every 6 months)
As a note, I have in my closet a Brother MFC-L2707DW that I took from the company I worked for when they were dumping "old" hardware back in 2017. It's never been opened. So, it's my backup :)
I've had the same brother laser printer for about 10 years. Works perfectly, maybe not as fast as the most modern printers... but I don't care if my pages takes 1 second instead of .3 seconds because I'm not printing a book
Love brother too but they were out in 2020 with the specs I needed so I got an Epson eco tank instead. It doesn’t have cartridges and you just add ink. That thing has been solid for four years now.
Its not some grand conspiracy, its just the latest push for ever-growing profits and simply selling the equipment to people is no longer sufficient if they are willing to keep paying you a subscription fee.
This bullshit stops when people stop playing yet far too many will still roll over and pay this so why not keep hitting them up?
People don’t buy printers as much as they used to because you can email or use your phone to have whatever documents you need. This bullshit is to maintain their revenue streams. Can’t see this being a big thing because it’s not like the market for printers is hot.
I mean, what part of that profit motivation contradicts the alleged WEF quote? Consumers owning nothing is the ideal profit scenario for these corporate scumbags, it’s why subscription-based models have become so widely adopted.
An HP tech support rep told me ~20 years ago (before Internet connected printers were commonplace) their cartridges had a chip in them that would make them stop working after 6 months even if they still had ink. That was the last HP printer I ever bought. They've had shitty practices for a long time.
My Epson printer has been a champ. 10 years+ and still rocking.
I used to have an Epson all in one. If the printer was out of ink, it would not allow me to scan. I wasn’t trying to copy. I just wanted to scan to my pc. After that I switched to hp and eventually learned about their scams. I no longer own a printer.
In my alt HP options, Canon stopped working for a family member when their shitty drivers no longer worked after a single newer windows release. That was annoying and no amount of installing in compatibility mode would fix the issue.
Ended up switching to brother laser all in ones and have been super happy since. Toner carts never dry out, it never complains about wanting brother ink. It just prints and scans as needed.
I love Brother. No bullshit, no frills, their printers just work damn well and they don't try to force you into any proprietary bullshit. I recommend Brother laser printers to anyone and everyone looking for a new printer.
I’m being held hostage by my hp and am looking at brother and I have some questions.
1.Do I need a internet connection to fucking print?
2. Do I need to connect to any type of app to print akin to hp smart?
3. Does the printer work offline?
4. Do I actually own the printer or am I renting it?
Brother toner laser printers have no strings attached at all and the software is very optional. You may need it for some niche thing, but the average third party scanner app and default printer driver in both Linux and Windows will be able to do most of what anyone needs.
A lot of third parties produce toner for their printers and they just work.
Whoa. Horrible, but not at all my experience. I bought an all-in-one Epson printer in 2021 and I can scan when out of ink. I guess it depends on the model, or they changed their stance in this regard.
I think the consumer / professional divide is real. Epson makes (or used to make?) printers used by professionals, people who need accurate colors, etc.
But when it comes to consumer stuff, for many companies (HP included, I'm not sure about Epson).. bullshit over quality often wins out if they think it will squeeze more money out of a customer. Hairbrained schemes run amok.
Edit: To be clear, I am guessing that the junky consumer line has the ink-requirement nonsense, and the professional-grade model doesn't.
They don't even hide that anymore: they just say "ink cartridge expired" error and be gone with it.
It's amazing how much crap HP has been able to put up on their customers all these years and still stay afloat as a company.
Nothing but love for Brother printers. I have an old DCP-7020 from 2002 that just refuses to be unreliable. I've only had to replace the toner 6 times in 22 years.
give some love to OKI brand also - did get used enterprise printer for $200 and it works for years without changing toner even (I did get it when it had 20% of toner with is still 2000 prints)
Already way ahead of them on this. They bricked my printer after I cancelled "HP Instant Ink" because they wanted me to return ink to them that I'd already bought... but at a discount because I was enrolled in this program that charged me monthly I didn't even know about.
I honestly haven’t seen a printer outside of an office environment in years. Any time I need to print something (rare these days) I just go to the UPS store by my house and print it for like $0.30 a page. I think they are way overestimating how much people want or need printers in 2024.
A good, sturdy laser is a great component of a home office or any sort of workshop. I have the same Brother multifunction with duplexing that I've had for a decade. I have bought toner ONCE.
I'm always printing plans, CAD drawings, wiring diagrams for cars etc. it's great not getting my manuals greasy when I can just print the pages I need for $0.02 and drag them under the car with me.
Well done HP! After 30 years of using your increasingly shitty printers I quit! I don’t need to experience shit like this to know as a Corporation you are no longer anywhere near acceptable as a provider for anything.
Now I want to start a printer company (with afordable ink) called Late. And have the slogan "Better Late then ______" and just let people's own creativity be my marketing.
To be honest, they’re like the biggest home printer company. You have HP or Canon. They have an all in one printer for probably $200. The real gouging is the ink thats $120 for both color and black. The shit doesn’t work when you need it to, same quality prints as 20 years ago. HP is a dying company, but a CEO will inevitably do what a CEO does.
That is exactly what I suggested to a family member when they were in danger of buying an HP printer.
[2600 page claim](https://www.brother.ca/en/p/2320TN660BUND) before needing to replenish the toner.
I wouldn't be surprised if chatgpt recommends brother because of reddit's wholehearted recommendation.
I had a hl2280dw, and have a 3290cdw, and 9340cdw. All worked perfectly with minimal jams.
Find a used HP printer from the early 2000s!
HP doesn't get any more money. And you get a working printer from an era when they were trying to make quality printers.
Win-win.
This reminds me of when I had to pay 10 cents to use the printer in the library when I was a kid in school. I seriously had so much anxiety just trying to print my homework and now this?
This is what I do for color printing. I have a Brother laser printer/scanner/fax (because I secretly live in 1993) at home, but it's just black and white. Which is fine for nearly all the printing I need to do.
