“Also this strikes me as a very lazy reviewer. Which makes him profoundly qualified to review printers”
😂
I bought two printers in the last 2 decades. One looked like the model in the article, which I gave to a family member. The other one is a Brother Laser printer with a scanner.
I’d rather get a 50 pack of markers and start coloring in my printouts than buy a crappy inkjet printer. Plus it’s bonding time with my nieces and nephews. I pay them in cookies.
Or you can just go to your local library or office supply store and print in color. My library is $0.25 for color prints, $0.10 for B&W. B&W is almost always good enough (we mostly print coloring pages, word searches, and stuff like that), and the quality of the prints are way better than any inkjet I’ve seen.
I also have a B&W Brother printer, and I finally needed to replace the toner after almost 10 years. I bought it when doing a ton of government paperwork, and then random printouts for a weekly community volunteer project. I got something like 3k prints. My new toner cartridge should do 25-30k prints, so I’ll probably never need to replace it. It’s a multi-function device, and I used the scanner a ton during COVID at-home schooling, and I’ve never really had an issue with it (I’ve printed from Windows, macOS, and Linux, all w/o issues).
We also have a small, portable photo printer that my wife can use from her phone, which is really handy for family get-togethers. We can go from “I’d like a print” to “here you go” in like 2 min, and it’s small enough to take in the car with us.
Google’s LLM got one critical fact wrong, of course. If you only need occasional color printing, an inkjet is still the wrong answer. The right answer is probably just to have Staples or your local print shop print for you, honestly. The ink dries out in disused inkjet machines and that’ll cause you no end of headaches. Or force you to buy a set of expensive cartridges just to print one damn page, because the last thing you printed was three months ago.
Color laser printers aren’t even that expensive anymore. Sure, a set of color toner cartridges may cost well north of what a set of inkjet cartridges would run you, but the difference is that the laser toner will probably last many home users a lifetime.
They came up with a “solution” for the drying problem. You need to keep the printer on forever so it doesn’t let it dry.
I wish that would work. My Epson was always on and the ink kept drying. After it clogged the print head once too many times and I could not fix that in less than 10min, I just gave up on the piece of crap. I now go to a print shop to print what I need which, admittedly, nowadays is just a couple of times a year.
It’s also worth checking your local library which might offer some basic printing services. Could work out cheaper
Definitely look at the library. Mine allows me 20 free pages of B&W, or 10 pages of colour per month. After that it’s $0.10 for B&W and $0.20 for colour. Pretty hard to justify actually buying a printer to myself at this point. Definitely not as convenient as having a unit at home, though.
Yup, ours is $0.10 for B&W, and $0.25 for color. Computers are free (if you have a library card, which is free), and the staff is available to help you with whatever you need. I’m guessing they’d let you print for free if you really couldn’t afford it.
So your typical school essay would be $1 or so.
Also, nothing the Google llm said was in any way specific to brother. I’m wondering if that’s by design and they made it brand-agnostic to appease advertisers.
I’ve never needed photos urgently, so I’m glad to just have a professional printing company print the photos for me using high quality photo paper and printing equipment. It’s going to beat the quality of a regular consumer inkjet any day of the week.
If you only want 6x4 photos a dye sub printer like a canon selphy isn’t a bad option, it’s what I use. Kinda expensive per print but quick and the ribbons don’t dry out.
At this point, 4x6 prints at my nearest Walgreens are like fifteen cents a pop with a random coupon code and are ready within the hour. I imagine a dozen other chains are comparable.
Apparently, Costco stopped offering photo services, so Walgreens is probably your best option.
I’ll take it one step further: if you don’t print much at all, you should use a print service.
Yes, I bought a Brother because of convenience. Just realize that you’re going to spend a lot more money for that convenience.
Hey, I own that printer! It’s a good printer.
Remember kids, always buy laser, never inkjet.
Anyone have a recommendation for a small color laser printer? Like shoebox size.
My place is pretty small, and I don’t have much desk or shelf space. It doesn’t make sense for me to waste desk space on something that I use 1-3 times a year.
I’ve been using one of these tiny HPs. The ink is a fucking racket, and I’d love a laser alternative. This size is great. I can fold the trays and throw it in a drawer. It’s only 16 x 5.5 x 7in.
If you only need it 1-3 times/year, why not just go to your local library? In my area, it’s $0.10 for B&W, $0.25 for color, and I can get some books to read at the same time (I go almost weekly).
Convenience. I can’t print when the library is closed, I need to travel over there, if need to print another revision, I need to travel back.
