HP tech here. Stay FAR away from any of their consumer-grade devices. They’re cheap, poorly built, and difficult for even HP techs to work on. Save your money and get something with better build quality.
Their business-class devices are okay, because most of those actually have decent build quality and are easily repaired. But stay away from their cheap devices, especially their printers (obviously).
Thanks for this, good to know. I’ve had nothing but problems with my HP and had many a day of wanting to schwing it out the window.
Any particular brand out there that’s still known for decent build quality? I feel wary of them all now.
I’ve had a Brother laser printer for years now, never given me any issues.
Brother printers are still very decent and most importantly, not DRM ridden.
I love mine… third party toner is dirt cheap and the wireless printing actually works without a cloud service! Just make sure you update the firmware because some models ship with a bug where it won’t print after it’s been idle for a while.
Get an older version of the HP printers if you like that brand. I’ve had Officejets 6900 and 7500 and 8500 series. Cartridges still widely available and the printers accept mortification for external tanks. I only have the 7500 now in the wide format and it’s still going strong. Easy to maintain too. I do have a laser printer as well which I only use for b/w printing. Have had experience with fixing other brands in the past and by far the Brother is the most user friendly I guess. Epsons are okay and easy to find parts for.
I saw some Epson or Canon printers with ink tanks.
If I buy any printer for a >30-40% humidity environment it will be one of those.
If it’s mostly dry it will be a toner/laser based.
I have two oki mc363’s (office and home).
Cost about $600, 6 years ago. Weighs about 30kg, must have a cast iron chassis or something.
Rock solid, great printer scanner in every way. Wouldn’t change a thing.
Hewlett-Packard is just an unhinged ad campaign for Brother.
I will never buy any HP product, just out of principle. Every single of their printers I’ve ever owned had broken down in elaborate ways no one understands, and what only makes it worse, is that the ink costs more than the actual hardware. Obviously it’s because they’re using only the most premium and exotic materials to make it.
What really nailed the coffin for the final time was my printer refusing to accept the black cartridge, claiming it was not a legitimate one, so it locked down the whole printer into some sort of self-repair loop that it never exited
I have never bought a new, consumer HP printer. Ancient business HP printers though, I have on several occasions. Those are pretty good actually, they work when you need them to, (third party) toners are plentiful, and they’re cheap. Much better value than a new one.
Swore off HP many years ago when my laptop began overheating in minutes. Opened it up, looked at the video card heatsink and duct and saw LIGHT in between. Ended up bending the duct ever so slightly and ground a pre1983 penny down to act as a heatsink and fill the gap. Yeah, a penny filled the gap. This after I owned a 1990s desktop where they cooled the processor by using a case fan and plastic ducts to remove the heat. No heatsink whatsoever. They will cut every corner they can.
When I need to sign something that isn’t DocuSign. Which, is more often than I’d like.
The first issue was buying a cheap printer.
The second issue was buying cheap HP printer.
Buy brother or do your research. If it says on some page “No USB only wireless” just don’t buy it ffs!
Brother is no longer allowing 3rd party ink and toner too so do your research there as well.
Or buy a printer that uses refillable ink, such as Epson Ecotank. No cartridges - no DRM.
Yes and no.
Allowed? Probably no 1st party vendor allows/wants it.
Can do? Yeah sure.
Will I get warranty for violating some kind of EULA (or some other equivalent) for using 3rd Party? Probably not.
As an IT helpdesk we usually just tell them to get 1st party as the toner is not that expensive for that volume and just eat it. At least they have warranty for the 11k of printed papers.
I’ve seen reviews saying that a firmware update stopped 3rd party ink/toner from working. Both myself and my mom have Brother printers that we love and have used for years. It’s disappointing and they’re great printers but I don’t want to pay a premium on toner/ink just because. But yeah, as @cerberus_cat said, refillable ink is good too if you need an ink jet printer but I don’t know why anyone would want ink over laser.
Fuck HP.
This post was brought to you by the Brother Laser Printer gang.
Bought a laser printer in early 2020 and am still on my first toner cartridge lol
Ok am I taking crazy pills? I bought into the laser printer hype from reddit and got a Brother. And it’s a good printer and all, but my toner runs out just as often as the inkjet did! And I don’t print a lot, like maybe a page per week on average. Am I doing something wrong?