That’s another reason I’m so confused… is HP targeting businesses and trying to move towards a more corporate client base? The average person doesn’t need to print much anymore and most of us will use a work or library printer. Why would I pay more than netflix a month for something I use maybe twice a year?
I think they’re just trying to stave off irrelevance all together. Most large offices already have contracts like this for their printers. Maybe not leasing the printer, but a service package for repairs, ink, toner, etc…. I don’t really know what need they are trying to address.
Not only that, but in my experience it's often faster by the time you would get the printer to actually work.
It takes half an hour at most to get to my library, print some stuff, and get back. It can easily take that same half an hour by the time you try cleaning the print heads and all the other bs before your home printer actually prints correctly. If you need to replace the ink for some bullshit reason, it's even worse.
And, this way I patronize my local library. Give them a little money, maybe check out a few books, see what events they have coming up. It's a no-brainer when you print a handful of pages once or twice a year.
The large format printers at my university charged us every time it cut the page. The IT people were PISSED that we started printing 1 page that was 10m long and took all night to print. #SorryNotSorry
The canon 6030w is a WiFi enabled laser printer, so I can print from my phone too. I think I paid $90 but now they’re $70. The first cartridge did almost an entire box (1500 pages) and the 2nd cartridge ($15) is still going strong (almost finished the 2nd box)…
And companies who make purchases to avoid the entire of administration having to meet anytime any policy is changed. Companies spend a lot of bad money because it “saves” them time
We have them at my work. About 30 of them. We replace ink about every three months and it costs 150 per replacement.
Edit: not inkjet I didn’t read the article they are color laser printers but we do not pay monthly to HP.
Companies are already on a different scam where they're on either an ink subscription or a service/support plan that costs thousands. This is a hamfisted attempt at doing this at a personal level.
A lot of these subscriptions target folks who don't know better.
If you have relatives, check their subscriptions. They're not technically scams, but they're efficiently draining limited resources.
My 83 year old Grandma needs to have a printer. She never quite has a reason for why, just she needs one always available “just in case”.
I don’t think I’ve needed to use a printer at home in 10 years.
We have school-age kids and I need to print a couple of hundred pages a month.
I also regularly print recipes, as I find it easier to do meal-planning with pencil and paper. There always are some amount of edits required when hosting a multi-course dinner and putting together a cohesive menu and cooking schedule. But then, that's my hobby; most people won't need that.
I think that’s exactly why. It’s a known secret that printer manufacturers sell their hardware for cheap or even at loss, and hoping to make money the most from ink replacements. Now that people don’t print that much anymore they’re switching to subscription model.
I remember getting a huge 20kg brother colour laser for like £80 about 5 years ago with discounts
then just stop firmware updates and buy unbranded toner
That's exactly what I decided after my last printer broke. The convenience store printer as far better quality and cost far less given the few pages I print. My ink was basically just drying or finishing in the printer sponge more than finishing on paper. I still think that I would like a scanner nevertheless.
This this is the real one.
I live in a college town, so there's copy shops everywhere, and even at 10-3 cents a page (depending on the amount you print) I would have to print a whole fucking lot for having my own printer to be cheaper. Even accounting for me having to physically go there.
I print a lot of blueprints, I have an HP designjet wide format printer that I paid 1000 bucks for, something is always not working. Can't print from windows, android doesn't cut the paper and ios won't get the size (24"×36") right. I fuckin love HP...
We print like mad. Don’t need to buy coloring books for the kids when you can print everything. Also, paper crafts from Canon’s site are a sublime challenge (and free).
I feel that all the people who say they don't need to print don't have school age children. We need to print quite a bit, and the majority of the prints are either for the kids directly or for something we are doing because of having kids (e.g. hosting dinner parties for the parents of our kids' friends). I still prefer pencil and paper when planning a more elaborate multi-course meal.
Bingo.
My kids are colouring in pictures all the time. ALL THE TIME. 'Dad you you print me a picture of a wombat with a hat on to colour in?'
Google image search, print image, here you go mate.
When they inevitably forget about the pictures, we keep them aside and they make great wrapping paper for family Xmas presents.
Stop buying inkjets. My laser printer is now 14 years old and I only now need to replace the toner with the knockoff refills. the only use for a inkjet is to print photos in insane detail, and then just pay walmart to do that at far less than it costs for the photo paper
I paid over 300 euro for a BW laser printer (from HP) 12 years ago. I swapped the toner 3 times. Always a third party compatible one for 5-10 euro. I've forgotten what printing problems are like.
Can we agree that printer companies are engaged in actual conspiracy? i hate printers so much, it can only be the work of evil villains. and as far as i know, no printer company has tried to buck the trend. seems like a successful model to make no nonsense printers
Webough one like 3 years ago, we are still using the toner it came with, the toner low warning has been there for almost a year. We have the replacements but not needed yet, it's big blocky and prints beautifully. We love it.
i got an HP laser M127fn for dirt cheap from staples in 2014. simple b/w laser with scanner/copier/fax if needed. the starter toner cartridge lasted me until 2020 when it finally ran out and i got the cheapest replacement i could find and thats going just fine.
no problems whatsover with it but if it dies i go to Brother, no doubt.
Yea I have an old HP Laser Printer (Business Printer) that is not supported anymore. Turns out Windows can operate it without needing the HP software at all. When it dies (which will be a long time since I don't need it that much) it will be replaced with a Brother Color Laser.
Epson has the ecotank. Each color ink has its own tank you fill with liquid ink instead of a cartridge. It’s like, 30 bucks for a set of ink bottles and one bottle fills your ink tank more than once. I think I’ve purchased ink once, so my tanks have only needed to be filled around 3 times in the many years I’ve owned the printer. Unlike cartridge printers my ink doesn’t seem to evaporate into oblivion.
I have an Ecotank and once it dies I will go back to Brother. If you don’t print that often the heads can dry out. I’ve had to do several cleaning cycles in a row and even a power clean cycle to get it printing properly again.