Ideally like the convenience, but I don’t want to deal with HPs shitty ink sponges that instantly dry out. I’d like something that lasts.
Well, I guess you need to decide what the convenience is worth. An ink cartridge dries out in 2-3 years and toner can last a decade or more (I honestly don’t know, ours finally ran out after 8-ish).
Laser printers aren’t that big, mine (B&W with scanner) is about a piece of paper and a half in all directions. I got it for $150 or so on a sale from Costco (currently listed for $250), and it like like the color version is a little taller but similar footprint (but also more expensive at just $390). Official dimensions of the Brother color laser printer (MFC-L3765CDW): 16.1 in. x 17.5 in. x 15.8 in.
I personally know need B&W, and if I needed color, I’d just go to the library since I go almost every week anyway.
Yup. I’m just wondering if something like the tiny ink jets exists for laser printing. I could get a slightly bigger printer, but if I can get a similar size or smaller, I would prefer that.
Looks like I just found one. The HP LaserJet Pro M15w is about the same form factor as my inkjet. Problem is that is BW only, and an HP.
HP commercial units are fine. It’s their consumer line to avoid.
I don’t think you’ll find a color laser printer that size. They use pretty large drums to hold the toner. It’d be hard to even find a mono laser printer in that size.
They use comparatively tiny drums these days, but they inherently need four of them all in a row, one each for cyan, magenta, yellow, and black. That usually makes even the smaller ones quite deep, front to back, in my experience.
I also have that printer. I have to read so many papers for school right now and that thing is a life saver. Is it weird to have feelings for a printer?
Yup, I’ve had a previous model (HL-2170W) since like 2006. The nic is dying now, but the printer works fine.
Brother printers are the only brand anyone should buy.
Same, and the only maintenance I’ve ever needed for mine is putting paper in it
The wired Nic on mine is dead, WiFi only now. one time modeled and 3d printed a part to fix the feeder. I will keep this fucker running forever.
Hey, I had to change the toner in mine!.. once… after like a decade.
Bought one used several years ago used for $75 and it’s still on the used starter toner.
I’d agree with the exception of artists who sell their printed work (ex: photographers, graphic designers). They’re not only making money from their prints but also printing in color frequently enough that the cartridge doesn’t dry out.
All the photographers I know have a deal with a local professional printing service. It’s not just the higher printing quality, the service can also do bound albums, hard covers and other stuff that’s impossible on a home printer.
We have three of them at my office. I am certain we exceed the duty cycle they were designed for by several times. The one at the front desk has been bitching about needing an imaging drum replacement for I think three years at this point, and it still prints just fine. I’ll put a new drum in it when the existing one stops working.
I don’t own a printer because it’s 2024 and the only good reason to own a printer is photo/art prints at a scale where outsourcing it isn’t economical.
I’m aware other reasons exist, but they’re bad reasons that mostly boil down to someone being bad at computers.
the only good reason to own a printer is photo/art prints
… how do you read your emails without a printer?
I have my butler read them to me.
I use it a lot for construction. Printed job specs are much easier / faster to deal with than a computer on a job site. You can staple them to a wall, quickly draw on them, use them when your hands are filthy, have multiple large copies floating around, etc. Paper is usually just a better solution for that environment.
Take a look at a Canon PIXMA TR150.
There are plenty of other brands that make this same style, this was just the first I found.
Now if only they had a small portable printer like that that did 11x17
Reading blueprints off 8x11 is damn near impossible unless you blow them up
That’s an environment I hadn’t really thought about. I concede the point.
Nah, there are definitely cases where you need to print stuff on paper, and need said paper fast enough to warrant a printer. If I use my company credit card for expenses I need to account for that, and for legal reasons I need to send that to our accountant in printed form. I can’t legally mail it to him.
Now I could obviously take 30 minutes and print it at the library, but those 30 minutes would add up fairly fast, making a printer the more accessible and economical option.
I need to send that to our accountant in printed form. I can’t legally mail it to him.
This is exactly the sort of thing I meant by “someone being bad at computers”. That someone might be a government regulator in this case.
Ah, I see. It sounded more like “someone doesn’t know how to just mail something.”
Are you going to pay for all the systems and processes that need to change to get away from the paper trail?
Now I could obviously take 30 minutes and print it at the library, but those 30 minutes would add up fairly fast, making a printer the more accessible and economical option.
Privacy is also an issue. There might be reasons why you don’t want to have something printed out at the library/local print shop, like if it’s tax documents, and someone hitting “repeat job” could just have it spit out personal info.
