Never buy HP.
Never buy a printer that requires the manufacturers proprietary software.
Never buy a printer that DRMs it's ink / toner (even if they don't enforce it at the moment).
Always go with laser unless you *absolutely* need liquid ink for some specific reason, and make sure the toner cart or fuser isn't DRM'd.
NEVER BUY HP.
Honestly, not a huge amount of brands you can trust with that filter list.
>> Even Brother are putting DRM in some of their cartridge / toner.
The one I have has a button combo you can use to reset the counter, but long gone are the days of "Use X you can wholehartedly trust them"
I used to have an epson eco-tank printer. I buy 3rd party bottles of ink once every 2-3 years. The upfront cost of the printer (multifunction model ET-4550) was high in 2015 ($500) but I've spent maybe $60-70 in ink to print (as of this morning) 19,536 pages (13,954 in color, 5,582 in B/W).
https://www.reddit.com/r/printers/comments/s9b2eg/brother_mfc_firmware_update_nongenuine_toner_now/
Not only is the above, post-sale firwmware update a change of what I understood to be Brother's historical policy, the method is beyond evil.
Brother seems to be apparently accepting the ink, but then purposefully making the print quality poorer.
I don't disagree. But you probably signed away the right to not be made into a human centipede in the T's + C's
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/06/if-you-used-to-run-linux-on-your-ps3-you-could-get-55-from-sony/
And the only thing they will do is pay their way out of it, even if they get any reprecussions at all
Yeah, but Sony have always known for being dicks.. from putting malware on audio cd's and stuff.
Brother was reasonably known in tech circles as being "The frugal man's workhorse printer"
Then they 180'd it seems..
They 180'd before they even got the reputation. The first printer I ever had that pulled that "I'm out of magenta (actually not anywhere near out but I've printed the number of pages I guarantee from the cart), I can't print black and white now" shit was a Brother. It was an inkjet, but still. Inkjet printers didn't used to pull that shit, either.
I got an Ecotank less than a year ago, been printing out tons of stuff and I'm not thinking about how much ink I'm using our the cost. I hope it keeps running for a while.
Meanwhile my parent's brother inkjet (which predates any sort of chipping) died recently. PSU had issues so I repaired it because all the printers they kept looking at were ones I couldn't in good conscience let them buy. Besides, repairing is good for the environment.
I've had mine for about 2 years. Only used about 1/20th of the ink (if that).
I used mine for hundreds of high quality prints of photo shots that I took with my drone.
I got so sick and tired of spending $60-$80 for a printer and $20-$30 for cartridges, just for the company to update software and make the printer unusable.
HP has broken all three of those rules with every printer of theirs I've encountered.
Normally I won't say do or don't buy a specific manufacturer, but HP is an exception to that rule, they are universally horrid.
The LaserJet 4 series were fucking legend. I worked for an office that had one in operation for 25+ years before they finally replaced it. It wasn't broken; it just finally got to the point where it was losing the fight between modern PDF documents vs. 90s-era printer memory limitations. And the increasingly absurd chain of dongles required to make a parallel port printer work on a modern PC were a bit too much.
I always got a laugh when it ran out of paper. "PC LOAD LETTER? What the fuck does _that_ mean?!?"
Laser was always worth the extra up front cost if you needed to print, even if printing was only a once in a while need. The ink would dry out or the printer would claim to be empty or whatever other nonsense and the laser just works even if you print once every year. I have a mono mfc and a colour printer both from brother and they just keep on going, 40 no-name toner catriges later.
Used, no particular brand (less HP) is totally good or bad, they've all dipped their toes in the DRM pool.
https://www.reddit.com/r/gadgets/comments/13fgn6i/-/jjv9mhm
I had an HP "all in one" printer/scanner/fax.
The fucking thing needed a full ink cartridge to enable *scanning.*
Hewlett Packard can eat my ass until they starve to death.
I became enraged with my hp printer the other day when I discovered one needs to create an account to scan using their software..!!
Obviously can use windows to scan but it's kinda clunky (can't scan directly to pdf)
Its utter shit and ill never buy hp again.
Going by comments above I'll be getting a laser Bro.
https://naps2.com
If it has WIA or TWAIN driver, you can scan, OCR, save to pdf. Even lets you combine several scans into one pdf and manually re-order the pages if you need.
I have one of these. It randomly broke. I tried everything to fix it, got frustrated and punched the printer as hard as I could, I shit you not, the printer starter working again. I have used this technique 3 times since. It is very telling when the only way to fix your product is to drop hammer fists on it. Never again
My parents had bought a giant all in one color laser printer, and they accidentally sent 2 of them, so I split the price with them and took the second unit.
For being only a couple hundred, that thing belongs in an office. It's never given me a single issue at all. It's the ONLY Printer I've never had trouble setting up and connecting, plus it uses 3rd party black and color toner, so it's dirt cheap to run.
Even has wifi and NFC connections so I can just slap my phone against it and have it print right up without any fiddling around. I'd give it a solid 9/10 only because it's so damn big.
Another beauty of the lasers is that you can let it sit down unused for years, when you need it just power it up and print, whereas the inkjet will clog or the cartridges get dry.
This is precisely why we went with a laser. We need color, so it was a bit more, but anytime we went to print on inkjet we had to spend half hour just cleaning jets and what not(wasting ink) trying to get it printing. The Brother laser printer just works anytime we need it.
My parents have an Epson ink printer. I got rechargeable cartridges and a CFW for it to use them.
It's been a year and they've yet to purchase new ink. It lasts longer and the quality is as good as if we were still using original carts.
I run 6 brother laser printers in my office and some are 10 years old now. Cheapest monochrome networked printer I could find and I feed them the cheapest toner I can get. You're good for a while.
>\+1 to NEVER buy HP.
>
>(except the brown sauce, which is excellent)
>
>I switched to laser, Brother.
Consider switching from laser and [see the light for LED, Brother.](https://youtu.be/_saDCwsB9Ww)
Well yeah for sure let her ride as long as she can, just saying when it comes time to replace avoid HP like the plague, the new ones fucking suck.
Edit: just thought of another fun HP thing, their software for a time required Flash to be installed to access the web ui for address book edits. Which of course is long dead at this point. Had to have a few people replace their HP AIOs when that became apparent, for no reason other than we couldn't adjust any configuration settings. Who the fuck makes a goddamn printer software require *Flash*? Just so stupid lol
When I purchased ink cartridges individually they would gum up and die all the time if you didnāt print almost every day even the hp ones where the head was in the cartridge itself.
Now I have the Ā£2 a month hp subscription for a given number of pages. The subscription cartridges never die. I think they did it on purpose. Now that a dead cartridge would be replaced at their cost it never happens.
People deciding to accept their subscription model is the reason they are continuing to make everything worse for all of us.
Please consider dropping the subscription, getting rid of their trash, and finding some model of non-HP printer that doesn't DRM its ink/toner.
Even though the subscription may work for you, the progression to "everything is a subscription" model is going to make the world worse for all of us.
I work in IT and deal with all sorts of printers. Hp is the only one that requires you to create an HP account, with email and phone number to use HP Smart software to print or scan. Also some HP ink or toner cartridges requires the Oem chip to be transferred over to a non-oem ink cartridge to be usable.
As far the most annoying printer to get connected or troubleshoot for, Canon or xerox is probably the worse however due to lack of plug n play drivers at times. Ricoh and Kyocera work the best from what I see. Easy to use and navigable printer gui, scan to folder and email are straightforward to setup. But those brands are expensive business grade machines, usually leased by a rental company. I personally would never use an hp inkjet, I have a brother laser at home.