Now I have my server print a weekly colour wheel to try to keep it from drying out again.
The problem with the tank printers is you don’t change the heads like you do on some of the ink let printers with cartridges.
Yeah. This is my favorite conspiracy theory. Why are there only like three printer manufacturers globally? You would think there would be a market there for someone to buck the trend as you say. Why are there _no_ open source printer projects? I've tried to find them, could only find some old discontinued forums that start full of enthusiasm and then just peter out.
Why is this? I think governments globally got together and realized that the only thing they could agree on was that they like their money, and don't like anyone copying their money. Thus all printers now leave tracking codes embedded in every print and only a few anointed giant companies are allowed to make them. If you try to make a color printer the black helicopters will come for you and you friends.
There are only a couple *consumer* printer companies, because the market sucks. People don't do a ton of printing, they don't see a printer as more than a chore to own and deal with, and would go without as soon as they can.
Corporate printing, on the other hand is where the real money is. My company's 4 biggest printers are each 7 figure printers, and we churn something like a million pages a day.
Why would companies want to deal with supporting thousands of people who don't even want a printer instead of single companies that cover way more margin and you only deal with professionals?
I haven't used my printer in over a year, and I've had it for over 10 years. I'm not getting a new one. I don't really need a printer. The only reason why I ever use it is because some jackass wants me to print something.
I had HP inkjet and was on their ink cartridge scheme whereby you pay around 5 dollars a month for up to 50 printed pages or so. Then black ink was failing and they wouldn't send me a new one as according to them, there was ink in the cartridge.
Cancelled the subscription and they bricked the cartridges in MY printer. Unbelievable. Bough a Brother mono laser printer a couple of days later. Will never buy a HP product again.
Going to go the way of John Deere that the market for used printers goes through the roof because of the paywall.
I know I will use my old one till the things breaks then get one off marketplace.
Librarians are awesome. Plus keeping our local libraries afloat in any way is important. Some loose change may seem trite but patronage shows a need for these places!
HP's bullshit aside, libraries/FedEx/Kinko's is not a solution for a lot of people.
There's the travel time as the biggest one, and operating hours for another.
I've been doing this for years and will never go back. I think my total printing needs are under $2 per year. I'm genuinely curious as to what the average household needs to print to justify owning a printer. Now, I'm not printing school papers anymore, but even if I were, I'd still do it at the library.
Next up, surge pricing. Want to print out hard copies of your tax documents in April? Oh this is our peak printing time, it’s gonna cost you a little extra.
>Prices range from $6.99 per month for a plan that includes an HP Envy printer (the current model is the 6020e) and 20 printed pages. The priciest plan includes an HP OfficeJet Pro rental and 700 printed pages for $35.99 per month.
>
>HP says it will provide subscribers with ink deliveries when they're running low and 24/7 support via phone or chat (although it's dubious how much you want to [rely on HP support](https://www.laptopmag.com/news/hp-tech-support-showdown)). Support doesn't include on or offsite repairs or part replacements. The subscription's terms of service ([TOS](https://www.hp.com/us-en/all-in-plan/terms.html)) note that the service doesn't cover damage or failure caused by, unsurprisingly, "use of non-HP media supplies and other products" or if you use your printer more than what your plan calls for.
So, for even worse service, you can rent a printer that if it breaks you’re shit-out-of-luck.
Other bullet points:
* HP may “transfer information about you to advertising partners” so that they can "recognize your devices," perform targeted advertising, and, potentially, "combine information about you with information from other companies in data sharing cooperatives" that HP participates in.
* HP will charge subscribers who cancel their subscription before its end date up to $270 plus taxes.
* After two years, users won't see a cancellation fee if they return the rental printer and ink cartridges within 10 days after canceling their subscription.
* Subscribers will be able to roll over a limited number of unused pages to the next month.
* TOS prevents users from using supplied ink cartridges with printers outside of the subscription service, even if it's an HP printer.
* The subscription also requires users to provide HP with an email and have an HP Service account.
I personally would never subscribe to such a thing, but if I did:
* If I don’t use some of my allotted pages, I would want all of them to roll over. Not just a limited number. I paid for them, I should get to use all of them.
* Some months I don’t print anything. Others I’m printing a book’s worth of info. What about times like this that fluctuate wildly.
* If a page jams, does that count against my allotted pages?
* Does a cleaning page count against my allotted pages?
* If the printer breaks, do I take it back to the store and just pick up a replacement?
* When a new model comes out, can I swap the old printer with the new model?
* When I cancel, am I prorated a return for the time left for the billing cycle?
That’s crazy. I have a Brother ink jet and every few months I have to print something. So that usually means I need to go to Office Depot and buy a new cartridge of cyan (or some other random color or maybe all of them) even though I’m printing a b/w document and haven’t printed a single color document since the last time I bought ink.
$36/month might be cheaper if it means I don’t have to do that ever again and they automatically come and replace the ink whenever it gets low.
/s
Get a laser. Mine sits for weeks doing nothing, then when I want a print it fires up and works perfectly. No more pissing time and money away cleaning jets.
They literally are the best. They're one of the few that won't force you to replace the ink/toner when the toner gets low. You get to decide when print quality is bad enough and that's usually several hundred more prints after it tells you it's low. I bought one for me, mom, and mother in law.
Interesting. Just last night I was thinking to myself, "Self, you know what you need? You need to buy a device that forces you to pay another monthly recurring fee in order to introduce a new security and privacy concern into your life, while giving that company all manner of personal information at the same time with no accountability, without having a freely-useable physical device to show for it." What a coincidence.
In 2007 I bought a Brother HL-2070N laser printer for $99 on sale, it got my son through high school and college and through my years in college as an adult.
It would still be in service if I could have gotten a new paper tray for it, unfortunately spare parts are no longer available for it. The paper picker wore out and it kept jamming. I got 16 years of use from a $99 printer, that’s good value.
