I'm looking to print way less that 100 sheets/yr, we are talking shipping labels here, nothing serious.
i’ve had one for 7 years, and replaced the toner exactly once.
I think the only pain point was the toner was almost as expensive as the original printer + toner. Go figure.
But they're good, reliable machines for sure. And affordable.
Newer models track the number of printed pages and nag to replace the toner. You can instead reset the page counter and continue printing. Exact steps vary by model but easily found online.
If some reads this and is worried about it, just search reviews for the model number and Linux.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/RKX2S5U90HT01?ref...
edit: then again, it was only a $200 color laser printer.
I think "base model _monochrome_ Brother printer" is a safer guideline
Right now, Newegg is selling a new HL-L5100DN for $180 with free shipping. It should last for five to ten years of low-volume printing.
After that, we damaged it again when moving it around the house and even more parts fell out. Quality fell after that but its still kicking.
I bought another Brother this week to finally replace it. Like others in this thread, we never ran out of toner.
/something fell off? Welp, still moving forward, so we're all good!
In 2014 (if I'm remembering right...) I bought a DCP-7065DN (B/W all-in-one with wired Ethernet).
I don't print much (sometimes go months without). By volume, the lion's share of my printing is documents I need to copyedit/proof, followed by random receipts, tickets, shipping labels, etc--so I was hoping to optimize for cost and reliability. I make the same tradeoff wrt to using a local or online print service for anything that needs to be high-quality or color.
I didn't have to replace the undersized starter toner cartridge included until earlier this year. I haven't had any trouble with it so far (aside from having to occasionally prod it to keep printing until quality actually fell off a cliff at the end of the first toner cartridge.)
For example, I have an MFC-L2710DW (not what you would get for rare printing I suppose), and the official driver is always acting up: Delays of minutes (!) before starting to print, or simply not printing at all for some odd reason, but then obliging me if I power-cycle the printer. Maybe.
So, these printers may be fine, but check driver availability and user feedback about it first, if you're not on Windows.
I've used three different Brother laser printers with two different computers, over a couple of years on Ubuntu, and haven't had any delays like that.
I have a DCP-L2540DW that is awesome (and has a flatbed scanner with feeder).
HP makes some interesting compact laser printers these days that could easily be stored away while you're not using them -- something like the HP LaserJet Pro M15w might be nice for infrequent use.
I agree. I bought a Epson ET-2750 EcoTank InkJet to replace a really old Brother laser printer and regret it. Text and even graphics (to look at UI designs, etc.) from a laser printer are so much better.
> Dynamic security enabled printer. Only intended to be used with cartridges using an HP original chip. Cartridges using a non-HP chip may not work, and those that work today may not work in the future.
DRMed toner cartridges with OTA "security" improvements? That sounds like a major anti-feature.
We have 25 printers just decide that they would no longer work with the toner they had been using for 3 months.
But, most of them don’t clean while in standby, and none of them clean themselves when unpowered. That’s the problem with infrequent use.
Lasers aren’t >$1,000 anymore, where it only makes economical sense for those who print in high volumes. There are a TON of laser printers under $100.
No lie, the last laser printer I purchased was actually $24.99, brand new.
Only issues I have had with this model are the auto feed on the scanner stopped working, and when it did work the scans came out a little skewed.
If you're only doing shipping labels, you might want to consider a label printer. I got a Brother thermal label printer (QL-700) for well under $100, and there are third party label makers that sell spools of labels. The great thing about it is that the output looks great and the only consumables are the labels. No ink or toner to worry about.
There's also a slightly more expensive model that can do black and red (labels cost more too).
Their “Affordable and reliable” printer pick is the Brother HL-L2350DW for ~$100 on Amazon [1]. I have a similar model, the HL-L2340DW, for the same reason you’re looking for.
They also mostly just meta-analysis rather than doing their own. Their biggest source is Consumer Reports, who don't make their money from advertisers. Much better to go straight to the source: https://www.consumerreports.org/printers/best-laser-printers...
Subscription required, but that's the point -- no conflict of interest.
For those who don't want to subscribe, here are the Consumer Reports recommendations:
Best for work: Brother MFC-L2710DW
Best for price: Brother HL-L5200DW
Best for presentations: Canon imageCLASS MF642Cdw
But the articles are well-written and have saved me considerable time. They’ve done much of the work of comprising shopping for the reader. I have no qualms buying through their links when the linked product is the right balance of reliable and economical.