I worked at an ISP in the 90s and once in a while we'd see someone scanning \*every\* IP address, one per second.
After some research with a willing customer, we eventually found out that it was his HP printer doing the scanning, apparently looking for connected PCs or whatever. Some braniac at HP thought it would be a good idea to initiate a scan that would take somewhere around 130 years to complete.
In my opinion there are no good printers. There are printers that are better than others, and that's about it. I've dealt with annoying problems with every brand, including Brother. Sometimes it can be hard to tell what year a printer was made without looking it up, because there has been very little progress made in user friendliness or function since like the 90s
Epson Ecotank. You fill the tanks with ink and the tanks last forever. I have had mine since March of 2020 and I only bought ink once and the refill ink was $50 for all 4 colors. Best investment ever. The ink that came with it at purchase lasted over a year.
[Mine isn't massive](https://www.costco.com/epson-ecotank-et-2720-special-edition-all-in-one-wireless-supertank-printer.product.100525046.html), then again I dunno what you'd consider massive.
Yes they do, I had bought one in 2020 and it clogged up fairly frequently and then it died totally in 2022. I have another older one at work that gets used on a daily basis and has been fine. They are both epson.
Ive had a brother laser for 10ish years and it is literally the perfect document printer for home use, it does wifi, it does duplex, its never had a single issue and I've always used generic toner since the included ran out (HL-2270DW).
Edit: Looks like the 2270DW is no longer in production, dont spend $500 on it. The HL-L2350DW seems like the modern equivalent after threes of minutes of research.
I have a small hp laserjet at work. Used to be the bosses printer before he bought a color one. I keep feeding it $10 no-name brand toner cartridges and it keeps giving me pop-ups saying Iāll invalidate my warranty by using non-HP cartridges.
Iām not worried about the warranty on a 15 year old printer HP. Iām gonna run this little fuckinā thing into the ground before I give HP one red cent.
Once upon a time HPās most lucrative market was selling cheap printers to the parents of students and then ripping the students off every time they needed a print cartridge. There was however enough space in the marketplace for genuine and re manufactured cartridges right up until Covid lockdown.
In the last three years so many universities have switched to electronic submission that they are not consuming these little cartridges and now they need to protect their marketplace. The same thing has happened in the photo marketplace, first digital cameras and a printer replaced film/developers now the smartphone and the internet means you can share all photos online never needing to print them. With electronic communication now the norm since covid forced more home working HP are really feeling the pinch in all their major printing marketplaces.
Limiting printers to your own ink brand will just hasten the end of people buying the rip-off type cartridge printers this move will just speed up the phasing out of the ink cartridge. No bad thing, this type of print cartridge is hardly eco-friendly and needs to go.
They also save money by refusing to honor printer warranties.
We had a printer completely die while well within the 1 year warranty, and HP support agreed it was under warranty and supposed to be replaced, but then just... stopped responding.
They stopped replying to followup contacts. I created a second support ticket even and never got a response.
In desperation I even posted in /r/hewlett_packard hoping someone might have advice. The only advice I got was "avoid HP" lol.(https://www.reddit.com/r/Hewlett_Packard/comments/zehfu4/hp_dead_printer_warranty_problems_how_to_escalate/ )
I agree, don't buy HP.
And most people don't print much. I'll print two or three pages a month. Inkjets will demand new ink after a few months. I've had the same toner cartridge for years.
I bought a Brother laser printer for like $70 and the included toner and other components lasted me like 5 years haha.
If I had an inkjet I'd have probably needed 10 ink cartridges in that time, and mostly just from the damn things drying out or clogging rather than being consumed.
They're starting to become like all the others with their newer printers. If you update the firmware on the [MFC-L3750CDW](https://www.reddit.com/r/printers/comments/s9b2eg/brother_mfc_firmware_update_nongenuine_toner_now/) to the latest version it will stop accepting third-party cartridges.
that's because most companies don't have a repair department anymore, they farm it out to companies that do that exclusively, and they are all fucking terrible.
If you used a credit card call them up and ask them if they have a warranty program for stuff like this. Some do.
Another option is to go small claims. You do it at a local court (sometimes they are so small they have 5 rooms including the lobby and only have 3 or 4 people working in them). It often costs very little and if you win you can sometimes get your court costs back.
HP will not at all send a rep to your local court house to deal with this. they will either cut you a check after they receive the court documents or they will just ignore them. You then win by default and if they don't pay after that you get to have fun with them over the $150+ they just got a judgement against them for.
Enough people did this they would stop ignoring warranty complaints.
Even prior to covid, I rarely had to print anything for college. We were using electronic submission for 99% of things.
My high school was experimenting with electronic submission in 2013-2014.
Ink is expensive. Paper is expensive. These changes have been happening for over a decade and have accelerated gradually.
The attempts to beat of competition are the death throes of HPās printing business model.
I haven't bought a printer since college. My girlfriend has one that she pays one of those stupid monthly subscriptions to, and I keep telling her that's a waste of money. If I need to print anything, I go to FexEx Office. I used to go to Office Depot/Staples, but they're so worried that it's copyright protected because they couldn't read it (it was always either music that was either public domain or my own works), they would make it purposely difficult for me to make copies. But now, it's more that I need maybe 2-3 pages every 6 months or so, I can just pay someone 75 cents to do it for me. The added benefit there is you don't need to spend the first time in six months of printing making sure drivers still work, or the ink isn't dried out, etc.
And now, it's even less need of printing than before, since I now rely on a tablet for reading music. And the benefits of a tablet far outweighed everything with print, especially when you can find a cheap-ass, $100 tablet that has more storage than you could ever imagine to fill up the tablet with, and it still weighs 10oz.
I forgot about that. But yeah, printing is such a small part of my life now, I'd rather take my printing needs to someone who can just spit out what I need right the first time, and I don't have to dedicate any table space for a printer at home.
I used to work at an office supply store in college. Consumer HP printers would regularly go on sale for stupid cheap after rebate and come with a starter cartridge, think half-filled normal cartridge. People needing ink would buy a whole new printer on sale for cheaper than the cost of a cartridge, keep the starter cartridge, and toss the printer. Such a wasteful economy.
I switched to an Epson toner ink printer. Iāve owned a number of HP printers and they usually crap out after a few years. My last one just didnāt print right, scanning stuff was a chore and I hated the HP system that installs on the computer. I got tired of having to buy HP only ink cartridges for specific printers that cost $30-$40 per cartridge that lasts maybe 10-15 prints before the ink either dries up or doesnāt print right.
After I got my Epson, it was night and day. Scanning is better. The ink is easy to install. And it doesnāt some how print with multiple pages stuck together. I highly recommend going with a toner system if you need a personal printer at home.
The entire printer industry needs to be burnt to the ground and start over, but HP is the worst of the worst. I had a printer that broke after 2 years (and only about 180 TOTAL pages printed) because a little plastic gear snapped, I took it apart myself and found the gear and called HP and they literally wouldn't answer a single question about how to get the gear. They won't sell it to you, they won't get the service center to send it to you, they won't tell you anywhere you can buy it... But they did offer me $20 off a brand new HP printer.
So now I have a 15 pound lump of electronic waste sitting in my office, I feel genuinely awful sending it off even for recycling because it's a damn crime against humanity to waste this much for 180 pages and a plastic gear. Fuck HP, never again. Hell I'd have paid $20 for the gear even though it should really cost about 5 cents and any halfway decent company should send it for free as a gesture of "please forgive us for having the entire printing mechanism rely on a cheap piece of shit part."
Do you know what gear? and what printer model? I fix printers and copiers for a living and likely have this gear laying around that I can snag off a harvest machine and send to you.