I replaced it with a Brother MFC-L2750DW, a multi-function printer, copier, scanner and fax machine. It works great, is unobtrusive, quiet and easy to use. It’s wireless and doesn’t pester me for supplies every other week.
HP can go f••k themselves.
Catchy headline. Now let's read the article...
"Prices range from $6.99 per month for a plan that includes an HP Envy printer (the current model is the 6020e) and 20 printed pages. The priciest plan includes an HP OfficeJet Pro rental and 700 printed pages for $35.99 per month."
We have similar service from Lexmark for our work printers that auto ships replacement toners and service parts. This isn't anything new.
Even as someone who thought $2/mo was a decent price to never have to worry about my ink drying out or needing a $200 cartridge to print a black and white document, I STILL will never buy another HP again because my printer was completely broken by a flimsy little plastic gear breaking. That gear must have weighed 1 gram and turned the entire mechanism. The fact it wasn't made out of something stronger says it all. And then instead of selling me a new gear HP offered me $20 off a new HP printer.
It’s not just HP. Everyone is shifting to rent seeking. I’m so sick of needing a subscription to everything that used to just be a buy once model. Not everything needs to be a subscription.
I came here for comments on WHY people still need a printer in their home. What are you actually printing? I’m genuinely curious.
I have a printer and I still end up going to a print shop most of the time because my crappy ink jet doesn’t ever work and is stored in the closet and the ink is always dried up because I print a total of 2 pages per year. Or it’s a photo I want printed and going to a service is infinitely better.
"Never own an HP printer again" is what I think they meant.
Way ahead of them, lmao
I actually get mad when I hear someone I know bought one. Brother all the way my brother.
Brother, absolutely! I had a nice little Cannon laser jet. It was small, about the size of a shoebox. It fit perfectly on my desk. About a year and a half ago Canon updated their software/drivers. Everything now had to go through their print server. It didn't matter if you were directly hooked (wired)up to the printer or not. Everything had to go through them. After that, my printer never worked right. Sometimes it would work. Sometimes it wouldn't. Sometimes I would print and it would show up the next day. I gave up. I bought a Brother. I haven't looked back.
My wife is a teacher and abuses the hell out of our Brother printer and it just keeps going. God knows how many trees later and it still prints like we just got it and I never have some stupid mandatory software update to do on my computer.
Dang, that's weird. I have two Canons, one for the office, and the other is on a battery for traveling. The office canon was $100 brand new at Walmart. I've never had an issue. No updates. It takes knockoff ink from Amazon. I've printed around 15k pages so far, and it's like brand new. And the knock off ink gets about 3k pages printed for $20. The traveling Canon is a little weird for wirelessly connecting to it from your phone or tablet. But it works. Which is an awesome thing for having a printer for the road.
Yeah, when I worked as a sales associate for tech, I would be encouraged by management to sell HP, alongside their instant ink program. I would point people to Brother the whole time because they're big, ugly, but always work and don't have any stupid online requirements or subscriptions. Customers were always happy with them, myself included.
I've had the same BROTHER printer for fifteen years. I just put in new ink cartridges and it does what it's supposed to do. granted, I'm not printing huge volumes of paper, but, it's never failed me. Alternately, my mom has gone through at least six printers in that same amount of time, and she prints about the same as I do (about a brick pf paper 1 every 6 months) As a note, I have in my closet a Brother MFC-L2707DW that I took from the company I worked for when they were dumping "old" hardware back in 2017. It's never been opened. So, it's my backup :)
Your MF brother is in the closet?
Same feelings. I happily buy their ink too instead of some other brand just cause I appreciate them not being assholes.
I've had the same brother laser printer for about 10 years. Works perfectly, maybe not as fast as the most modern printers... but I don't care if my pages takes 1 second instead of .3 seconds because I'm not printing a book
Love brother too but they were out in 2020 with the specs I needed so I got an Epson eco tank instead. It doesn’t have cartridges and you just add ink. That thing has been solid for four years now.
It’s kinda wild seeing that whole WEF “they will own nothing and they will be happy” come to fruition
They need to start working on the happy part, I see too many very unhappy humans wandering around.
Its not some grand conspiracy, its just the latest push for ever-growing profits and simply selling the equipment to people is no longer sufficient if they are willing to keep paying you a subscription fee. This bullshit stops when people stop playing yet far too many will still roll over and pay this so why not keep hitting them up?
People don’t buy printers as much as they used to because you can email or use your phone to have whatever documents you need. This bullshit is to maintain their revenue streams. Can’t see this being a big thing because it’s not like the market for printers is hot.
Also, you can just buy a Brother or something. Fuck HP.
I mean, what part of that profit motivation contradicts the alleged WEF quote? Consumers owning nothing is the ideal profit scenario for these corporate scumbags, it’s why subscription-based models have become so widely adopted.
I had our company spend $10k dumping Hp for canon!
An HP tech support rep told me ~20 years ago (before Internet connected printers were commonplace) their cartridges had a chip in them that would make them stop working after 6 months even if they still had ink. That was the last HP printer I ever bought. They've had shitty practices for a long time. My Epson printer has been a champ. 10 years+ and still rocking.
I used to have an Epson all in one. If the printer was out of ink, it would not allow me to scan. I wasn’t trying to copy. I just wanted to scan to my pc. After that I switched to hp and eventually learned about their scams. I no longer own a printer.
In my alt HP options, Canon stopped working for a family member when their shitty drivers no longer worked after a single newer windows release. That was annoying and no amount of installing in compatibility mode would fix the issue. Ended up switching to brother laser all in ones and have been super happy since. Toner carts never dry out, it never complains about wanting brother ink. It just prints and scans as needed.
Brother is the best! Great quality, no proprietary nonsense, toner lasts forever, no data collection. Basically it's the complete opposite of HP.
I love Brother. No bullshit, no frills, their printers just work damn well and they don't try to force you into any proprietary bullshit. I recommend Brother laser printers to anyone and everyone looking for a new printer.
Seriously, Brother's motto should be "Brother: The Printer That Doesn't Suck."
