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Comment by denton-scratch | Hacker News Reader

I bought a Samsung printer a few years ago. A couple of months later, I discovered that Samsung's printer arm had been acquired by Hewlett-Packard - the company I least wanted to buy a printer from.

My printer has no number pad. It has a horrible menu system you navigate with arrow-keys. The cartridge it came with was tiny - it lasted for less than a ream. But the replacement I bought is still going strong (I don't print more than a couple of pages a week, which is why I didn't want an ink-jet).

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My laser Samsung from 2013 has a just small display and simple function buttons. But I never got an original cartridge - the replacement I can get online are far cheaper and cost me about 8.50 EUR without the delivery cost.

The printer works but paper feeder rollers seem to struggle now. I'm afraid that once it gets broken beyond any repair I'll have to get new which will chain me to official supplies.

ghacks.net [1] has published a news about Epson ending the laser printers production while focusing more on inkjet segment from now on, which as they claim are more eco than laser ones. One of the users in the comments says HP already region-locks their cartridges

[1] - https://www.ghacks.net/2022/11/29/epson-announces-end-of-las...

You might want to look into cleaning and lubricating your rollers. Paper creates a lot of dust that could be causing the issue.

Clean, but don't lubricate. They need to grip the paper :)

Haha, yes, I should have made that more clear - I only meant lubricate if there are any bearings or rolling surfaces, definitely not on the parts that are meant to grip! I had an old printer where one end of the steel roller was in a simple plastic bearing and it was squeaking, a drop of oil fixed it. But I'm not an expert, maybe that wasn't a great idea.

Identical story here. The toner the printer came with lasted a few months. I refilled it in a local shop (the guy explained me that they had to replace the chip that counts the pages so refilling was expensive, but in fact it was a fraction of a new one). Still printing with that same toner after (I think) 6 years.

Most printers now explicitly call out that they come with a "starter toner" - which has many fewer pages than a normal one.

Just make sure you never do a firmware upgrade unless it's absolutely required, and, if possible, disable DNS lookups for FW upgrade with something like pihole.

E.g., for Epson, that is epsonpfu.ebz.epson.net

My first and last Epson (inkjet) ended its life on my balcony after I took to it with a cricket bat, Office Space style. Never again. Leaks, overpriced cartridges, crappy software.

Had a Brother laser since then (HL-3170CDW) no complaints, just works, toner lasts forever.

The eco-tank epson models have been pretty good so far, except for a duplex feed that doesn't work well - and that is not economical to repair, given the printers not expensive. That's a separate concern - I'd prefer more expensive, but modular and repairable machines.

But I second Brother lasers - I have two for over 10 years, and they soldier on like on day 1.

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