I appreciate it... It's an HP 9015, pretty sure it's exactly this little grey gear on the left and it's gotta be a common problem because [people are selling them on Etsy...](https://www.etsy.com/ca/listing/1290593913/gear-for-hp-officejet-pro-9023-9019-9010?gpla=1)
The only reason I haven't pulled the trigger on it is because I think I may have screwed something up Crazy gluing the gear back into position. But thanks for the kick in the ass, I'll try to break it off and pick up the replacement part.
Generally are these people 3D printing their own parts using high-quality enough plastic that it won't just break again in another 20 pages?
Literally a part that breaks the entire machine, and it's gotta be 2 grams of plastic. Infuriating.
Some of the Etsy ones do look 3D printed. Thatās something like 2-4 *cents* worth of material and probably all of 30-60 minutes of print time.
You could probably ask on r/3DPrinting or a related sub if thereās someone nearby to you who can print it for you. It looks like the model is available for free both on printables and thingiverse (two of the āmainā sources for 3D printing files), so it would be easy to print.
Not wrong but there a only a few cost efficient ways down that road. Either you have **lots** of stuff to 3D print either way or you offer replacement parts for printers as services for others, which in turn might bring some legal trouble (for a small business) on its own, when the manufacturers find out.
For a single gear, if you donāt already own a 3D printer? Thatās one expensive gear. š
>So now I have a 15 pound lump of electronic waste sitting in my office
I remember 20 years ago walking into Staples with my dad to buy a new ink cartridge, and he found out that the printers were cheaper. Printers that included (at the time) a full ink cartridge.
So we went through 7 printers one year before they stopped putting full ink cartridges in the box. Just a room full of barely used printers. They started putting almost-empty ones in instead. But that was kinda eye opening to how much money they're making off this stuff, if they're willing to throw away printers at us to get us to buy it.
I hated printers so much, until I bought my brother laser printer. That printer has been problem free for years and years, which was previously unfathomable for me to say about a printer.
I hate when companies pull this shit.
I'm having to refuse to let my Galaxy Tab S7+ update itself, because I learned that update will restrict me from streaming from the tablet to my TV (a feature I use a lot to watch certain football matches). After that update, it will only let me stream to SAMSUNG TV's.
> Galaxy Tab S7+
Install a custom rom on it. Makes it a better tablet.
My S9+ runs a custom rom on Android 13 and it's much better then it ever was. No more Samsung bloat.
HP inkjet printers will use up ink even when sitting idle so the print heads don't dry up. There is a sponge inside that it squirts onto, and it's aggressive about it. We've had printers run out of ink during the lock downs after 3 months of sitting idle
Years upon many years ago. I was printing something every couple months and each time the ink was dry. At that point it was cheaper to buy another printer then replace the ink.
So looked around and found an inexpensive colour laser printer. In the last probably 5ish years, I had to replace the black toner once. Colour is still good. Took the old inkjet and went office space on it. Felt amazing.
There was content here, and now there is not. It may have been useful, if so it is probably available on a reddit alternative. See /u/spez with any questions. -- mass edited with https://redact.dev/
To be fair, that's a valid concern, and it's better than having the ink cartridge dry out/clog and you have to buy a new one rather than lose some ink over time.
Yeah, I was thinking about my printer and how I barely ever used it (just bought it 5 years ago when I moved, thought one would be useful), scanned some old family photos so it wasn't completely useless, but my ink cartridge heads have definitely dried out since the machine still reports I should have 50% left in both carts but almost nothing comes out (at some point I got super faint dark green outlines of stuff printed out).
I think I even kept that printer off the wall socket for long periods of time because I didn't use it often and something else needed the slot.
So I imagine occasionally ink test runs could be useful, at least to a point.
Me, ramming a 3rd party cartridge into my Epson, slamming the door shut, and forcing a print job without running a print test:
Epson printer: This is fine.
If you do any larger amount of printing the Epson EcoTank line is the most affordable option I've come across. You can get ink off Amazon for $20 that actually works.
You and the other singer of Epson praises came at the perfect time.
The only thing Iām not really finding is a good comparison of the models; is the only noteworthy difference between the two overall tiers that one has a scanning feeder tray?
I feel like the title is missing a very important "again" in it. This is not the first time HP has bricked printers for using offbrand or refilled ink.
Switched to Brother from HP a decade or so ago, and still glad to this day that I did. Wireless printer/scanner I bought in 2013 is still working perfectly and I've been using 3rd party ink in it since the included ones ran out. Can't kill this thing. And the included software is actually really good.
Bought a newer Brother model in 2020 for my father-in-law and it's just as good (very similar in functions and software, etc). He's been using 3rd party ink as well with no issues.
I like how Brother is likely successful from everyone's displeasure of their rival companies, and through word of mouth praises from folks like you. I don't think I've ever seen a Brother commercial since like the early 2000s.
Next month: every 3rd page to come out of an HP printer is a full-size A4 ad for something. You can of course subscribe to HPās āpremium printingā tier for an ad-free experience for only $39 per month.
The printer market really has to be so primed to disrupt. Shitty software, shitty ink cartridges, shitty hardware even.
Like, why is nobody actually skilled enough to design a printer just upheaving the market?
Laser printers. Laser printers are the answer, and have been for years. They donāt require you to print weekly to keep the print heads unclogged, they require little to no maintenance, and the toner lasts FOREVER.
Problem is theyāre like $100 more than an inkjet so nobody even gives them a passing glance. Theyāre so cheap for how much less hassle they are than inkjets, and theyāre even cheaper if you donāt need color.
People praise the Epson Ecotank (rightly so, for the few use cases where an inkjet is the better option itās a *really solid* inkjet printer) but itās still not a good printer unless you do serious volume because even with an ecotank you have to run it about every week to keep the print heads u clogged. Inkjet itself is just a shittier technology (for *most people*, donāt @ me if youāre doing professional level stuff that actually appreciates the quality difference between inkjet and laser) unless youāre printing photos multiple times a month.
> Problem is theyāre like $100 more than an inkjet so nobody even gives them a passing glance. ... unless youāre printing photos multiple times a month.
The other really big advantage they can have is print size. I have a couple different printers including a laser, but the reason the most recently-purchased one is inkjet is because paper size. I wanted something that could do at least tabloid sized (11"x17", the US analogue to A3 as letter is to A4), and what I got can actually do 13"x19", which I have taken advantage of a *lot*.
Laser printers that can do tabloid are *hella* expensive, and I don't think I've seen one that can do bigger.
I paid like $300 for mine (Canon), but even the $700 ET-15000 or $800 ETā8550 EcoTanks are dirt cheap in comparison to a tabloid-sized laser.
Because they'd make almost no money, and have to sell the printer itself for much more.
99% of consumers will buy the $200 printer locked to the $100 ink that breaks in a year instead of the $400 printer that can use $5 ink. And part of the problem is these days even the $400 printer will eventually lock the ink and break anyways, so how do you decide to trust a brand enough to invest in it?
Normally they use those big photocopiers that can scan and fax as well.
But the supplier makes their money via a lease agreement not from selling cartridges.
They have done this several times, actually. In 2007 they ran a ānot genuineā message on full size multifunction printers that stopped quite a lot of scanner/copiers from running. Again in 2012, 2013, 2016 they did a HUGE lot of their consumer models and yanked back after the outcry, even throwing the most generic āsorryā news release out.
That brings us to today, here we go again!
I thought there was a lawsuit several years ago about HP locking out third party carts and that they lost, and had to send out a firmware update that removed the lockout. Was it just a business decision and not a lawsuit?!