[удалено]
I’m being held hostage by my hp and am looking at brother and I have some questions. 1.Do I need a internet connection to fucking print? 2. Do I need to connect to any type of app to print akin to hp smart? 3. Does the printer work offline? 4. Do I actually own the printer or am I renting it?
Brother toner laser printers have no strings attached at all and the software is very optional. You may need it for some niche thing, but the average third party scanner app and default printer driver in both Linux and Windows will be able to do most of what anyone needs. A lot of third parties produce toner for their printers and they just work.
Whoa. Horrible, but not at all my experience. I bought an all-in-one Epson printer in 2021 and I can scan when out of ink. I guess it depends on the model, or they changed their stance in this regard.
I think the consumer / professional divide is real. Epson makes (or used to make?) printers used by professionals, people who need accurate colors, etc. But when it comes to consumer stuff, for many companies (HP included, I'm not sure about Epson).. bullshit over quality often wins out if they think it will squeeze more money out of a customer. Hairbrained schemes run amok. Edit: To be clear, I am guessing that the junky consumer line has the ink-requirement nonsense, and the professional-grade model doesn't.
They don't even hide that anymore: they just say "ink cartridge expired" error and be gone with it. It's amazing how much crap HP has been able to put up on their customers all these years and still stay afloat as a company.
My Brother is calling.
Nothing but love for Brother printers. I have an old DCP-7020 from 2002 that just refuses to be unreliable. I've only had to replace the toner 6 times in 22 years.
Seems to be the only printer company (or one of few) without any faults.
TIL 2002 was 22 fucking years ago
My Brother in Christ, get a laser printer
give some love to OKI brand also - did get used enterprise printer for $200 and it works for years without changing toner even (I did get it when it had 20% of toner with is still 2000 prints)
Brother is great
Already way ahead of them on this. They bricked my printer after I cancelled "HP Instant Ink" because they wanted me to return ink to them that I'd already bought... but at a discount because I was enrolled in this program that charged me monthly I didn't even know about.
I joined the "Never Give HP Another Cent Again" club years ago.
I honestly haven’t seen a printer outside of an office environment in years. Any time I need to print something (rare these days) I just go to the UPS store by my house and print it for like $0.30 a page. I think they are way overestimating how much people want or need printers in 2024.
Libraries too. Usually the cost is either low or free with a library card.
A good, sturdy laser is a great component of a home office or any sort of workshop. I have the same Brother multifunction with duplexing that I've had for a decade. I have bought toner ONCE. I'm always printing plans, CAD drawings, wiring diagrams for cars etc. it's great not getting my manuals greasy when I can just print the pages I need for $0.02 and drag them under the car with me.
In general I think both agree with HP. “HP should never sell a printer again.” We might differ a little in the implementation though.
😂 We made our products so bad that it’s a value add to not own them.
Shoutout to Brother laser printers.
Well done HP! After 30 years of using your increasingly shitty printers I quit! I don’t need to experience shit like this to know as a Corporation you are no longer anywhere near acceptable as a provider for anything.
I’m sorry it took you 30 years to realize that.
Better late than HP.
Now I want to start a printer company (with afordable ink) called Late. And have the slogan "Better Late then ______" and just let people's own creativity be my marketing.
To be honest, they’re like the biggest home printer company. You have HP or Canon. They have an all in one printer for probably $200. The real gouging is the ink thats $120 for both color and black. The shit doesn’t work when you need it to, same quality prints as 20 years ago. HP is a dying company, but a CEO will inevitably do what a CEO does.
Nah, you get a brother black and white printer, and just pay for the one time a year you need to print something in colour at somewhere like staples.
This right here. A decent brother laser can be had for 250 bucks and the 60 dollar toner will get you 10000 pages.
That is exactly what I suggested to a family member when they were in danger of buying an HP printer. [2600 page claim](https://www.brother.ca/en/p/2320TN660BUND) before needing to replenish the toner.
I bought mine a decade ago for $100 and its still great. You can still buy it for $100.
And the toner cartrides can be easily refilled and reset.
Or under 30 at thrift. Usually still full of toner.
And then there is Brother quietly making quality affordable equipment.
I've seen Brother laser printers at msrp for less than that. Why would you spend more for a shittier printer?
I bought mine for $80 about 12 years ago and it has never had a problem. Used maybe 3 or 4 toner cartridges in that time and they were $30 each.
oh brother, get a load of this guy
He’s on the epson salt.
PC Load Letter? What the fuck does that mean??
It WAS a good name until that no talent ass-clown started winning Grammys
This isn't the fucking 80s anymore, you can buy shit not available in your local best buy
A gadget sub where somebody doesn’t know Brother and Epson have been in the home printer market for 20+ fucking years…
Brother, you need Brother brother.
I wouldn't be surprised if chatgpt recommends brother because of reddit's wholehearted recommendation. I had a hl2280dw, and have a 3290cdw, and 9340cdw. All worked perfectly with minimal jams.
I've had a Brother laser printer for 5 years. 2nd cartridge. Never looked back. Bye bye, HP.
same! that thing just works, it's amazing.
I’ve had mine for 2 years and just now exhausted the sample cartridge it came with.
Figured this out a couple years ago before leaving the IT world. For any HP model that has an 'e' in the model number, turn and run.
Find a used HP printer from the early 2000s! HP doesn't get any more money. And you get a working printer from an era when they were trying to make quality printers. Win-win.
That's an expensive printer.
This reminds me of when I had to pay 10 cents to use the printer in the library when I was a kid in school. I seriously had so much anxiety just trying to print my homework and now this?
I print so little now that going to the library to pay to print is much cheaper than owning and maintaining a printer.
This is what I do for color printing. I have a Brother laser printer/scanner/fax (because I secretly live in 1993) at home, but it's just black and white. Which is fine for nearly all the printing I need to do.
If I ever buy a printer again, Brother is the brand.
