Erm, why on earth does anyone buy inkjet anymore? Seriously just go get one of those cheap and cheerful brother laser printers!
https://www.reddit.com/r/printers/comments/s9b2eg/brother_mf...
However, I've not had any issue with third party toner in my Brother DCP colour laser printer and haven't heard of any such issues.
My printer is an HP DeskJet 1220C, which first came out in 2000 (it's got USB and parallel ports). I like it because the "ink cartridges" include the print heads, meaning they're easy to replace if they start getting clogged [0]. But that doesn't mean I'm going to recommend HP as a brand to anyone, given the shenanigans of their newer printers.
[0] As what happened to my previous-to-me but newer-model Photosmart 6520. Cleaned them out good with alcohol, got it working again, then it clogged up again in short order. Figuring out the actual problem there has been a bit beyond me.
I believe people are probably buying the wrong printer. If they print a lot, they should be buying an ink-tank printer. The printers cost a little more, but the consumables are very inexpensive.
If they are infrequent printers, they should buy whatever cheap printer they want and then sign up for that companies ink subscription. You mentioned HP and they probably have the best ink subscription program. For light use it's $1.49 / month which is going to be enough for a lot of people. It's nice to never have to order ink.
erm, do any of these subscription services work without having to subject yourself to surveillance of everything you print? I can't imagine the companies are just content to take your word for the amount you've printed or when you need more ink. Off the cuff, I would guess most will force you to even compromise your personal computer itself by installing some proprietary malware.
FWIW the HP official black cartridge for the 1220C is ~$70, whereas generics are under $20. I'm sure the generics cut corners a little bit, but not $50 worth of corners. HP is most certainly overcharging for ink.
But the general failure pattern in our society isn't massive profits going to company owners, but rather ever growing management and administrative layers taking the surplus as their own salaries.
They don’t. These days most people are printing pages from their phone and printer companies don’t get deep access to iOS and Android like they do with Linux and Windows.
The printer counts the pages and sends the page count and ink levels to the mother ship and ink just shows up exactly when you need it.
> massive profits
These companies don’t have rivers of cash flowing into them. Selling and supporting printers and ink isn’t a great business. The software and hardware is expensive and hard to make. The ink is the only thing with a good margin on it and people just don’t use all that much of it.
Lots of businesses operate like this so I’m not sure why people are so upset at printer companies. When I buy a game for my PS5, I get about $2 worth of plastic and cardboard and they charge me $60 or more. Obviously it costs money to make the game and they spread that over all the copies. Well, same goes for printers and their consumables.
If you want cheap ink, buy a printer with cheap ink. They are out there and they are great. If you want to spend as little as possible on a printer, that’s out there too. You just pay more down the line for consumables.
So is the printer running secure (ie libre) firmware so I can know it's not also backhauling the content of what is printed for some imagined "legitimate" business purpose? Or are you saying that I am just supposed to trust the printer manufacturer based on their marketing? If I am supposed to be content just trusting them with the content of what I print, then I might as well dispense with "owning" a device that requires (space, supplies, maintenance) and just pick up prints at Staples.
> Lots of businesses operate like this so I’m not sure why people are so upset at printer companies. When I buy a game for my PS5, I get about $2 worth of plastic and cardboard and they charge me $60 or more
Because it's straight up anti-competitive bundling that would be taken to task if there were any semblance of anti-trust enforcement. Printers and ink for printers should be separate markets. A manufacturer should not be able to abuse their market share of printers in order to make people buy ink from them as well.
People are also most certainly concerned with proprietary locked down platforms (eg PS5, iDevices, web services). The topic of printers is just especially galling because it was an industry that got along just fine before using technological and legal restrictions to kill competition. Newer markets have been locked down from their creation, so people have a harder time imagining better. That anti-competitive arrangements have been allowed to fester across our society is a major problem, not some kind of perverse validation.
(Your example of game pricing also drags in the deliberate monopoly of copyright, but I addressed the substance of the anticompetitive bundling/subsidizing consoles with games)
Took some research and timing but couldn’t be happier with no longer having to worry about ink clogging / going bad if I haven’t printed for a while.
Toner cartridges aren’t exactly cheap, but they will print a ton of pages, and they take way longer to go bad from what I’ve experienced so far…
Doesn't matter if they happen to print longer, most folks care about the money on the spot.