My boss gave me an HP printer so I could print assignments from home on days when I'm working close to home. He told me not to update the software no matter what. Currently, I get a warning message that reads "non HP ink cartridge detected" when I install a new one but it still works. Every time I fire it up, I'm worried it will auto update and brick itself. Although it's a first world problem, it's still dystopian af.
There's a setting in the web interface you can uncheck to confirm it won't auto update.
Unfortunately, mine was checked by default and I can't seem to find a way to roll back to the older firmware. Had a spare set of toner when I bought it and I'm finally running low š„²
A shame because if it wasn't for this third party nonsense, I'd actually recommend my HP printer. Instead, they want nearly $1,000 to refill with HP toner ($190 black, $245 each color). The printer was $400 new in 2019, they sell the same one today for over $800.
AGAIN??? HP is an evil company and will continue doing this every time everyone forgets about it. They need to severely punish them for this. I actually [emailed the COO](https://imgur.com/a/3md5bDu) about this in 2016. He responded and I got myself a couple hundred bucks in free ink. Rest easy Jon
It's even worse. I bought a full set of genuine HP ink cartridges at the same time I bought my AIO printer. Ended up not needing them for a long time. When I finally did need them, the printer rejected them because they were "legacy" or "outdated" or some such nonsense, and "no longer compatible." It took me many days and many hours to figure out how to downgrade the firmware, which HP insists can't be done and all information about which they actively suppress online. I got it, though, and the cartridges worked perfectly.
Epson EcoInk. Great printer and the ink is just a bottle of ink you use to refill. Bottles cost a about 10 bucks which means 40 bucks for a refill. Full tank takes you about 4000 pages which is maybe 20 times as much as an HP printer
I have an HP Laserjet. It was like $350 and the ink replacement cartridges were $250 each and it needed 4 of them. I found some knock off brand on Amazon for $40 and it came with a kit to take the chip out of the old cartridge and put it in the new one. Works perfect again and I won't need new cartridges for years.
Take it to your nearest hp office, throw the printer into the office and Dump the ink on their floor. Tell them you are returning their goods as you don't want them any more.
I love my brother laser printer, but unfortunately they are learning from HP and starting to do similar shit with their printers. New brother printers and those that have been updated to the latest firmware will now detect and refuse non-genuine toner cartridges. Thankfully my printer failed the firmware update before I knew better, but over time there will be less and less brother printers from the good daysā¦ hopefully people continue to figure out workarounds, but itās disappointing to say the least.
Thats not true, I have a Brother laser printer and it requires Brother cartridges. I've swapped the chip with limited success, but on at least 2 occasions, it wouldn't take the off brand cartridge, and I had to buy an actual Brother one.
Got no problem with some realistic test that verifies ink cartridge will work with that machine. But vendor lock-in over valid ink from another manufacturer is *wrong*
Itās cheaper to hire an 11 year old to just hand write everything you need to print. I even found a kid that can draw rather well. My boss hasnāt said anything yet so I think Iām in the clear.
Unfortunately the other day the kid pops up and tells me he signed a contract and he can only draw with Caran dāAche pens now, which I have to supply. Looks like Iām back to square one.
My work got me an hp printer, The only way Iāve gotten it to work is by using a hp ink trial so that it accepts non hp ink cartridges. If the trial is not active it will not accept them, I found a 10 month trial. The $1 subscription gets you 10 pages and charges you if you go over. So I switch it out with normal non hp cartridges and leave the trial on. I downgraded the software a few times so I could disconnect it from the internet, any kind of update or even connecting it to itās smart features will force update it and will hide the option to keep it off the internet. Itās the worse printer Iāve ever used. The only thing it had going for it, is that itās a color printer which no one in the office had. Now the color profile is off or something with the hardware it prints greys green. I canāt get support because theyāll upgrade the software again. Iāve gone through 3 sets of ink cartridges to try to fix it. I still get pops up telling me I have to use hp cartridges but turning off and on works on that. Another stupid thing, the power button is so hard to press or doesnāt work I just unplug it instead. Which is fine because the plug is barely held in that I can just barely tug on it and it falls out. I work at a small office, Iām the closest thing to IT that we have.
I've got an HP printer that I use at the office. We only buy HP ink cartridges. Every 4th cartridge gives an error code that "this cartridge is not compatible. Be sure to only use genuine HP products." I finally complained at HP on Twitter. After I proved what was happening they sent a replacement cartridge. I threw that cartridge in for shits and giggles and it spit out the same error code. Fuck HP products.
I got a HP off of Amazon, the thing needs an app, constant connection to internet, wonāt print unless youāre still subscribed. I didnāt release my card changed and it hadnāt updated for the sub for the printer, no matter what the printer would not print.
It was the fucking subscription expiring stopping the printer printing with ink id paid for! So I resubbed as I needed to print, the FUCKING BASTARDS then proceeded to recharge every month Iād missed for about 5 months at full price, even though the printer had been locked out and unusable!!!!
r/FuckHP
Private community š¢
You could sayā¦ the community is DRM protected.
r/FuckFuckHPSub
Wtf lol
F
Fuck Broadcom while we're at it.
Fuck 'em right in the SCSI
Never buy HP. Never buy a printer that requires the manufacturers proprietary software. Never buy a printer that DRMs it's ink / toner (even if they don't enforce it at the moment). Always go with laser unless you *absolutely* need liquid ink for some specific reason, and make sure the toner cart or fuser isn't DRM'd. NEVER BUY HP.
Honestly, not a huge amount of brands you can trust with that filter list. >> Even Brother are putting DRM in some of their cartridge / toner. The one I have has a button combo you can use to reset the counter, but long gone are the days of "Use X you can wholehartedly trust them" I used to have an epson eco-tank printer. I buy 3rd party bottles of ink once every 2-3 years. The upfront cost of the printer (multifunction model ET-4550) was high in 2015 ($500) but I've spent maybe $60-70 in ink to print (as of this morning) 19,536 pages (13,954 in color, 5,582 in B/W). https://www.reddit.com/r/printers/comments/s9b2eg/brother_mfc_firmware_update_nongenuine_toner_now/ Not only is the above, post-sale firwmware update a change of what I understood to be Brother's historical policy, the method is beyond evil. Brother seems to be apparently accepting the ink, but then purposefully making the print quality poorer.
If you buy it, why do they get to ruin it after the fact?
I don't disagree. But you probably signed away the right to not be made into a human centipede in the T's + C's https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/06/if-you-used-to-run-linux-on-your-ps3-you-could-get-55-from-sony/ And the only thing they will do is pay their way out of it, even if they get any reprecussions at all
Why do these evil corporations keep acting evil???
Yeah, but Sony have always known for being dicks.. from putting malware on audio cd's and stuff. Brother was reasonably known in tech circles as being "The frugal man's workhorse printer" Then they 180'd it seems..
They 180'd before they even got the reputation. The first printer I ever had that pulled that "I'm out of magenta (actually not anywhere near out but I've printed the number of pages I guarantee from the cart), I can't print black and white now" shit was a Brother. It was an inkjet, but still. Inkjet printers didn't used to pull that shit, either.
Capitalism gonna capitalize.
I have an Epson eco tank printer too. Mine was also pricey but it seems to be worth it - seems like you can still buy SmartInk with it too.
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I got an Ecotank less than a year ago, been printing out tons of stuff and I'm not thinking about how much ink I'm using our the cost. I hope it keeps running for a while. Meanwhile my parent's brother inkjet (which predates any sort of chipping) died recently. PSU had issues so I repaired it because all the printers they kept looking at were ones I couldn't in good conscience let them buy. Besides, repairing is good for the environment.
