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My Brother printer is one of my better purchases to be honest. I sound like a complete shill, but it's connected to wifi (and it just happily connects even if it's been off for a month or two), and all devices can just connect to it and print. Never need to reconnect or do anything with it. It's a printer that prints. I love it.

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I got a brother B+w laser printer 4 years ago, plugged it into a switch and all my macs and iPhones found it, can print to it, and it just sits there waiting for a thing to print. Still on the original toner.

Couldn’t be happier with it

But will it blend?

Completely agree: it's one of the best purchases I've made.

Printers were a product category that were expensive for what they offered and were always kind of finicky. I can still remember never knowing if my printer was going to work when I needed it to or not.

Since I purchased a Brother printer all of those concerns went away. It works well, requires minimal set up, is reliable, and represents great value for money over a period of years.

I'm on my second printer from them in the last 10 years and wouldn't even consider a competitor unless there's a serious decline in their quality.

Edit:

Since I saw someone ask below my model is MFC-9340CDW

The best part I like is it provides a unique email address and hosts a server inside it. I can literally just email a pdf and get it printed on back-back pages, no commands, love it!

wait what? Any tutorial on how this works?

https://help.brother-usa.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/158082/...

Where do I find this email?

Brother provide a default unique email id with your device but you can customise it, the id has be globally unique as Brother registers it.

Downside is you have to email the documents you want to print to Brother (the company).

Think about that before you email anything you want to keep private.

Can one guess printers email addresses and start spamming random printers?

I dont see any way to register the sender's expected email on the printer. Back to fax spamming...?

Someone did that to my old HP printer a couple times, but there were settings to only accept emails from specific addresses that I eventually turned on.

Well you can customise it with the brother printer. Brother itself registers your unique email id against your registered device, hence it has to be globally unique.

Funny how the article seems to be selling this as "not innovating". I was genuinely surprised when I discovered that it was just a social media post and not some ad-entrusted clickbait repackaging that theverge.com article while trying to one-up it with the "no innovation" claim.

They have done that for as long as they have been internet connected.

Like this slice of journalism?

https://www.theverge.com/23642073/best-printer-2023-brother-...

lol, end of article:

"And here’s 275 words about printers I asked ChatGPT to write so this post ranks in search because Google thinks you have to pad out articles in order to demonstrate “authority,” but I am telling you to just buy whatever Brother laser printer is on sale and never think about printers again."

(followed by chatgpt output)

"Tech innovation" these days means gating hardware features behind a subscription tier like BMW or Tesla do.

Mine constantly falls into some deep sleep state where it can’t be found on the network and I have to spend ~10 minutes coaxing it out of sleep using an unknown combination of random button jabs and test prints before it can be detected by my devices again and will print.

If anyone knows how to fix this please let me know, I want to love my printer as well.

Seconded. The 4 button, one line display interface is hopeless.

I print once a never, so the only answer I remember is to power cycle the little bastard.

And then I have to reboot my pc so windows 10 will find it.

There's probably a couple services I could restart instead, but reboot is fast enough I don't care.

I used to have this issue on Windows. Enabling SNMP solved it. By default it checks SNMP to see the status of the printer, so if SNMP is off it'll eventually think the whole printer is offline.

Ran into the same issue. I think using ethernet instead of wifi was the solution (and maybe something with disabling ipv6? been a long time since I looked into it).

Mine used to have the problem. Upgrading the firmware and using Ethernet did not fix it.

Observation: disconnecting the printer from the network avoided the un-wake-able "deep sleep" state. Re-connecting the network made it susceptible again. I suspect it's particular network traffic that causes the printer to wedge into a sleep it cannot leave; possibly a Debian box that I've since de-commissioned. The problem no longer occurs despite having the same firmware as before and being connected to the network.

I bought a Brother printer with a scanner at the top. No drivers, just works with the scanning software that's on macOS with zero zetup.

They've made the best scanner by refusing to innovate in that area as well.

I have a very old (more than 10 years old) Brother HL 2130 that still works like a charm. I changed the toner only twice, I added an RPi behind it to have it network-enabled. Also one of my best purchases !

Mine just works and the scanner shows up in simple-scan over wifi (Linux), it's all very smooth.

Agree, same here

I have over time switched to Brother printers (lived through Epson and HP) because they are the least bad of the bunch. But Windows will still claim they are offline with no way to un-offline them, or print jobs will still get stuck from time to time - but this is probably just the Windows printer queue software staying exactly the same since two decades, with Microsoft giving zero fucks about it (or about anything requested by users, for that matter).

there is an LTT series where they try to daily drive Linux. They complain about a lot of stuff being half-broken, unfriendly or simply not missing. But they are amazed that printing just work out of the box without all the issues they have on Windows.