In fact I looked at that post on printers and specifically their budget Brother laser printer pick [0] but the 1-star reviews were concerning which actually led me to ask here on HN.
When I need it, it works (assuming paper is loaded). A toner cartridge lasts forever. I've maybe changed cartridges a couple of times in the past 20 years.
The only upgrades I did to the printer was maxing out it's memory (to 8 meg) and putting in the Postscript SIMM. I also have it hooked up via a USB to parallel port cable. There are ways to get it connected to the network, but I've never done it since it gets used so rarely and only by myself usually.
It isn't fast - it won't win no prizes there. But when I need it, it works. That is all that matters to me.
I have used the Lob.com API to print something, have it mailed to me, and then used. Inefficient and slow, but it is my reality.
If I'm desperate, I go to the public library.
Drivers are easy, works on good ol' USB, and a single $20 toner cartridge will last you a decade.
I got a HP 1102w for this about 6 or 7 years ago and it's never failed. By getting laser, you can avoid the clogged print heads issues and other issues inkjets have with infrequent use.
Typically printers will expose more security settings via SNMPv3 and you should take advantage of these (absolutely amazing learning opportunity for up and coming sysadmins/cloud engineers too).
I think HP is highly underrated for their printer security currently. Yes, it’s probably hackable in 5 mins like everything else in that space, but it has signed firmware! And they are the first printer company to be participating in a big bounty saas platform! Good things all around.
Also go with a monochrome black and white printer laser toner to really get costs down. You don’t need color as much as is thought...
I believe there's only two companies making laser printers now (HP and Brother?), so there isn't really much choice. As others say you might be better off getting something on eBay.
Whatever you get check the prices of new toners (third party are fine; refilling yourself isn't worth the effort/mess) first as some are going to be the same price as the printer.
Oh no, not at all: Samsung, OKI, Epson, Canon, Xerox, Kyocera and maybe others all have multiple models of B&W laser printers.
Which may become HP soon.
1. Send your print, 2. Get a code, 3. Go to a partner like Staples, 4. Pick up your print
The Staples rep said the document is encrypted & no human ever sees it. I don’t know if that’s true. Haven’t tried it yet, but plan to. Maybe someone else on HN already has?
Edit: This sounds cool because it’s not tied to any one store. So you always print to the same “place” and pickup anywhere. We have a “roaming print” setup like this where I work and it’s super convenient.
https://www.amazon.com/Zebra-Receipts-Barcodes-Parallel-Conn...
It checks your boxes:
- It'll do great with infrequent use
- There's no ink involved, so you don't have to worry about that
1000 4×6 labels (i.e. the kind you'd want to use for shipping) would net you less than $40: https://www.amazon.com/OfficeSmartLabels-ZE1400600-Thermal-S...
Direct thermal printers like the GK420d linked above do have a limited lifetime on the thermal head, but with infrequent use you're highly unlikely to hit that limit (it's more a problem for full-time shipping operations printing labels all day every day).
On that note, I would also recommend you not use a laser printer to print shipping labels unless that printer is specifically designed to handle labels. Nothing sucks more than having to clean up after a printer that bent the label sheet too tightly and ended up peeling the labels off into all sorts of crevices.
This year I replaced it with another Brother Laser, and in between then and now, I've only had to buy a toner cartridge about once every 3 years or so.
Zero other issues. Worth every penny.
At home I have a cheap Samsung M2820DW (duplex as well).
Both Brother and Samsung seem to have good Linux support.
> I'm looking to print way less that 100 sheets/yr, we are talking shipping labels here, nothing serious.
Contrary to most of the posts on here you can buy an inkjet, just make sure you meet three criteria:
1. Make sure print heads are on the cartridge not in the printer. So if they clog and cannot be unclogged through cleaning you just replace the print head.
2. Leave it plugged in and switched on. It will do a mini clean every so often to keep the print heads clear.
3. Make sure you can buy cheap compatible cartridges, that can be recycled. Then it doesn't matter that you waste some ink through cleaning cycles, or the occasional clogged cartridge.
I have an A3 Brother multifunctional inkjet and whilst it is far from the best print quality or usability compared to others I have owned, it has lasted years.
This is not always an option.
Some companies have DRM on their cartridges. My dad's Epson printer's DRM wasn't strictly enforced until a recent firmware update rendered third party cartridges useless. I had to find a way to downgrade the firmware (which wasn't easy, because Epson took down all their old downloads) before compatible cartridges would be recognized again.
