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Comment by markdown | Hacker News Reader

> Don't buy these printers.

Is there a list somewhere of printers that are neither user-hostile nor designed to scam customers out of their hard-earned money?

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Really happy with my HP LaserJet Pro M15W Printer so far... Bought it only about 2 years ago but I print almost daily and didn't even have to replace the toner.

I hear the cheap Brother ones are decent actually. Not for sure though.

Mine always feels the need to clean itself once a week. Which empties the ink tanks after a few months.

And turning it completely off is also not an option, because then if feels the need to super clean itself which wastes the ink all at once...

That's just a common inkjet problem. If you rarely print, laser is probably better for you.

Head cleaning is a legit necessity with inkjets, and avoiding clogging is probably why it doesn't power off fully. Of course that doesn't negate all the other scams, like the cost of ink or the refusal to work with third party ink, print b&w without a color cartridge, scan without ink, etc etc... New low-cost HP printers come with a vendor-locked ink-as-a-service scheme (no I am not making this up) you can't opt out from.

I bought a b&w duplex laser printer and use it with non-genuine toners. If you enjoy reading from paper its a good investment imho.

I have had the cheaper Brothers for a while- I upgraded mine to a wi-fi model after the first one broke 10 years in. Pretty happy with it, sure the first one broke after being moved around many times, but I got an enormous value out of it.

The Brother $100 black and white laser is quite civilized. And printers have come so far since the old days. I plug that motherfucker in and I can print to it from my phone, immediately!

I also own a couple of Brother black and white laser printers. They are quite durable and cheap to operate. Way way way better than any inkjet.

The only complaint I have is that after a large number of pages the printer will insist that the toner cartridge needs to be replaced and will just stop printing, even if the printer output darkness is still acceptable. Quite annoying if you need to print urgently! Fortunately I found a youtube video with a work-around you can enter into the UI on the printer.

At least with the Brother printers I've owned (and some of which I still do), they actually shine a light through a small bit of clear plastic in the toner cartridge. Taking that cartridge out, giving it a good shake (outside, no need for adding potentially cancer-inducing toner dust in your room), and putting it back in will make the printer work again.

Odd that you had to throw 'hard-earned' in there like it adds anything (unless it does but I can't tell)

A quick search gets prior discussion https://html.duckduckgo.com/html?q=drm%20free%20printers

> Odd that you had to throw 'hard-earned' in there like it adds anything (unless it does but I can't tell)

If money fell from the sky in abundance and could be exchanged for new printers there would be no problems with these shenanigans. Assuming that money is scarce and money spent on a printer means something else will have to remain on the back burner does change things.

Point is, isn't all money 'hard earned' for us who don't inherit it (sadly the greatest majority of the population), I mean that's the point of money in capitalism, about allocation of scarce resources, so why even mention it.

> so why even mention it

To emphasize and focus the reader's attention on a particular property of money the writer would like to highlight. Money has many properties, and emphasizing the relevant one helps the writer to communicate their meaning more clearly. It also helps to express the writer's frustration at the printer manufacturer's behavior. In that way, it serves much the same purpose as the irrelevant adverb "sadly" you added to your parenthetical aside.

> irrelevant adverb "sadly" you added to your parenthetical aside

fair point.

> Money has many properties

Hmm. Never thought of this. Can you provide a link discussing these? I have no idea, economics is not my background and this sounds relevant.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money#Functions

Specifically the properties sub-category

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