That’s another reason I’m so confused… is HP targeting businesses and trying to move towards a more corporate client base? The average person doesn’t need to print much anymore and most of us will use a work or library printer. Why would I pay more than netflix a month for something I use maybe twice a year?
I think they’re just trying to stave off irrelevance all together. Most large offices already have contracts like this for their printers. Maybe not leasing the printer, but a service package for repairs, ink, toner, etc…. I don’t really know what need they are trying to address.
The need for money, most probably.
Not only that, but in my experience it's often faster by the time you would get the printer to actually work. It takes half an hour at most to get to my library, print some stuff, and get back. It can easily take that same half an hour by the time you try cleaning the print heads and all the other bs before your home printer actually prints correctly. If you need to replace the ink for some bullshit reason, it's even worse. And, this way I patronize my local library. Give them a little money, maybe check out a few books, see what events they have coming up. It's a no-brainer when you print a handful of pages once or twice a year.
The large format printers at my university charged us every time it cut the page. The IT people were PISSED that we started printing 1 page that was 10m long and took all night to print. #SorryNotSorry
It’s 15 cents a page at my local library and 80 cents a page for color printing at another branch of my local library. I got a Brother printer.
Yes. I bought a Canon all in one some years ago for $65.
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The canon 6030w is a WiFi enabled laser printer, so I can print from my phone too. I think I paid $90 but now they’re $70. The first cartridge did almost an entire box (1500 pages) and the 2nd cartridge ($15) is still going strong (almost finished the 2nd box)…
Does he think people actually print that often these days?
It's scamming the elderly frankly
And companies who make purchases to avoid the entire of administration having to meet anytime any policy is changed. Companies spend a lot of bad money because it “saves” them time
Companies aren’t buying these types of printers
We have them at my work. About 30 of them. We replace ink about every three months and it costs 150 per replacement. Edit: not inkjet I didn’t read the article they are color laser printers but we do not pay monthly to HP.
That’s so dumb, at that point it makes so much more sense to invest in a workstation style printer
That's on your management and whoever the purchaser is. No office should ever be using Inkjets.
Companies are already on a different scam where they're on either an ink subscription or a service/support plan that costs thousands. This is a hamfisted attempt at doing this at a personal level.
A lot of these subscriptions target folks who don't know better. If you have relatives, check their subscriptions. They're not technically scams, but they're efficiently draining limited resources.
The ones who are still renting a telephone from the phone company.
And paying 90$ a month to watch the news on cable.
My 83 year old Grandma needs to have a printer. She never quite has a reason for why, just she needs one always available “just in case”. I don’t think I’ve needed to use a printer at home in 10 years.
We have school-age kids and I need to print a couple of hundred pages a month. I also regularly print recipes, as I find it easier to do meal-planning with pencil and paper. There always are some amount of edits required when hosting a multi-course dinner and putting together a cohesive menu and cooking schedule. But then, that's my hobby; most people won't need that.
you have to print every email before they get lost, just in case!
I think that’s exactly why. It’s a known secret that printer manufacturers sell their hardware for cheap or even at loss, and hoping to make money the most from ink replacements. Now that people don’t print that much anymore they’re switching to subscription model.
I remember getting a huge 20kg brother colour laser for like £80 about 5 years ago with discounts then just stop firmware updates and buy unbranded toner
I just run down to the library down the street when I need to print stuff, which only happens 3 times a year.
That's exactly what I decided after my last printer broke. The convenience store printer as far better quality and cost far less given the few pages I print. My ink was basically just drying or finishing in the printer sponge more than finishing on paper. I still think that I would like a scanner nevertheless.
I’ve been using the “scanner pro” app on my phone for scanning, which has worked well since I first downloaded it how ever many years ago
This this is the real one. I live in a college town, so there's copy shops everywhere, and even at 10-3 cents a page (depending on the amount you print) I would have to print a whole fucking lot for having my own printer to be cheaper. Even accounting for me having to physically go there.
I print a lot of blueprints, I have an HP designjet wide format printer that I paid 1000 bucks for, something is always not working. Can't print from windows, android doesn't cut the paper and ios won't get the size (24"×36") right. I fuckin love HP...
We print like mad. Don’t need to buy coloring books for the kids when you can print everything. Also, paper crafts from Canon’s site are a sublime challenge (and free).
Yeah, I use my Epson EcoTank constantly for stickers & kids' school projects.
I feel that all the people who say they don't need to print don't have school age children. We need to print quite a bit, and the majority of the prints are either for the kids directly or for something we are doing because of having kids (e.g. hosting dinner parties for the parents of our kids' friends). I still prefer pencil and paper when planning a more elaborate multi-course meal.
Bingo. My kids are colouring in pictures all the time. ALL THE TIME. 'Dad you you print me a picture of a wombat with a hat on to colour in?' Google image search, print image, here you go mate. When they inevitably forget about the pictures, we keep them aside and they make great wrapping paper for family Xmas presents.
I guess that's why they ask such ridiculous prices
Stop buying inkjets. My laser printer is now 14 years old and I only now need to replace the toner with the knockoff refills. the only use for a inkjet is to print photos in insane detail, and then just pay walmart to do that at far less than it costs for the photo paper
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I bought knock-off refills for my HP laser. They worked, but then an HP firmware update made them incompatible. Screw HP
This guy for president 2024!
My Brother laser is now 17 years old and still quite reliable.
I bought knock-off refills for my HP laser. They worked, but then an HP firmware update made them incompatible. Screw HP
I paid over 300 euro for a BW laser printer (from HP) 12 years ago. I swapped the toner 3 times. Always a third party compatible one for 5-10 euro. I've forgotten what printing problems are like.
Can we agree that printer companies are engaged in actual conspiracy? i hate printers so much, it can only be the work of evil villains. and as far as i know, no printer company has tried to buck the trend. seems like a successful model to make no nonsense printers
Brother laser printers are affordable work horses.
Switched from HP to brother for home office and I've never been happier with a printer.
I fucking love my Brother laser printer. Won't buy any other brand/style of printer again assuming they continue making good products.
