Greentings As youve seen from the the title, i want to get a new printer as a present for my parents. Sadly they are still windows peasants and my mom somehow thinks that the HP printer on her desk has been a good financial investment, even though it has costed us more than 300 bucks in ink over the past 2 years.
I was hoping that you fine folks would have some good recommendations to replace this money leach on their home. Ive heard about the entire brother lazer meme going around, but the ones ive seen from them only do monochrome. And frankly speaking i dont think that my birth specimens can comprehend the greatness of 18 century film on their paper. Anyways have a nice day or night, internet strangers!
I have an Epson eco-tank ET-2850
Running it on archlinux, over wifi.
It took a couple of hours to set it up by trying out different packages, but ultimately both printing and scanning work.
And I like the fact that it doesn’t use cartridges, you can fill it up with some cheap chinese liter bottles of printer ink.
If you get a laser printer, put it in a well ventilated area. They emit particles that are considered harmfull with frequent exposure, but are probably completely harmless in a home setting with a properly ventilated room.
i’ll add a kyocera ecosys m5526cdw (laser color with scanner,…) to the list. i don’t know what the currently version of this model is but it didn’t let me down once in the last 5? years. works on Linux, Windows, Android without a problem, the Image quality is ok and the toner costs are really low.
oh i think they had one of these set up our library, but that is one hell of a price lol. what are the chances of me finding one on ebay you recon?
Brother does sell laser printers but they cost a good bit more. What media do they actually print? That would help a lot in trying to give advice.
Had to get a new one recently too. I’ve had good experiences w/ Brother in the past too, but couldn’t find one that quite fit the bill. Needed color and for it to be able to handle cardstock.
Ended up getting an Epson, one that’s in the eco tank line. Has been great so far. Works just fine out of the box on Linux (LTS Ubuntu, anyway)
I recommend bottle printers. Except if they don’t print every few weeks, tubes could dry up then.
Approaching this from a different angle: if your mother still thinks the printer they have was a good purchase, will they appreciate you giving them a different one and insisting it’s better? Sure, an HP printer is a big waste, but an even bigger waste is giving them a better printer only for them to continue using the HP. IMO you should make sure they are on board before getting them another one, even if their current one is a cancer on society.
Everyone here is suggesting laser and it’s great for sure, but personally I’m still using inkjet (Brother MFC-J491DW), and it works fine for my needs. The main reason being it’s a cheap way to get color, plus it doesn’t occupy much space, in spite of offering scanning as well as an ADF. If you want to get an equivalent laser printer, you’re looking at expensive and bulky options. I haven’t so far come across any reasonably priced, compact AIO laser color MFPs (if there is one - let me know!).
I’ve been using this inkjet for ~4 years and never had any issues. The ink has never once dried out, in spite of printing only like 2-3 times an year. So I’m happy to recommed that, or maybe a newer model in that series.
Ink is also supposedly more environmentally friendly than toner.
is it? i thought toner would be better since it holds a hella lot more ink. i might just be biased since the only toner cartridge ive seen in my life is just massive while the only ink cartridges ive seen are from HP… yeah i might be biased.
Toner is tiny plastic particles, but ink can be made of various biodegradable dies and ink cartridges can be more easily refilled. Toner tends to be more economical than ink, but for the same reason that it is less environmentally friendly: Plastic particles don’t dry up or biodegrade. Additionally, toner cartridges print more pages before needing to be replaced.
The Brother laser meme is real. They also make color ones, I have one myself.
i cant take the name seriously lol. i always imagine some warhammer 40k shit with like “Brother get the laser. No, not the printer, the weapon, brother”
Another vote being cast here for a both Brother and laser. The nice thing about laser is that you can go without printing for weeks, or even, months, and just pick up right where you left off. My old ink jets, if you left them that long, would have completely dried out and need to be replaced.
I’ve got a Canon TS642A that’s serving us well here. My Brother was giving me problems, mostly in wireless connectivity so we replaced it with this, which was I think the second cheapest Canon we could find, and we’ve only replaced the cartridges I think once in the last year, though we don’t use it all that much. On Linux, I don’t think it even needs drivers, its… Postscript I think? Setting up the wireless was a bit tricky, but once up and running, it’s been rock solid.
itll mostly just be hooked up to one desktop tower, so connectivity wont be too much of an issue, altough 66 bucks for it is quite the attractive price. but it does make me a bit suspicious if they are doing the same trick as HP. selling printers for almost really low and ink stupidly high. the no drivers thing is incredibly nice tough.
We have the Brother HL-L3230CDW and are happy with it. Works fine with inexpensive toner cartridges from Amazon.
I don’t know what they sell these days but I’ve had a couple of Samsung mono lasers that were cheap ($150ish) and lasted decades of infrequent use.
samsung sold their printer business to hp in 2017.
I bought a Samsung mono laser and printed approximately 400 pages on it before the fusor broke and would cost more than the entire printer did to replace.
I was past the 6-month warranty as well so I chucked it and bought a $10 Brother MFC-7860dw monoprinter from the thrift store that printed in the store.
It turned out that it would jam like the grateful Dead if it printed more than one page though.
Apparently that is a common issue with them and inside of the printer there is a small cork pad that gets twisted down and hits every time it picks up a new sheet of paper and the cork had gotten sticky somehow.
The fix for this incredibly complicated and delicate procedure is to open one side of the printer and take a piece of Scotch tape and cover over that tiny cork pad.
I did that 7 years ago and it still prints perfectly today.
Brother laser is indeed the way to go for black and white printing. Else have a look at Epson.
p.s.
HP = evilavoid HP if you can.I have an Epson ET-3830, took a bit of digging to find the right drivers and get them working on Bazzite, but since then it’s been great!
Did I read that right? What are you printing from your steam deck?
I’m running Bazzite on my desktop lol, but there’s no reason why you couldn’t print stuff from your Steam Deck!
This is the way. My Brother laserjet is 15 years old and still kicking!
The one time a year you need to print photos, go to a FedEx Office or CVS.
ill have a look at the epson offerings, since its mostly just color printing they need. For black and white they still have an inkjet 2000 hooked up to a XP machine in the basement. that thing will probably outlive me. thanks a bunch mate!
I have a Brother color laser printer and it’s great. Just as reliable as my B&W Brother laser printer. I don’t use it to print photographs, though - I assume your recommendation is more for people who need photo quality color?
HP = Has Problems
😂
The best printer to have in your house is not having a printer in your house.
If she has to have one, try and talk her into getting a Brother.
If she insists on getting an HP, try to avoid the subscription ones. If she’s only printing, use the HP Universal Print driver and just use the base driver. (Device manager > find the printer > update driver > browse for the driver > Have disk > Find the INF > yada yada)
If she likes shitty bloated software, I guess let her install the normal drivers but it’s going to suuuuuuck. Wifi printing from them also sucks, unless you enjoy constant tech support. Then being on the phone trying to resolve a wifi issue.
Anyway, fuck a printer.