The version with no scanner that they recommend is about 100 euro (I think that precise version is now discontinued, but its successor, the Brother-HL-L2400DW, is also about 100 euro).
Practical, reliable, affordable and just works technology; The amazing Brother HL-L2320D printer. I can't remember the last time I bought toner. The thing just keeps on printing. I think they make a wireless version, but I can't be bothered to change something that just works the way this printer has. We have fancy printers at work that are also Laser based and they are not as reliable the printer sitting next to me.
Being the "IT guy" among family/friends/colleagues, 9 out of 10 times that's the case. Someone asks me if I can help them with their printer, they bought it 1-3 years ago, they've barely used it, but need new ink cartridge.
It's always the same printers. They saw one on sale for $40 or whatever at some big box store, a bought it.
I don’t look forward to running out of consumables. For some reason these aren’t made anymore.
To be honest, nowadays I would prefer ink tank, as their extra cost (here) are smaller than the price of the cartridges that will need to be bought in the next years. And they are cheaper than the cheapest laser printers sold here.
I bought a B&W brother laser printer in 2015 and loved it. I had a cheap $80 inkjet and while it worked fine I printed so rarely that my ink cartridge would dry out.
The original brother toner cartridge lasted me 4 years so I'm happy just because of that.
I ended up giving that to my parents and got a brother color laser printer. It's nice for documents but inkjets are superior for photo printing.
But for the last 10-15 years I can upload photos to the Walgreens a mile away and get them in less than an hour on real photo paper and don't have to worry about them fading like a lot of inkjets.
I've chosen to have Black and White only at home, and go to FedEx for my color pages. I do black and white text often enough that it's worth it. But I really don't do color enough to warrant a printer (or upgrading to a more expensive color printer even)
You know it's 10c a page, you can email it to them and pick it up later... right?
It's also a FedEx, so I'm pretty sure they can FexEx you the printout for an additional fee and deliver it. But FedEx Office Centers are all over my area and are common pickups during grocery shopping or other tasks I have around town.
There probably is a cheaper local printer that you should support rather than big business FedEx btw. Local marketing and local printers would likely accept your print jobs and supporting your town is a good idea.
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Consolidated office print jobs also stock rarer papers (cardstock, oversized, legal, etc. etc) and support more styles of print jobs anyway.
You should have a home printer for your most common printing task (which is almost certainly jost plain black and white documents). But if you need serious print jobs with good bindings, cover sheets and less common paper weights (ex: 100lb cardstock or something) in colors and other advanced features that's a printer you go to.
I mean the printer in your local towns main street, and FedEx if they've taken over your town.
Now there are customers that think they can buy a printer for the equivalent of a round of beer, and when that doesn't work out as expected it's only the evil companies.
More often than not the consumer goes for the cheapest, and that's what they get and the company has to make the profit elsewhere.
I appreciate that with all the legal wrangling and anti-competitive behaviour the supplier companies don't paint a very attractive picture, but the consumer decisions have made the bed for this market as well.
However, inkjets are probably better for printing photos, but I'd recommend just using a photo printing service if that's what you're after (assuming that they're not private photos that you don't want to share).
I've used Linux on and off since 2005, and every time I've come back to Linux I've been impressed with the progress made on things like this.
Because inkjets print prettier pictures, are more versatile, don't have long start up times, don't generate indoor ozone.
There are professional inkjets available that are more respectful of your right to buy cheap supplies than even brother - specifically I can pour bottled ink into printers of at least two manufacturers.
And (professional) modern inkjets keep up with print speed.
- laser toner is bad for your health
- laser has a larger upfront cost
I think they're also not great for releasing gases and certainly my one does have a chemical smell when printing, so I just make sure that I'm in a different room for doing a large print (it helps that the printer is network connected).
probably some burnt toner too
What I mind is, that because I use it so rarely, that damn expensive cartridge dries up every 2 or so years, after printing maybe like 30 pages. That's what kills me. That's one thing that it's more expensive than gold, but it has awful quality.
"Funny" thing is, I used to have a Xerox laser printer years ago. The toner dried stopped working in it also if it wasn't used for months. The main difference was that the toner cost 3 or 4 times the price of an inkjet cartridge.
Fuck printers.