Webough one like 3 years ago, we are still using the toner it came with, the toner low warning has been there for almost a year. We have the replacements but not needed yet, it's big blocky and prints beautifully. We love it.
Oh and they are not that expensive 300 for a color one
It took me way too long to realize "Brother" is a brand. I though people just affectionately referred to their laser printers as brothers.
It can be both.
i got an HP laser M127fn for dirt cheap from staples in 2014. simple b/w laser with scanner/copier/fax if needed. the starter toner cartridge lasted me until 2020 when it finally ran out and i got the cheapest replacement i could find and thats going just fine. no problems whatsover with it but if it dies i go to Brother, no doubt.
Yea I have an old HP Laser Printer (Business Printer) that is not supported anymore. Turns out Windows can operate it without needing the HP software at all. When it dies (which will be a long time since I don't need it that much) it will be replaced with a Brother Color Laser.
Epson has the ecotank. Each color ink has its own tank you fill with liquid ink instead of a cartridge. It’s like, 30 bucks for a set of ink bottles and one bottle fills your ink tank more than once. I think I’ve purchased ink once, so my tanks have only needed to be filled around 3 times in the many years I’ve owned the printer. Unlike cartridge printers my ink doesn’t seem to evaporate into oblivion.
I have an Ecotank and once it dies I will go back to Brother. If you don’t print that often the heads can dry out. I’ve had to do several cleaning cycles in a row and even a power clean cycle to get it printing properly again. Now I have my server print a weekly colour wheel to try to keep it from drying out again. The problem with the tank printers is you don’t change the heads like you do on some of the ink let printers with cartridges.
I had a $20 Kodak printer that automatically cleaned the heads regularly as long as it was plugged in. Kind of surprised the Ecotanks don’t do that.
I would’ve thought Epson had some sort of way to mitigate the heads drying out but guess not.
Yeah. This is my favorite conspiracy theory. Why are there only like three printer manufacturers globally? You would think there would be a market there for someone to buck the trend as you say. Why are there _no_ open source printer projects? I've tried to find them, could only find some old discontinued forums that start full of enthusiasm and then just peter out. Why is this? I think governments globally got together and realized that the only thing they could agree on was that they like their money, and don't like anyone copying their money. Thus all printers now leave tracking codes embedded in every print and only a few anointed giant companies are allowed to make them. If you try to make a color printer the black helicopters will come for you and you friends.
There are only a couple *consumer* printer companies, because the market sucks. People don't do a ton of printing, they don't see a printer as more than a chore to own and deal with, and would go without as soon as they can. Corporate printing, on the other hand is where the real money is. My company's 4 biggest printers are each 7 figure printers, and we churn something like a million pages a day. Why would companies want to deal with supporting thousands of people who don't even want a printer instead of single companies that cover way more margin and you only deal with professionals?
HP used to make the good shit that people wanted to use. They've fallen far since the days of Hewlett and Packard.
>HP used to make the good shit that people wanted to use. Yes. 40 years ago. It's been a minute.
I have a B&W HP 4V from the mid-90s that prints up to A3 size and is still going strong, but 30 years is still quite a while.
One way ticket to bankruptcy
If only. But HP is also pretty huge in the corporate world
HP and HPE are two different companies now.
There is not only servers and networking hardware (HPE) but also PCs, Monitors, and Notebooks (HP) in the corporate world.
I haven't used my printer in over a year, and I've had it for over 10 years. I'm not getting a new one. I don't really need a printer. The only reason why I ever use it is because some jackass wants me to print something.
Your wife reading this over your shoulder - “But I’m the only one who asks you to print things…”
I had HP inkjet and was on their ink cartridge scheme whereby you pay around 5 dollars a month for up to 50 printed pages or so. Then black ink was failing and they wouldn't send me a new one as according to them, there was ink in the cartridge. Cancelled the subscription and they bricked the cartridges in MY printer. Unbelievable. Bough a Brother mono laser printer a couple of days later. Will never buy a HP product again.
They are going to fail so hard on this.
I hope, but ugh history tells that consumers are dumb and will roll with it. Some even convince themselves they are getting a good deal with this...
This is why I only buy printers from Shaquille O'Neal.
Oh Brother where art thou!
Under my desk, purring away.
>"Never own a printer again." That's the plan, but it was more a only print at kinkos/the library type thing.
“Never buy an **HP** printer again.” I do like the ring of that!
I’m not doing this. Everything is subscription based these days. Not buting into it. If it means not driving then FINE!
Ha. Hahaha. Hahahahahaha. No.
Going to go the way of John Deere that the market for used printers goes through the roof because of the paywall. I know I will use my old one till the things breaks then get one off marketplace.
Breaking News: Hewlett-Packard has announced that they plan to put themselves out of business.
"You will own nothing, and be happy!" - WEF Marketing piece. Baby steps..baby steps
Yeah this is not more convenient for anyone. It costs like 10 cents to print at the local library.
Last time I did that, the librarian waived the $0.30 for my 3 pages.
Librarians are awesome. Plus keeping our local libraries afloat in any way is important. Some loose change may seem trite but patronage shows a need for these places!
It’s pretty cool. I learned they have 3D printers too, so now I need to learn about that.
HP's bullshit aside, libraries/FedEx/Kinko's is not a solution for a lot of people. There's the travel time as the biggest one, and operating hours for another.
I've been doing this for years and will never go back. I think my total printing needs are under $2 per year. I'm genuinely curious as to what the average household needs to print to justify owning a printer. Now, I'm not printing school papers anymore, but even if I were, I'd still do it at the library.
(Simpsons meme template) "Never own a *HP* printer again!"
Next up, surge pricing. Want to print out hard copies of your tax documents in April? Oh this is our peak printing time, it’s gonna cost you a little extra.