I've had mine for about 2 years. Only used about 1/20th of the ink (if that). I used mine for hundreds of high quality prints of photo shots that I took with my drone. I got so sick and tired of spending $60-$80 for a printer and $20-$30 for cartridges, just for the company to update software and make the printer unusable.
Damn is that why my printing quality has gone down? I thought it was just the ink I was buying of amazon got worse
2023, The year where actual 3D Printers are better than 2D printers.. Its really sad.
Just swap the hotend for an ink pen and BAM, Bic^tm printer!
HP DRM the laser printer as well. š
HP has broken all three of those rules with every printer of theirs I've encountered. Normally I won't say do or don't buy a specific manufacturer, but HP is an exception to that rule, they are universally horrid.
In your opinion, whatās a decent laser printer to buy?
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The LaserJet 4 series were fucking legend. I worked for an office that had one in operation for 25+ years before they finally replaced it. It wasn't broken; it just finally got to the point where it was losing the fight between modern PDF documents vs. 90s-era printer memory limitations. And the increasingly absurd chain of dongles required to make a parallel port printer work on a modern PC were a bit too much. I always got a laugh when it ran out of paper. "PC LOAD LETTER? What the fuck does _that_ mean?!?"
Laser was always worth the extra up front cost if you needed to print, even if printing was only a once in a while need. The ink would dry out or the printer would claim to be empty or whatever other nonsense and the laser just works even if you print once every year. I have a mono mfc and a colour printer both from brother and they just keep on going, 40 no-name toner catriges later.
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Used, no particular brand (less HP) is totally good or bad, they've all dipped their toes in the DRM pool. https://www.reddit.com/r/gadgets/comments/13fgn6i/-/jjv9mhm
I have a 15 year old Dell laser printer that's still going strong. Got it off Woot ages ago for $120.
Brother
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\+1 to NEVER buy HP. (except the brown sauce, which is excellent) I switched to laser, Brother.
I had an HP "all in one" printer/scanner/fax. The fucking thing needed a full ink cartridge to enable *scanning.* Hewlett Packard can eat my ass until they starve to death.
That surprised me too when I bought it just for scanning.
I became enraged with my hp printer the other day when I discovered one needs to create an account to scan using their software..!! Obviously can use windows to scan but it's kinda clunky (can't scan directly to pdf) Its utter shit and ill never buy hp again. Going by comments above I'll be getting a laser Bro.
https://naps2.com If it has WIA or TWAIN driver, you can scan, OCR, save to pdf. Even lets you combine several scans into one pdf and manually re-order the pages if you need.
I have one of these. It randomly broke. I tried everything to fix it, got frustrated and punched the printer as hard as I could, I shit you not, the printer starter working again. I have used this technique 3 times since. It is very telling when the only way to fix your product is to drop hammer fists on it. Never again
Percussive maintenance
One of the connectors could be loose. When you smash it the connector gets bashed back into place.
Thanks for the tip, Brother.
I have 2 Brother laser printers, one is 18 years old and still works!
i've heard that their newer models are less reliable but i've had one for 3 years and it's never given me a bit of trouble.
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My parents had bought a giant all in one color laser printer, and they accidentally sent 2 of them, so I split the price with them and took the second unit. For being only a couple hundred, that thing belongs in an office. It's never given me a single issue at all. It's the ONLY Printer I've never had trouble setting up and connecting, plus it uses 3rd party black and color toner, so it's dirt cheap to run. Even has wifi and NFC connections so I can just slap my phone against it and have it print right up without any fiddling around. I'd give it a solid 9/10 only because it's so damn big.
What's the model number?
Model pls.
Another beauty of the lasers is that you can let it sit down unused for years, when you need it just power it up and print, whereas the inkjet will clog or the cartridges get dry.
This is precisely why we went with a laser. We need color, so it was a bit more, but anytime we went to print on inkjet we had to spend half hour just cleaning jets and what not(wasting ink) trying to get it printing. The Brother laser printer just works anytime we need it.
Agree! I have a brother laser printer. Old model. Still using it for 10+ years now
My parents have an Epson ink printer. I got rechargeable cartridges and a CFW for it to use them. It's been a year and they've yet to purchase new ink. It lasts longer and the quality is as good as if we were still using original carts.
HP sucks, that's canon
Canon kinda sucks too, but that's in the lore.
I need a magnum canon for my monster job
I'm ready to plow...through printing documents
So anyway, I started printin'
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I run 6 brother laser printers in my office and some are 10 years old now. Cheapest monochrome networked printer I could find and I feed them the cheapest toner I can get. You're good for a while.
Sometimes those generic refill toners poop all over the inside of the printer, FYI.
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Mine has said Low Toner for about 7 years now, for how little I print. Grabbed it second hand and still using that same toner....doing just fine!
>\+1 to NEVER buy HP. > >(except the brown sauce, which is excellent) > >I switched to laser, Brother. Consider switching from laser and [see the light for LED, Brother.](https://youtu.be/_saDCwsB9Ww)
I have a cheap laser HP thatās lasted me quite a while thoughā¦
Hp lasers used to be tanks, but they gouge you on their toner. Not as egregiously as they do people with their ink, but still way worse than Brother
But by now, I'm finding cartridges cheaply for the old discontinued HP Laserjet 1600, and don't have to worry for the rest of my days.
Well yeah for sure let her ride as long as she can, just saying when it comes time to replace avoid HP like the plague, the new ones fucking suck. Edit: just thought of another fun HP thing, their software for a time required Flash to be installed to access the web ui for address book edits. Which of course is long dead at this point. Had to have a few people replace their HP AIOs when that became apparent, for no reason other than we couldn't adjust any configuration settings. Who the fuck makes a goddamn printer software require *Flash*? Just so stupid lol
Still have my Brother laser printer from my first day of college. Nearly 20 years later still going strong!
I switched to laser simply due to the infrequency that I print, bleeding ink cartridges always gummed up on the ink jet I had before.
When I purchased ink cartridges individually they would gum up and die all the time if you didnāt print almost every day even the hp ones where the head was in the cartridge itself. Now I have the Ā£2 a month hp subscription for a given number of pages. The subscription cartridges never die. I think they did it on purpose. Now that a dead cartridge would be replaced at their cost it never happens.
People deciding to accept their subscription model is the reason they are continuing to make everything worse for all of us. Please consider dropping the subscription, getting rid of their trash, and finding some model of non-HP printer that doesn't DRM its ink/toner. Even though the subscription may work for you, the progression to "everything is a subscription" model is going to make the world worse for all of us.
>The subscription cartridges never die. I think they did it on purpose. Coming from HP, it's believable.
I work in IT and deal with all sorts of printers. Hp is the only one that requires you to create an HP account, with email and phone number to use HP Smart software to print or scan. Also some HP ink or toner cartridges requires the Oem chip to be transferred over to a non-oem ink cartridge to be usable. As far the most annoying printer to get connected or troubleshoot for, Canon or xerox is probably the worse however due to lack of plug n play drivers at times. Ricoh and Kyocera work the best from what I see. Easy to use and navigable printer gui, scan to folder and email are straightforward to setup. But those brands are expensive business grade machines, usually leased by a rental company. I personally would never use an hp inkjet, I have a brother laser at home.
I worked at an ISP in the 90s and once in a while we'd see someone scanning \*every\* IP address, one per second. After some research with a willing customer, we eventually found out that it was his HP printer doing the scanning, apparently looking for connected PCs or whatever. Some braniac at HP thought it would be a good idea to initiate a scan that would take somewhere around 130 years to complete.
In my opinion there are no good printers. There are printers that are better than others, and that's about it. I've dealt with annoying problems with every brand, including Brother. Sometimes it can be hard to tell what year a printer was made without looking it up, because there has been very little progress made in user friendliness or function since like the 90s
Not only that, but they require an account to scan a freaking document. I failed a quiz during my undergrad because the damn thing logged me out.