Because Linux uses CUPS, which is the same print server as macOS and made by Apple, Distros often ship generic CUPs drivers for printers, that work with most printers made in the last two decades.

Apple had no choice but to make CUPs support generic printing interfaces because printer companies at the time rarely made macOS drivers, and this has benefited Linux too.

My memory may be failing me, but it feels like “rarely supported” is a bit of an exaggeration. It was mostly a handful of consumer printer companies that were hell-bent on supporting nothing but Windows… I think Lexmark might’ve been one of them?

Any of the printer companies that made high end professional printers used by print designers, photographers, etc usually had Mac drivers for their entire printer lineup because Macs had a huge presence in world of desktop publishing, graphics design, and photography from most of latter half of the 80s all the way up through the 2000s.

Apple did not create CUPS, although they did hire the main developer (and buy the rights to the code) some years later.

Restarting the spooler service often solves those problems

Until it happens again later today, or tomorrow. Or on wife's computer at work. Or on grandma's. Unless you're from Microsoft, I wouldn't call that "solution".

Well it solves it until it happens again ¯ \ _ ( ツ ) _ / ¯

I wasn't implying that you can't complain about it!

I have a Canon printer which I use with Windows, and I get exactly the same thing. I think your diagnosis is correct.

I had that issue for a while. I solved this issue by ensuring SNMP was allowed on the printer. I never had that issue again after confirming SNMP traffic worked.

printing from a smartphone over Wi-Fi with no extra drivers

still feels like magic and it's 2023. I am regularly surprised it just works

model # please.

This is the one I’ve got - pleased with it.

Brother Compact Monochrome Laser Printer, HLL2390DW, Flatbed Copy & Scan, Wireless Printing, Duplex Two-Sided Printing, https://a.co/d/8vMWJCK

Brother HL-L5200DW.

DCP-L3550CDW

I have a similar experience. Installed and connected my Brother printer 3 years ago, pop in new ink about once per year and that's it. It works and I do not need to worry about it.

Also look at the delicious Windows 2000 style settings interface:

https://i.imgur.com/YtnfaAN.jpg

I wish that were true for my Brother printer. I bought a basic but decent black and white laser printer of theirs several years ago, and it worked great for maybe 3 years, but then it started refusing to accept print jobs from all inputs (wifi, ethernet, USB, doesn’t matter, neither does the device sending the print job) and factory resets do nothing to help it. So now, it sits in a closet while the Canon inkjet with janky print heads that it replaced is doing print duty.

Apparently this can be fixed be reflashing its firmware but from what I can gather this requires some obscure utility that’s not generally available.

This! It even gets regular firmware updates which (when I notice them) I always say yes to and it always keeps working. They even told me how to reset the low toner warning so I can replace colors when they actually run out.

If anything its connectivity works too well: I first connected it via USB, installed the Brother drivers (i386 only, but whatever, I don't need a 64-bit printer driver really!), and CUPS shared it over the network to all my computers. Then I added an Ethernet connection and it shared itself over the network. So now there are multiple ways to reach it.

> it's connected to wifi (and it just happily connects even if it's been off for a month or two), and all devices can just connect to it and print. Never need to reconnect or do anything with it. It's a printer that prints. I love it.

Wifi is the only "innovation" that I cared about when buying a new printer. My old Brother just had USB, which was fine for 12 years. But my newer (10 years old) Brother has wifi and printing from the couch is great!

WiFi is a nice feature, but instead of buying a new printer, I setup a CUPS server on old raspberry pis and turned both my and my parents’ printers into WiFi capable ones. Now our 5+ and 15+ year old printers are just as good as any new ones today.

I bought a brother printer once largely because of the praise I see in HN, but it was a color inkjet printer. It did not work out well. At first it was great, but I don't print much and ink dried on the print head and the 'cleaning' mode used up all the ink and and basically it never worked properly again after that. I ended up tossing it for a POS canon inkjet. I don't print often, but when I do I want color so a BW laserjet isn't a good fit.

The praise is for Brother LASER printers.

It's universally coupled with a lot discussion about how much of a scam inkjet printers are from any company.

> I don't print often, but when I do I want color so a BW laserjet isn't a good fit.

.....then....buy....a Brother COLOR laser?

The levels of arrogance in "well I can just throw out more than half the advice" is breathtaking...

...and then you have the nerve to blame the community?