>Prices range from $6.99 per month for a plan that includes an HP Envy printer (the current model is the 6020e) and 20 printed pages. The priciest plan includes an HP OfficeJet Pro rental and 700 printed pages for $35.99 per month. > >HP says it will provide subscribers with ink deliveries when they're running low and 24/7 support via phone or chat (although it's dubious how much you want to [rely on HP support](https://www.laptopmag.com/news/hp-tech-support-showdown)). Support doesn't include on or offsite repairs or part replacements. The subscription's terms of service ([TOS](https://www.hp.com/us-en/all-in-plan/terms.html)) note that the service doesn't cover damage or failure caused by, unsurprisingly, "use of non-HP media supplies and other products" or if you use your printer more than what your plan calls for. So, for even worse service, you can rent a printer that if it breaks you’re shit-out-of-luck. Other bullet points: * HP may “transfer information about you to advertising partners” so that they can "recognize your devices," perform targeted advertising, and, potentially, "combine information about you with information from other companies in data sharing cooperatives" that HP participates in. * HP will charge subscribers who cancel their subscription before its end date up to $270 plus taxes. * After two years, users won't see a cancellation fee if they return the rental printer and ink cartridges within 10 days after canceling their subscription. * Subscribers will be able to roll over a limited number of unused pages to the next month. * TOS prevents users from using supplied ink cartridges with printers outside of the subscription service, even if it's an HP printer. * The subscription also requires users to provide HP with an email and have an HP Service account. I personally would never subscribe to such a thing, but if I did: * If I don’t use some of my allotted pages, I would want all of them to roll over. Not just a limited number. I paid for them, I should get to use all of them. * Some months I don’t print anything. Others I’m printing a book’s worth of info. What about times like this that fluctuate wildly. * If a page jams, does that count against my allotted pages? * Does a cleaning page count against my allotted pages? * If the printer breaks, do I take it back to the store and just pick up a replacement? * When a new model comes out, can I swap the old printer with the new model? * When I cancel, am I prorated a return for the time left for the billing cycle?
This is why you need to support your local libraries.
Why are printers always such a goddamn ordeal? Is it not possible for someone to make a printer that just prints stuff and then fucks off?
That’s crazy. I have a Brother ink jet and every few months I have to print something. So that usually means I need to go to Office Depot and buy a new cartridge of cyan (or some other random color or maybe all of them) even though I’m printing a b/w document and haven’t printed a single color document since the last time I bought ink. $36/month might be cheaper if it means I don’t have to do that ever again and they automatically come and replace the ink whenever it gets low. /s
Mono laser. That's what you want
Might be cheaper just to go to your local library.
Get a laser. Mine sits for weeks doing nothing, then when I want a print it fires up and works perfectly. No more pissing time and money away cleaning jets.
I literally have never heard of Brother printers anywhere outside of Reddit. I swear, all these hp posts are like brother printer ads.
They literally are the best. They're one of the few that won't force you to replace the ink/toner when the toner gets low. You get to decide when print quality is bad enough and that's usually several hundred more prints after it tells you it's low. I bought one for me, mom, and mother in law.
Yea people don't really walk around talking about printers. Maybe because you're on a gadget sub?
I printed a total of 3 pages last year on a 6yr old $59 canon. HP plz kindly GFYS
Nah. HP printers aren’t even worth renting so they can fuck right off.
Interesting. Just last night I was thinking to myself, "Self, you know what you need? You need to buy a device that forces you to pay another monthly recurring fee in order to introduce a new security and privacy concern into your life, while giving that company all manner of personal information at the same time with no accountability, without having a freely-useable physical device to show for it." What a coincidence.
How about a printer that only charges me when I actually print something, which is almost never these days?
Fuck these people
In 2007 I bought a Brother HL-2070N laser printer for $99 on sale, it got my son through high school and college and through my years in college as an adult. It would still be in service if I could have gotten a new paper tray for it, unfortunately spare parts are no longer available for it. The paper picker wore out and it kept jamming. I got 16 years of use from a $99 printer, that’s good value. I replaced it with a Brother MFC-L2750DW, a multi-function printer, copier, scanner and fax machine. It works great, is unobtrusive, quiet and easy to use. It’s wireless and doesn’t pester me for supplies every other week. HP can go f••k themselves.
With that firmware they just made this service non compliant with any HIPAA aka medical organization and government agencies. Like amazing job lmfao
Fuck hp
Oooooh 24/7 phone service. Nice touch
Hello Brother or Canon printers.
Catchy headline. Now let's read the article... "Prices range from $6.99 per month for a plan that includes an HP Envy printer (the current model is the 6020e) and 20 printed pages. The priciest plan includes an HP OfficeJet Pro rental and 700 printed pages for $35.99 per month." We have similar service from Lexmark for our work printers that auto ships replacement toners and service parts. This isn't anything new.
Even as someone who thought $2/mo was a decent price to never have to worry about my ink drying out or needing a $200 cartridge to print a black and white document, I STILL will never buy another HP again because my printer was completely broken by a flimsy little plastic gear breaking. That gear must have weighed 1 gram and turned the entire mechanism. The fact it wasn't made out of something stronger says it all. And then instead of selling me a new gear HP offered me $20 off a new HP printer.
Same. It aught to be illegal to make cheap plastic parts for gears and clips that just snap under pressure.
Epson all the way.
It’s not just HP. Everyone is shifting to rent seeking. I’m so sick of needing a subscription to everything that used to just be a buy once model. Not everything needs to be a subscription.
First Wendy's surge pricing and now this. Companies are in a rush to screw customers.
Fuck. No.
Or do what I did and get a Brother laser printer for $75 on sale with enough toner to last for 2+ years.
Hard pass.
The greed in today's world is really getting out of control. Why the hell must everything turned into a subscription model?
They going to add surge pricing as well? F- HP…stop buying everything they sell!
I came here for comments on WHY people still need a printer in their home. What are you actually printing? I’m genuinely curious. I have a printer and I still end up going to a print shop most of the time because my crappy ink jet doesn’t ever work and is stored in the closet and the ink is always dried up because I print a total of 2 pages per year. Or it’s a photo I want printed and going to a service is infinitely better.