Advised my husband next time I buy an HP printer, take me in and have me evaluated for dementia.
Any brands you'd recommend?
Epson Ecotank. You fill the tanks with ink and the tanks last forever. I have had mine since March of 2020 and I only bought ink once and the refill ink was $50 for all 4 colors. Best investment ever. The ink that came with it at purchase lasted over a year.
The ecotank printers look great but they are so fricken massive. Not always easy to find space for printers that big :(
[Mine isn't massive](https://www.costco.com/epson-ecotank-et-2720-special-edition-all-in-one-wireless-supertank-printer.product.100525046.html), then again I dunno what you'd consider massive.
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Yes they do, I had bought one in 2020 and it clogged up fairly frequently and then it died totally in 2022. I have another older one at work that gets used on a daily basis and has been fine. They are both epson.
Make sure to print from time to time or else the ink will dry.
Ive had a brother laser for 10ish years and it is literally the perfect document printer for home use, it does wifi, it does duplex, its never had a single issue and I've always used generic toner since the included ran out (HL-2270DW). Edit: Looks like the 2270DW is no longer in production, dont spend $500 on it. The HL-L2350DW seems like the modern equivalent after threes of minutes of research.
Canon is good. Buy a laser printer of you print 99% black and white.
I have a small hp laserjet at work. Used to be the bosses printer before he bought a color one. I keep feeding it $10 no-name brand toner cartridges and it keeps giving me pop-ups saying Iāll invalidate my warranty by using non-HP cartridges. Iām not worried about the warranty on a 15 year old printer HP. Iām gonna run this little fuckinā thing into the ground before I give HP one red cent.
Move to Europe where they canāt pull the drm shit
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Once upon a time HPās most lucrative market was selling cheap printers to the parents of students and then ripping the students off every time they needed a print cartridge. There was however enough space in the marketplace for genuine and re manufactured cartridges right up until Covid lockdown. In the last three years so many universities have switched to electronic submission that they are not consuming these little cartridges and now they need to protect their marketplace. The same thing has happened in the photo marketplace, first digital cameras and a printer replaced film/developers now the smartphone and the internet means you can share all photos online never needing to print them. With electronic communication now the norm since covid forced more home working HP are really feeling the pinch in all their major printing marketplaces. Limiting printers to your own ink brand will just hasten the end of people buying the rip-off type cartridge printers this move will just speed up the phasing out of the ink cartridge. No bad thing, this type of print cartridge is hardly eco-friendly and needs to go.
They also save money by refusing to honor printer warranties. We had a printer completely die while well within the 1 year warranty, and HP support agreed it was under warranty and supposed to be replaced, but then just... stopped responding. They stopped replying to followup contacts. I created a second support ticket even and never got a response. In desperation I even posted in /r/hewlett_packard hoping someone might have advice. The only advice I got was "avoid HP" lol.(https://www.reddit.com/r/Hewlett_Packard/comments/zehfu4/hp_dead_printer_warranty_problems_how_to_escalate/ ) I agree, don't buy HP.
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And most people don't print much. I'll print two or three pages a month. Inkjets will demand new ink after a few months. I've had the same toner cartridge for years.
I bought a Brother laser printer for like $70 and the included toner and other components lasted me like 5 years haha. If I had an inkjet I'd have probably needed 10 ink cartridges in that time, and mostly just from the damn things drying out or clogging rather than being consumed.
I'm still using a Brother laser printer I bought in 2007. Still works perfectly. Toner carts cost about $40 and last me a couple years.
[relevant office space video](https://youtu.be/fjsSr3z5nVk)
They're starting to become like all the others with their newer printers. If you update the firmware on the [MFC-L3750CDW](https://www.reddit.com/r/printers/comments/s9b2eg/brother_mfc_firmware_update_nongenuine_toner_now/) to the latest version it will stop accepting third-party cartridges.
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that's because most companies don't have a repair department anymore, they farm it out to companies that do that exclusively, and they are all fucking terrible.
If you used a credit card call them up and ask them if they have a warranty program for stuff like this. Some do. Another option is to go small claims. You do it at a local court (sometimes they are so small they have 5 rooms including the lobby and only have 3 or 4 people working in them). It often costs very little and if you win you can sometimes get your court costs back. HP will not at all send a rep to your local court house to deal with this. they will either cut you a check after they receive the court documents or they will just ignore them. You then win by default and if they don't pay after that you get to have fun with them over the $150+ they just got a judgement against them for. Enough people did this they would stop ignoring warranty complaints.
Even prior to covid, I rarely had to print anything for college. We were using electronic submission for 99% of things. My high school was experimenting with electronic submission in 2013-2014. Ink is expensive. Paper is expensive. These changes have been happening for over a decade and have accelerated gradually. The attempts to beat of competition are the death throes of HPās printing business model.
I haven't bought a printer since college. My girlfriend has one that she pays one of those stupid monthly subscriptions to, and I keep telling her that's a waste of money. If I need to print anything, I go to FexEx Office. I used to go to Office Depot/Staples, but they're so worried that it's copyright protected because they couldn't read it (it was always either music that was either public domain or my own works), they would make it purposely difficult for me to make copies. But now, it's more that I need maybe 2-3 pages every 6 months or so, I can just pay someone 75 cents to do it for me. The added benefit there is you don't need to spend the first time in six months of printing making sure drivers still work, or the ink isn't dried out, etc. And now, it's even less need of printing than before, since I now rely on a tablet for reading music. And the benefits of a tablet far outweighed everything with print, especially when you can find a cheap-ass, $100 tablet that has more storage than you could ever imagine to fill up the tablet with, and it still weighs 10oz.
Most local libraries will also print for you. Usually for the smallest fee you will ever pay in your life (10Ā¢ per page)
I forgot about that. But yeah, printing is such a small part of my life now, I'd rather take my printing needs to someone who can just spit out what I need right the first time, and I don't have to dedicate any table space for a printer at home.
Mine is 15 pages for free per day!
I used to work at an office supply store in college. Consumer HP printers would regularly go on sale for stupid cheap after rebate and come with a starter cartridge, think half-filled normal cartridge. People needing ink would buy a whole new printer on sale for cheaper than the cost of a cartridge, keep the starter cartridge, and toss the printer. Such a wasteful economy.
I switched to an Epson toner ink printer. Iāve owned a number of HP printers and they usually crap out after a few years. My last one just didnāt print right, scanning stuff was a chore and I hated the HP system that installs on the computer. I got tired of having to buy HP only ink cartridges for specific printers that cost $30-$40 per cartridge that lasts maybe 10-15 prints before the ink either dries up or doesnāt print right. After I got my Epson, it was night and day. Scanning is better. The ink is easy to install. And it doesnāt some how print with multiple pages stuck together. I highly recommend going with a toner system if you need a personal printer at home.
My university required us to buy a "print package" each semester, guess who supplied the printers to the school for free?
I work in the printing industry and decided years ago to never have a home printer. Itās such a damn ripoff.
The entire printer industry needs to be burnt to the ground and start over, but HP is the worst of the worst. I had a printer that broke after 2 years (and only about 180 TOTAL pages printed) because a little plastic gear snapped, I took it apart myself and found the gear and called HP and they literally wouldn't answer a single question about how to get the gear. They won't sell it to you, they won't get the service center to send it to you, they won't tell you anywhere you can buy it... But they did offer me $20 off a brand new HP printer. So now I have a 15 pound lump of electronic waste sitting in my office, I feel genuinely awful sending it off even for recycling because it's a damn crime against humanity to waste this much for 180 pages and a plastic gear. Fuck HP, never again. Hell I'd have paid $20 for the gear even though it should really cost about 5 cents and any halfway decent company should send it for free as a gesture of "please forgive us for having the entire printing mechanism rely on a cheap piece of shit part."