TBH my Brother multifunction colour inkjet/scanner is also better than any I've used from any other printer manufacturer. No activation junk or "genuine cartridge" nonsense, it just prints.

Really? I thought Brother started started blocking third-party ink a couple years ago, even pushing firmware updates for older Wi-Fi printers that previously allowed it.

The mastodon post to which this discussion refers to doesn't mention the word laser, nor do most of the recommendations in the rest of this discussion.

Every person learns about printers the same way.

1) Buy a cheap inkjet printer

2) Discover it runs out of quick within ~50-100 pages

3) Learn about the distinction between laser and inkjet printing

4) Buy only Brother laser printers for the rest of your life

It's a rite of passage at this point.

A color laser is worth several cheap inkjets. I don't print much so its actually cheaper to use a crappy inkjet and throw it out and get a new crappy inkjet multiple times then get a single color laserjet.

Does the Canon not dry up?

It can, but on the cheap canons the printhead is part of the ink canister, so if you just have to get new ink and problem solved. On the brother they use a higher quality printhead that is part of the printer. Good, unless something happens to that head and you can't fix it.

Definitely consider the outlay for a colour laser printer. I've had one for around 5 years and it has been no trouble and is always ready to print, scan and copy.

I love my color laser, but depending on what you're printing they're either not ideal (photos) or not always possible (sublimation, transfers, some adhesives, most things involving heat; laser-specialized materials might be available but won't work as well).

Inkjet is also typically more viable for non-commercial borderless and supertabloid printing, like large prints and posters.

That sounds like fairly specific usage. My color laser has served me well for document printing, both color and black and white

I have the same experience - after an initial slightly tough config to get it connected to wifi (understandable given the budget price and older model), it has worked flawlessly - I will always recommend brother printers now

Further, I got mine as a refurb since I wanted it in the throes of the pandemic so I wasn't going to spend big bucks on a printer and needed something for the amazon returns labels primarily...

I have an older brother that only has ethernet, but I share it via my server, so I'm good that way. Every device that needs to print can print to it no matter the OS they're running. In this day, that is amazing. I don't have to have special apps or 4 different printers. I just have the one and it just works. This is as it should be.

This is probably not a popular opinion but that is nothing special. My HP MFP M177fw laser printer has no issues at all, and if I must believe HN it's manufactured by Brother due to its well behaviour.

I love my MFC-490CW printer.

It never gets in my way, always works when I need it, is happy about the default drivers and costs me around 20€ in ink every two to 3 years.

It makes me happy to hear it once a week when it cleans itself.

I'll echo this sentiment. 3-4 years ongoing, and my Brother printer just works.

The HP laser that was replaced was finicky at the best of times.

Which model do you have?

If you want a basic model that works over wifi and prints from your phone, get the HL-L2340DW.

If you want one that additionally has PCL 6 support for universal compatibility, get the slightly more expensive HL-L2375DW.

I have both, no regrets.

Thanks, very valuable information as I look into buying a small printer.

If you want color, so far I've been happy with an HLL8260CDW going on almost a year. I previously had HLL8350CDW which I very much liked even though it destroyed a fixing/fusing roller after about 5 years (repaired with ebay parts) and then at about 7 years old some small part inside a mechanism which selects between the toners broke and spares were not available. Although the part numbers are very similar between the two, sadly the toner cartridges are completely not compatible.

For a long time Monoprice sold very good Brother compatible toner for reasonable prices. Sadly, that time has long passed. Brother 1st party toner is not as cheap as I'd like but it's still decently affordable compared to other major brand 1st party toner. I've had horrible luck with non-Monoprice 3rd party Brother toner.

Have had the HL-L2340DW since 2016. Still on the original tonner. Only really use it to print my resume to bring to interviews. Still works like a charm.

I changed the original toner yesterday. Mainly use it to print out DHL shipping labels.

I just checked my purchase history and I'm a month short of it being ten years ago. Not bad for a printer.

Brother HL-3140CW. Color laser printer. If you'd have told me it'd still be working ten years later, I wouldn't have believed you. I print so sporadically, but when I do, it just works. Does AirPrint from smartphones, etc.

My only complaint with this model is that it actually has no Ethernet port, so it connects only via WiFi. Seems like a strange trade-off for something like a printer.

also which MFC (scanner) model? historically drivers have been an issue is this solved?

I own a Brother DCP7065DN that I bought nearly a decade ago, and it still works just fine. I've always used third party toner (there was a setting that needed to be toggled to enable this). I can even print and scan from my phone.

All the cloud nonsense is there to enrich the manufacturers, it doesn't actually make these products better. KISS!

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