Read: "Bill & Dave" by Michael Malone.
Agilent took the heart & soul of HP. Then it split further (Keysight et al)
HP took the printers, which at least used to be a good business.
HPE is the wretched refuse that's left.
Agilent took the heart & soul of HP. Then it split further (Keysight et al)
HP took the printers, which at least used to be a good business.
HPE is the wretched refuse that's left.
Good business as in earning money or as producing customer satisfaction? I don't know about the former, but I do know that HP printers are a horrible user experience these days. The printer is connected via USB, but it cannot be used without an internet connection to their data collection and ink selling cloud nonsense. I will never by anything from that brand again. (I used to be a HP fan since the 1980s.)
Lots of good/reasonable experience with Deskjet 660 and 720C. Although the driver situation for 64-bit windows got real terrible (microsoft had a working driver for server 2003, but insisted on shipping a broken driver for vista/7, so you had to dig up the old one. I think Windows 10 changed the driver model, but I had abanonded the printer for something worse by then. HP support forums could tell you how, but couldn't get it fixed in windows update)
Basically, don't buy an inkjet printer (of any type) unless you really need one for photos or graphics work. And then only buy one if that's a regular thing. Otherwise, outsource to professional print shops in your area. It will be better and cheaper.
For normal office stuff, a laser printer is just easier. The toner lasts for ages, doesn't dry out. And if, like me, you rarely need a printer, it's nice when it still works after just sitting there for half a year of not being used at all.
But a consumer Brother is probably the way to go. Always search the model number and see what people say.
It doesn’t even have WiFi or AirPrint, but brother has an app that can print to it when you’re on the same network with an iPhone, which is surprisingly convenient.
HL-2170W and iPrint&Scan
With ~100 pages/year that would have been ~900 pages so far. At 900 pages, that probably would have been fine with the included toner, so toner costs don't count. Assuming you turn it off when not printing so energy costs are negligible. That brings it to ~$0.16/page (with my ~$0.03/page paper) printed.
Printing at the FedEx shop is ~$0.23/page for B&W. The public library nearby has B&W printing for $0.15/page. So with ~100 pages/year its cheaper than a chain office shop but more than the library at this point. A few more years will shift that closer and eventually beat the library price.
I've just given up on the economics of photo printing at home. It seems to me you really need to print a lot of photos to compete with the ease of photo printing at most photo stores in the US. You'd need a really good photo printer to match most of the quality of online stores, so you'd need a pretty good printer with nice ink and paper. In-store pickup at a number of places usually means like an hour turn around or so.
Note though that overall my value for my printer is higher than just the printing. As mentioned, it is also a scanner I've scanned ~1,000 items with it.
They've always worked perfectly on both Linux and Windows and need no maintenance, just remember to turn them on. Most of them are still on their original toner (we don't print that much).
Newer models seem to come with wifi, but I have no idea how well that works.
Laser printers are just better. I can't think of a reason for inkjets anymore that's not niche.
in the late 80's, when Desktop Publishing was a thing.
Cray tends to disagree...