We replaced our HP OfficeJet with a Brother this year. I don’t even know what we were thinking getting the HP 5 years ago or so, it was gross overkill for us. But of all the things it could do, it was most consistent with printing like shit and jamming paper. Part of the problem was that we just print too infrequently, but having to replace overpriced cartridges from HP didn’t help. You also have to install apps for wireless printing (or if there’s a workaround we didn’t bother with it).
The Brother is a color laser printer and it’s perfect for us. No apps needed, super quiet and hassle-free (there have been no paper jams or transmission errors), and the print quality is crisp as hell.
The downside is that if it’s a brand new one, it may take a while to become useful.
Also get a laser printer. They cost more but are much better suited to infrequent use, with an ink jet the ink will dry out if you don’t use it, a laser printer can be left alone for ling periods. A black and white laser printer is about as expensive as a colour ink jet. I really like my brother b&w laserprinter.
We’re in the “dropping the act” phase of capitalism.
This is just standard monopoly-speak these days.
ink
I don’t know how many people print a great deal any more.
Also, many years back, at a time when I printed more, I switched to a black-and-white laser printer when I realized that I only ever printed black-and-white documents, and the consumables cost was significantly lower. They don’t clog up the way inkjets do, and the toner cartridges last for ages. And color lasers are pretty cheap these days too. They won’t print photos as prettily as inkjets will, but they’ll get the job done for most documents.
If you’re printing photos, okay, get yourself an inkjet, but I suspect that for most people, a laser printer is fine.
One quirk: laser printers do tend to briefly draw a lot of power when they first come on, which inkjets do not. If you’re running it on some kind of inverter, that might matter to you.
If you’re printing photos you can use a photo service.
Unless they’re those kind of photos
In the U.K. you can basically just nip into your local chemist and use their printer for like £0.50,
I wouldn’t have even thought to consider the possibility that my local meth cook would have a better photo printer then the local pharamcy, but i’ll stop by later and ask him. Well, as long as he’s taken down the tinfoil from the windows. If the foils up, then it’s a pretty safe bet he’s been up for at least 3 days straight.
Thanks for the tip!
Ages ago when I was in college, I had a little Brother laser printer. It was more than enough, as I was only printing B&W documents. It was wireless and you could easily get a few thousand pages per toner cartridge. Hell it even did duplex via a special duplex tray on the front. I loved that little thing, and eventually gave it away when I graduated as I basically stopped using it. If I ever find myself in a situation where I need to buy a printer, Brother is the only brand on my list.
Also, the lights would flicker whenever I fired it up, lol! that baby drew a lot of power.
Jokes on you buddy, I’ve ditched my HP printers because of this nonsense. They literally locked me out of a printer all of a sudden after an update, deciding my cartridge bought from HP was no longer valid. Not to mention, just sitting there the inks use themselves up, I’m guessing just drying out from crappy design.
I looked into upgrading the ancient HP LaserJet 1200 in our home office because it is 20+ years old and slow to print some black and white documents with embedded graphics. This printer is due for it’s 3rd or 4th toner cartridge.
I briefly thought moving from this network-attached printer (via USB-A to Airport Express) to a newer AirPrint compatible HP laser printer might be nice. Read about the HP printer issues (ink drm, ink subscriptions, reliability problems, etc) and decided another third-party toner cartridge for the LJ 1200 was the right choice. Glad to wait for this old HP to print our few hundred pages per year, considering the alternative! :)
Thanks to everyone for sharing their Brother recommendations. Will look into a light-duty BW laser printer from Brother if the LJ 1200 ever gives up the ghost.