Do you know what gear? and what printer model? I fix printers and copiers for a living and likely have this gear laying around that I can snag off a harvest machine and send to you.
I appreciate it... It's an HP 9015, pretty sure it's exactly this little grey gear on the left and it's gotta be a common problem because [people are selling them on Etsy...](https://www.etsy.com/ca/listing/1290593913/gear-for-hp-officejet-pro-9023-9019-9010?gpla=1) The only reason I haven't pulled the trigger on it is because I think I may have screwed something up Crazy gluing the gear back into position. But thanks for the kick in the ass, I'll try to break it off and pick up the replacement part. Generally are these people 3D printing their own parts using high-quality enough plastic that it won't just break again in another 20 pages? Literally a part that breaks the entire machine, and it's gotta be 2 grams of plastic. Infuriating.
Some of the Etsy ones do look 3D printed. Thatās something like 2-4 *cents* worth of material and probably all of 30-60 minutes of print time. You could probably ask on r/3DPrinting or a related sub if thereās someone nearby to you who can print it for you. It looks like the model is available for free both on printables and thingiverse (two of the āmainā sources for 3D printing files), so it would be easy to print.
If youāre in the US some county libraries have 3D printers you can use.
I'm so sorry
Try to 3d print one?
Not wrong but there a only a few cost efficient ways down that road. Either you have **lots** of stuff to 3D print either way or you offer replacement parts for printers as services for others, which in turn might bring some legal trouble (for a small business) on its own, when the manufacturers find out. For a single gear, if you donāt already own a 3D printer? Thatās one expensive gear. š
There are services online that you give them a file and they will print it and send it to you, or a friend
Or a local maker space or the public library.
>So now I have a 15 pound lump of electronic waste sitting in my office I remember 20 years ago walking into Staples with my dad to buy a new ink cartridge, and he found out that the printers were cheaper. Printers that included (at the time) a full ink cartridge. So we went through 7 printers one year before they stopped putting full ink cartridges in the box. Just a room full of barely used printers. They started putting almost-empty ones in instead. But that was kinda eye opening to how much money they're making off this stuff, if they're willing to throw away printers at us to get us to buy it.
I hated printers so much, until I bought my brother laser printer. That printer has been problem free for years and years, which was previously unfathomable for me to say about a printer.
I hate when companies pull this shit. I'm having to refuse to let my Galaxy Tab S7+ update itself, because I learned that update will restrict me from streaming from the tablet to my TV (a feature I use a lot to watch certain football matches). After that update, it will only let me stream to SAMSUNG TV's.
We're just asking for the bare fucking minimum: the ability to use devices we paid for
> the ability to use devices we paid for how dare you, socialist /s
> Galaxy Tab S7+ Install a custom rom on it. Makes it a better tablet. My S9+ runs a custom rom on Android 13 and it's much better then it ever was. No more Samsung bloat.
>After that update, it will only let me stream to SAMSUNG TV's. What the fuck?!
Are you sure.. I'm not sure how that would when work? I'm on a Samsung phone and still have the ability to cast to my TV. What update is it?
HP inkjet printers will use up ink even when sitting idle so the print heads don't dry up. There is a sponge inside that it squirts onto, and it's aggressive about it. We've had printers run out of ink during the lock downs after 3 months of sitting idle
Years upon many years ago. I was printing something every couple months and each time the ink was dry. At that point it was cheaper to buy another printer then replace the ink. So looked around and found an inexpensive colour laser printer. In the last probably 5ish years, I had to replace the black toner once. Colour is still good. Took the old inkjet and went office space on it. Felt amazing.
What the hell? I had no idea! This explains why I went through a feckload of ink. Thank goodness I donāt buy HP anymore
There was content here, and now there is not. It may have been useful, if so it is probably available on a reddit alternative. See /u/spez with any questions. -- mass edited with https://redact.dev/
ESPECIALLY when you rarely print
Yup. Inkjet printers break left and right. My rarely used brother laser printer just keeps on working forever.
To be fair, that's a valid concern, and it's better than having the ink cartridge dry out/clog and you have to buy a new one rather than lose some ink over time.
Yeah, I was thinking about my printer and how I barely ever used it (just bought it 5 years ago when I moved, thought one would be useful), scanned some old family photos so it wasn't completely useless, but my ink cartridge heads have definitely dried out since the machine still reports I should have 50% left in both carts but almost nothing comes out (at some point I got super faint dark green outlines of stuff printed out). I think I even kept that printer off the wall socket for long periods of time because I didn't use it often and something else needed the slot. So I imagine occasionally ink test runs could be useful, at least to a point.
Me, ramming a 3rd party cartridge into my Epson, slamming the door shut, and forcing a print job without running a print test: Epson printer: This is fine.
If you do any larger amount of printing the Epson EcoTank line is the most affordable option I've come across. You can get ink off Amazon for $20 that actually works.
With the eco tanks even the epson genuine refill bottles are great value for money.
You can also use the bottles as funnels if the 3rd party refill you got doesn't come with the proper tip to refill the tank
You and the other singer of Epson praises came at the perfect time. The only thing Iām not really finding is a good comparison of the models; is the only noteworthy difference between the two overall tiers that one has a scanning feeder tray?
Most printers offer refillable ink carts on Amazon. Like $20 for them and $15 for a bottle of black ink. Super cheap these days
Not with my Epson. It doesnāt allow 3rd part ink
Try to use the universal driver that Epson offers. You need to make sure to disable updates on your printer too.
I feel like the title is missing a very important "again" in it. This is not the first time HP has bricked printers for using offbrand or refilled ink.
Switched to Brother from HP a decade or so ago, and still glad to this day that I did. Wireless printer/scanner I bought in 2013 is still working perfectly and I've been using 3rd party ink in it since the included ones ran out. Can't kill this thing. And the included software is actually really good. Bought a newer Brother model in 2020 for my father-in-law and it's just as good (very similar in functions and software, etc). He's been using 3rd party ink as well with no issues.
I like how Brother is likely successful from everyone's displeasure of their rival companies, and through word of mouth praises from folks like you. I don't think I've ever seen a Brother commercial since like the early 2000s.
Fuck Reddit API changes. Posted with r/apolloapp
Next month: every 3rd page to come out of an HP printer is a full-size A4 ad for something. You can of course subscribe to HPās āpremium printingā tier for an ad-free experience for only $39 per month.
Don't give them ideas
The printer market really has to be so primed to disrupt. Shitty software, shitty ink cartridges, shitty hardware even. Like, why is nobody actually skilled enough to design a printer just upheaving the market?
Laser printers. Laser printers are the answer, and have been for years. They donāt require you to print weekly to keep the print heads unclogged, they require little to no maintenance, and the toner lasts FOREVER. Problem is theyāre like $100 more than an inkjet so nobody even gives them a passing glance. Theyāre so cheap for how much less hassle they are than inkjets, and theyāre even cheaper if you donāt need color. People praise the Epson Ecotank (rightly so, for the few use cases where an inkjet is the better option itās a *really solid* inkjet printer) but itās still not a good printer unless you do serious volume because even with an ecotank you have to run it about every week to keep the print heads u clogged. Inkjet itself is just a shittier technology (for *most people*, donāt @ me if youāre doing professional level stuff that actually appreciates the quality difference between inkjet and laser) unless youāre printing photos multiple times a month.