Oh yeah that’s a fantastic point I’d failed to even consider. I don’t really care if my credit card bills end up cached somewhere at the library, like, what are they going to do with it? Pay it?
If I on the other hand dealt with personal identifiable data, that could be hugely problematic. I can see the need for e.g. a lawyer having to print case files and assemble documents physically. In such a scenario, printing it at a library, or at a third party company might not be a great idea.
If you for some reaosn also want your nudes (or I suppose, erotic artwork) in print, I can see how you might not want to have that done by a company. I don’t think I’d personally care, but maybe the person dealing with it at the company shouldn’t have to see that sort of thing.
I’m buying my 3rd brother printer today, I got rid of my first when consolidating households even though it was working fine and only needed new toner once in 10 years. Recently I convinced my MIL to ditch HP but she insists we need a color printer so I’m picking up a second hand mfc-9340cdw to finally break free of instant ink. I look forward to not thinking about printers for another 10+ years.
Just get a 3d printer and put it in 2d print mode as needed so you aren’t gunking up your home and network with so many devices.
Is this actually a thing?
Kinda, you can 3d print a pen holder for a 2d printer.
I just use the printer at work.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
It’s been over a year since I last told you to just buy a Brother laser printer, and that article has fallen down the list of Google search results because I haven’t spent my time loading it up with fake updates every so often to gain the attention of the Google search robot.
Pointing out that incentive structure and the culture that’s developed around it seems to make a lot of people mad, which is also interesting!
Both of them have reliably printed return labels and random forms and pictures for my kid to color for years now, and I have never purchased replacement toner for either one.
Neither has fallen off the WiFi or insisted I sign up for an ink-related hostage situation or required me to consider the ongoing schemes of HP executives who seem determined to make people hate a legendary brand with straightforward cash grabs and weird DRM ideas.
Don’t feel compelled to do it; my only ask is that you make this article go viral by sharing it in faux-outrage that the EIC of The Verge has published an article partially generated by AI, because after the buttons I am going to include a bunch of AI-generated copy from Google’s Gemini in order to pad this thing out.
Brother laser printers are strong contenders, especially for black and white printing needs, but weigh the pros and cons against other options like inkjets before deciding.
The original article contains 428 words, the summary contains 239 words. Saved 44%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
From the title and picture, I thought this was some weird diss on the depicted Brother laser printer and stopped by to defend it. Fortunately it is, instead, tauting the superiority of Brother laser printers.
I own the depicted printer, or one very close to it, and it is a workhorse. Brother laser printers are the way.
After being an idiot for 15 years, and repurchasing inkjet printers with their insanely expensive inks and guaranteed to dry out, gunk up, and quit working, I went ahead and bought a Pantum laser from Amazon, it came with a full cartridge good for 1600 B&W prints, and there was a special on for another 1600 B&W cartridge for free, the whole thing printer, two cartridges $99 bucks out the door. Steal. Works like a charm. I have, and have had, no real reason to print in color, I’m not handing out presentations, and mostly the only things I actually print are Amazon return labels sometimes, but whenever I’ve needed to print I no longer worry about the print head clogging up, and it’s like freedom from bondage.
Glad to see the perfect Brother laser printer + Linux combo getting a well deserved press attention, again like in 2023 :)
I like that the AI generated “cons” of the brother printer are just gripes about laser printers in general.
I can print at my workplace, and there is a library 5 minutes walking distance from my apartment. These huge commercial printing machines are so much better than anything you can buy for your home, and I don’t have to maintain them. I’m very grateful I don’t have to own a printer.
Sorry, the printer of the year is still the 2008 HP 4730mfp. Still going strong 16 years later!
Until HP figures out how to brick it remotely when your credit card expires.
Literally just a bunch of HP goons throwing bricks through windows.
"Introducing HP brick protection program, for a low cost subscription of <whatever we feel like at the time> we will make sure you or your printer aren’t hit with bricks through windows*, you would want that happen would you?
*only specialty HP branded bricks are covered"
Maybe I’m in the minority, but I like my EcoTank. I got it cause we print a decent amount of pictures and laser can’t do even passing quality photos. Having no cartridges to worry about is much less of a hassle than it used to be.
That said, laser is fine for most people.
Epson Ecotank is definitely the least bad option of the non laser printers. Mine still clogs more than I like but it’s the first inkjet I’ve been able to live with. And that’s including the canon ink tank which clogged weekly.
