Is there any Printer that isn't broken and unfixable in less than a decade? | Hacker News Reader

Is there any Printer that isn't broken and unfixable in less than a decade?

2 pointsthiago_fm5 comments

Hey there, I live in Germany and here I need to print a lot of stuff, coupons, government stuff etc. So we had a normal home Epson printer and I just had to throw it away (with tears in my eyes) because the inkpad is dirty and fixing it isn't recommended and it is also locked in the firmware. I don't mind to pay more money, I just don't want to throw stuff away all the time.

I can't believe it is 2022 and companies can't build a fucking printer that you don't need to throw it completely away and just replace the parts that end up having issues. Is a printer such hard thing to make?

Am I crazy? It is hard to believe for me we are progressing as a society when everything is made with planned obsolescence. Shouldn't it be the opposite?

Can't maybe YC fund a company that tries to shift around this planned obsolescence economy? I already had to throw away so many things: washing machines, printers, TVs... so many!

I can't believe we have even reusable rockets but can't build a fucking printer that we can pass to different generations on our family and our future human beings can just replace some parts and keep it going.

HN, I think that together I believe we can change this. TELL ME HUMANITY IS BETTER THAN THIS.

Do you have any recommendations of printers that don't make me throw a few kilos of plastic away?

Thanks HN!

Do not get an ink printer. Do not get an ink printer.

Since my student days in the early 2000s, I have been buying laser printers, only two in total since then. They have been affordable even as a student in Germany with no money. The first was 180€ I think (not sure), the second slightly more expensive but comes with a useful scanner. It doubles as a photocopier as well.

I'm not printing very often, but also not never. The first printer got relatively heavy use during University, the second one saw large visa-related bouts of use.

Among the two printers, I only remember replacing the toner cartridge... two or three times. In almost two decades. More parts than that are replaceable, I just did not have to.

Printing is quick. Really quick. A page comes out in a second or two. Quality is amazing. Inkjets are painfully slow, expensive, break down easily, and the quality looks like crap.

My printers have every only been monochrome, but I never really missed color so far. I don't know if color lasers are significantly more expensive, what their toner usage is, or how easily they break down. The scanner part is of course a color scanner.

I recommend a multifunction laser printer (office quality! not the cheapest) that will print, scan, photocopy and fax. (OK. I admit that I'd be lucky to send one fax per year these days)

My current unit was made by HP, it will print black-and-white, but scan in color. It will handle both sides of a sheet of paper. And has a multi-sheet paper feed. I have it as a network printer using wifi. It also has ethernet and USB, and I believe it also has IR but I have never used that, so I can't be certain.

My previous unit was a 'home' level multifunction printer. It still printed very well, and it scanned single sheets of paper when I replaced it, but the flimsier 'home quality' multi-sheet feeder broke and was not repairable.

I once bought a color laser multifunction unit but the color copies that came out used a waxy color ink that was disgusting to store and use. I also tended to use it in black-white mode more often than not. I personally wouldn't bother with a color printer unless you specifically need color output for some reason.

I'm still using a NeXT 400DPI Laser printer from 1990. The upside is that it's a software printer, so you get a NeXT Station/Cube as a print server.

Edit: It uses a Canon-SX engine and HP 95A cartridges - same as HP laser jet II/III and Apple laserwriter II. So parts and consumables are easily available.

Obviously the HP laser jets and apple laserwriters with network cards in them are also excellent choices.

Here’s an option from an earlier thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24977699&p=2#24979163

The Brother MFC-L2750DW is still working great.

Very happy with our Brother printer after a series of shitty HP and Canons

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