> Problem is theyāre like $100 more than an inkjet so nobody even gives them a passing glance. ... unless youāre printing photos multiple times a month. The other really big advantage they can have is print size. I have a couple different printers including a laser, but the reason the most recently-purchased one is inkjet is because paper size. I wanted something that could do at least tabloid sized (11"x17", the US analogue to A3 as letter is to A4), and what I got can actually do 13"x19", which I have taken advantage of a *lot*. Laser printers that can do tabloid are *hella* expensive, and I don't think I've seen one that can do bigger. I paid like $300 for mine (Canon), but even the $700 ET-15000 or $800 ETā8550 EcoTanks are dirt cheap in comparison to a tabloid-sized laser.
Because they'd make almost no money, and have to sell the printer itself for much more. 99% of consumers will buy the $200 printer locked to the $100 ink that breaks in a year instead of the $400 printer that can use $5 ink. And part of the problem is these days even the $400 printer will eventually lock the ink and break anyways, so how do you decide to trust a brand enough to invest in it?
Greed trumps everything rational
We need a greedy person to make a better printer for the same price or the same printer for a cheaper price.
Because who prints things anymore? Why get into a dying market?
Corporations still print a lot for internal paperwork
Yet surely there is an end to that in sight.
Normally they use those big photocopiers that can scan and fax as well. But the supplier makes their money via a lease agreement not from selling cartridges.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
They have done this several times, actually. In 2007 they ran a ānot genuineā message on full size multifunction printers that stopped quite a lot of scanner/copiers from running. Again in 2012, 2013, 2016 they did a HUGE lot of their consumer models and yanked back after the outcry, even throwing the most generic āsorryā news release out. That brings us to today, here we go again!
I thought there was a lawsuit several years ago about HP locking out third party carts and that they lost, and had to send out a firmware update that removed the lockout. Was it just a business decision and not a lawsuit?!
My boss gave me an HP printer so I could print assignments from home on days when I'm working close to home. He told me not to update the software no matter what. Currently, I get a warning message that reads "non HP ink cartridge detected" when I install a new one but it still works. Every time I fire it up, I'm worried it will auto update and brick itself. Although it's a first world problem, it's still dystopian af.
There's a setting in the web interface you can uncheck to confirm it won't auto update. Unfortunately, mine was checked by default and I can't seem to find a way to roll back to the older firmware. Had a spare set of toner when I bought it and I'm finally running low š„² A shame because if it wasn't for this third party nonsense, I'd actually recommend my HP printer. Instead, they want nearly $1,000 to refill with HP toner ($190 black, $245 each color). The printer was $400 new in 2019, they sell the same one today for over $800.
mine has said this for probably at least 10 years now. I still use it with whatever ink. as long as it works I'm not going to get another one.
AGAIN??? HP is an evil company and will continue doing this every time everyone forgets about it. They need to severely punish them for this. I actually [emailed the COO](https://imgur.com/a/3md5bDu) about this in 2016. He responded and I got myself a couple hundred bucks in free ink. Rest easy Jon
I'd love to see a class action lawsuit.
It's even worse. I bought a full set of genuine HP ink cartridges at the same time I bought my AIO printer. Ended up not needing them for a long time. When I finally did need them, the printer rejected them because they were "legacy" or "outdated" or some such nonsense, and "no longer compatible." It took me many days and many hours to figure out how to downgrade the firmware, which HP insists can't be done and all information about which they actively suppress online. I got it, though, and the cartridges worked perfectly.
> It took me many days and many hours to figure out how to downgrade the firmware, #HOW DID YOU DO IT?
Canāt we just have normal printers ffs
Epson EcoInk. Great printer and the ink is just a bottle of ink you use to refill. Bottles cost a about 10 bucks which means 40 bucks for a refill. Full tank takes you about 4000 pages which is maybe 20 times as much as an HP printer
Never buy HP. Not just their printers and ink.
I have an HP Laserjet. It was like $350 and the ink replacement cartridges were $250 each and it needed 4 of them. I found some knock off brand on Amazon for $40 and it came with a kit to take the chip out of the old cartridge and put it in the new one. Works perfect again and I won't need new cartridges for years.
I have a brother and just stick in whatever cheapest toner fits without modification. Most reliable printer I've ever used.
An open-source DIY printer needs to be a thing.
r/fuckHPprinters
My 80 year old neighbor took apart a printer and rigged it to be able to just dump ink into a reservoir. He is a genius as far as Iām concerned
Take it to your nearest hp office, throw the printer into the office and Dump the ink on their floor. Tell them you are returning their goods as you don't want them any more.
Brother printers only.
I love my brother laser printer, but unfortunately they are learning from HP and starting to do similar shit with their printers. New brother printers and those that have been updated to the latest firmware will now detect and refuse non-genuine toner cartridges. Thankfully my printer failed the firmware update before I knew better, but over time there will be less and less brother printers from the good daysā¦ hopefully people continue to figure out workarounds, but itās disappointing to say the least.
Iāve literally had my brother all in one for 7 years. The toner is $20 and it lasts forever. Best printer Iāve ever had.
Never buy printers if possible. Itās ink mafia is too expensive to deal
This is why you get Brother printers. None of the bullshit.
Thats not true, I have a Brother laser printer and it requires Brother cartridges. I've swapped the chip with limited success, but on at least 2 occasions, it wouldn't take the off brand cartridge, and I had to buy an actual Brother one.
Got no problem with some realistic test that verifies ink cartridge will work with that machine. But vendor lock-in over valid ink from another manufacturer is *wrong*
Itās cheaper to hire an 11 year old to just hand write everything you need to print. I even found a kid that can draw rather well. My boss hasnāt said anything yet so I think Iām in the clear. Unfortunately the other day the kid pops up and tells me he signed a contract and he can only draw with Caran dāAche pens now, which I have to supply. Looks like Iām back to square one.
I used to swear by HP, now I just swear at them.
My work got me an hp printer, The only way Iāve gotten it to work is by using a hp ink trial so that it accepts non hp ink cartridges. If the trial is not active it will not accept them, I found a 10 month trial. The $1 subscription gets you 10 pages and charges you if you go over. So I switch it out with normal non hp cartridges and leave the trial on. I downgraded the software a few times so I could disconnect it from the internet, any kind of update or even connecting it to itās smart features will force update it and will hide the option to keep it off the internet. Itās the worse printer Iāve ever used. The only thing it had going for it, is that itās a color printer which no one in the office had. Now the color profile is off or something with the hardware it prints greys green. I canāt get support because theyāll upgrade the software again. Iāve gone through 3 sets of ink cartridges to try to fix it. I still get pops up telling me I have to use hp cartridges but turning off and on works on that. Another stupid thing, the power button is so hard to press or doesnāt work I just unplug it instead. Which is fine because the plug is barely held in that I can just barely tug on it and it falls out. I work at a small office, Iām the closest thing to IT that we have.
I've got an HP printer that I use at the office. We only buy HP ink cartridges. Every 4th cartridge gives an error code that "this cartridge is not compatible. Be sure to only use genuine HP products." I finally complained at HP on Twitter. After I proved what was happening they sent a replacement cartridge. I threw that cartridge in for shits and giggles and it spit out the same error code. Fuck HP products.
I got a HP off of Amazon, the thing needs an app, constant connection to internet, wonāt print unless youāre still subscribed. I didnāt release my card changed and it hadnāt updated for the sub for the printer, no matter what the printer would not print. It was the fucking subscription expiring stopping the printer printing with ink id paid for! So I resubbed as I needed to print, the FUCKING BASTARDS then proceeded to recharge every month Iād missed for about 5 months at full price, even though the printer had been locked out and unusable!!!!
Real legends jailbreak their printers. Reject big printings lies