Unfortunately, it's not wireless and I didn't want to run a network cable just for that. So I bought a Raspberry Pi Zero W, connected it to the printer via a USB cable, installed cups and some other packages and now I can print wirelessly from either desktop or mobile.
The printer has been very reliable.
(Meanwhile at work, the other teams bought huge, complex beasts with lots of features and they are regularly down, offline, broken etc. I think they are on the fourth or fifth iteration of fancy printers).
Laserjet, simple, postscript, low price.
¹: ...well, had. My grandpa's using them now (one in use, and the other for spare parts), since he needed a reliable printer for his book sales.
The Goodwill stores in my area offer a 7 day return period for electronics. I imagine I'll get this for $10-30 and support the community when I make the purchase.
If this doesn't work out for me, I might break down and buy something new.
* Laser printers are reasonably reliable for occasional printing. But my more recent experience is that they are getting "ink-jet" like planned obsolescence/built-in failure modes because otherwise they're not very profitable. Other's have mentioned Brother, and I had great experience with cheap Brother printers back in the early 00's. Even their inkjets. The last $80 Brother I bought started producing crap after about a year of light use (I had a Brother laser-fax that went five years of moderate use).
+ Inkjets are reliable if you use them all the time. They have amazing color. They're cheap to run if you're willing to refill cartridges. The two go hand in hand, the low cost from refilling cartridges ends aversion to printing. The commitment to printing all the time justifies the overhead of learning to refill cartridges efficiently. Refilling cartridges efficiently makes printing all the time no big deal. Refilling all eight cartridges of my photo printer takes about twenty minutes now. Less time than going to the store and buying a replacement.
+ If you can live with only printing 4"x6" a Canon Selphy 1300 is an option for ~$100. It uses dye-sublimation and 108 sheets of media can be bought for ~$30. Not exactly cheap, but the process is reliable because the rate of consumption is fixed. Each print uses the same amount of "ink", the "ink" is stable, and the whole process is predictable. 4x6 will work for a shipping label if that's all you do.
We got ours at Costco for <$200 IIRC (base model monochrome Brother with WiFi), and it has worked well and we're still on the toner it came with. That's about the cost of an ink printer with one or two cartridge refills, so I feel like it's already paid for itself.
Also bought a HP Envy 5020 for £40 for scanning and label printing, printed over a hundred pages (just text) on the starter cartridges, worked a charm. Gifted it to a friend when I moved as I had no space. Quality wise, same as the Canon.
But really, any machine will do. HP/Epson/Canon always have everything from cheap to expensive. Check driver compatibility, they're weird nowadays.
Inkjets are especially bad. they print heads used to be in the cartridge, so thay got changed regularly; now they're fixed and the cartridge is only ink, and little-used printers get clogged printheads. I've enquired repeatedly about old-school inkjets with whole-assembly cartridges, no luck.
If you really want your own printer, your only option is Laser.
This holds up to a certain point - and that point is when you want large, gallery quality prints on decent paper. I compared the cost of these types of prints from a print shop with the cost of doing it myself and there's very little in it, such that the convenience and control offered by owning your own printer can swing it.
It's worth pointing out that what tipped the balance for me is the quality that it's possible to get from a home inkjet these days. I have an Epson XP-960 (other printers are available!) and the results when printing a good image are truly staggering - colour, detail etc. blow me away. And I'm not even a particularly good photographer! Although it seems surprising, it's not significantly cheaper to get this quality of print from a print shop.
HP Ink Tank. What does HN crowd think about these printers and what feedback can provide? Is it cheaper than regular Ink printers?
https://store.hp.com/in-en/default/hp-ink-tank-wireless-415-...
(If someone knows how to switch HP store location to show USD, welcome to paste link/price here)
I goes to sleep a bit too often and doesn't wake up but otherwise it is low maintenance and the cartridges last forever.
So now I try something similar but not that strict. Also I like about inkjet that it can print photos etc.
The MFDs are cheap, the carts are expensive, but it fits your usage requirements (which were similar to mine, at the time).
Just works. We print a couple of times a month and the Instant Ink is fee < 10 pages per month.
Not what you want if you're printing photos, but if you just need to print a few sheets of black and white every now and then, this is the printer to go for. Zero maintenance, low costs, lasts a long time.
I still have an HL-5250dn bought new with the original "sample-sized" toner cartridge installed.
It's about 13 years old, at this point. I paid something like $75 for it.
Many others named Brother, but afaik their gnu/linux support is not on-par with HP.