Ask HN: How have you used a printer in your home or office? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How have you used a printer in your home or office?

3 pointsJasonSage8 comments

I haven't owned an inkjet or laser printer in over 10 years.

I can think of a few mundane things I could print on occasion (notes, websites, pictures), and laser printers are temptingly cheap.

How have you used a printer in your home or office?

Is there a particular usage that is valuable to you which you might recommend to others?

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We have an HP bw laserjet at home with PostScript and crucially a duplexer. I bought it used about 10 years ago for £200. We don’t print much, around 15,000pp so far. Generally I print: - in the last month, a lot of past papers as my son prepares for Summer exams - PDF articles for reading on the train - multiple drafts of documents I write to scribble edits on ( could I do that on the iPad? Sort of.) - address labels - bookplates - online recipes ( easier with messy fingers than the iPad!)

I’d guess we print something every week, sometimes more frequently. Printing 2-up duplex for the most part has saved a lot of paper. Replaced the toner for the second time in feb ‘22 ( the printer tells me) - with an off brand cartridge; print quality noticeably but not disastrously worse, but the cartridge was £30 rather than £130. Amazon Basics 80gsm paper better and cheaper than the HP or Canon versions.

I look at my printer like I look at my checkbook. Most of the time, completely irrelevant. Two or three situations a year, it is massively convenient to have - and it doesn't cost me anything. I wouldn't buy a printer until you hit a pain point where you're confident you need a printer, though.

Brother monochrome laserjet. Lasts forever. Documents requiring a signature, school materials (homeschooled), shipping labels, documents to annotate to be scanned in and sent off, etc.

After a few runs to a FedEx Office where you can send a document to be retrieved and printed with a code at a terminal attached to a copier, considering the value of time and the cost of those prints per pages, ~$125 is a no brainer for something that will last 5-10 years at least. Comes out to $20-$30/year with some supplies in there (paper, toner).

Brother was good for a long time but they seem to now lock out competing ink and/or toner cartridges with DRM: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31860131. I suppose I'll get an Epson ink tank next.

Brother's USB drivers have also dropped support for some old models, though I guess newer hardware all uses IPP (until that goes obsolete).

> How have you used a printer in your home or office?

Primarily for printing mailing labels to attach to packages.

Sometimes to print forms that need to be submitted in paper.

There are documents (tax, receipts, insurance,...) that I have to keep for a long time.

I print a copy for my filing cabinet rather than store them on disk (or online).

its good for scanning docs you have signed and emailing out.

I have a Kyocera P2235dw laser printer. I like to read scientific papers on paper, reading comprehension is better, you can scribble notes on them. I also print recipes. It's hard to scroll around a touchscreen with wet or greasy or floury fingers. Also I make notes on recipes.

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