Framework Making Printers | Hacker News Reader

Framework Making Printers

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God I hope there's enough engagement on this tweet that they actually do it.

I don’t really understand why or how it’s happening, but my HP LaserJet printer connects to Wi-Fi less and less reliably every year. I want to upgrade to a color laser, but: (1) Wirecutter's current rec is for another HP, and (2) it's $750.

The HP inkjet I got in 1997 was far more reliable, even before we switched from parallel to USB. And it could print banners!

I fully endorse this:

https://www.theverge.com/tech/641940/best-printer-2025-just-...

Can vouch. I have a Brother B/W double-sided laser printer from 2011 that just keeps on going. The maintenance manuals are detailed down to each gear and lever, which let me fix a paper feed issue (gear slid out of place) and keep it going for probably many more decades. No DRM chips in sight - third party toner works just fine, and the Ethernet connectivity is rock solid.

I bought on of those five years ago for the handful of stuff we print annually. It has never let me down, this thing is solid.

The comparing 2025 with the 2023 and 2024 versions of the article is also an interesting snapshot in the state of tech journalism.

(Also yes my Brother printer is just fine and turning 7 years old)

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

https://www.theverge.com/2024/4/2/24117976/best-printer-2024...

These are really interesting to read in order. The LLM output at the end of each shows how they've gotten better and stayed the same. Output is all formulaic just following slightly different formulas. I shall excitedly wait another year to see what is possible in 2026 and if everyone is right by 2027 the LLM will be the author of the piece including human written content for padding at the end.

(Also yes my Brother printer has worked great over the past 10 years. I even had to buy new toner and have replaced it with a third party toner twice so far.)

The jury is still out on whether Brother has also jumped the shark. Their PR made a lot of hot noise about the accusations being "false" but if you read carefully they never say that they didn't make some color calibration things work only with their own cartridges.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43261933

> I want to upgrade to a color laser, but:

If you think the $750 price tag is bad wait until you have to buy replacement toner cartridges. I have an older HP CP1518ni which produces decent looking prints but man, each of the four replacement cartridges are like $75 each. A full set is slightly cheaper at $275 last time I bought them.

They talked about earlier this year the reasons why they didn't do it.

Why not make the printer a fully open source project where the guiding is done by framework but maybe most of the work f comes from the community?

Is an open source version viable outside of research and fun? I expect tolerances on everything in a 300+dpi printer to be crazy low. Even the current 3d printers get the jokes that they're a hobby in maintenance/calibration on their own. Can't imagine how hard would be for an inkjet. (Laser could be easier...)

> Even the current 3d printers get the jokes that they're a hobby in maintenance/calibration on their own.

Honestly auto calibration has gotten pretty good. But the lubrication and cleaning is definitely still somewhat involved.

My cheap HP laser printer got sent to the bin as it suddenly won't accept non-hp toner anymore. (Just stopped one day - I guess there as a firmware update).

What little text I print I do so now on my Canon 300 Pro which actually is a photo printer. (Don't want to know the actual cost of a print out).

Putting aside that the title and the tweet very much do not line up since there is no announcement that they are in fact making printers...

This would be interesting and would love to see it, but I just can't imagine it would be viable financially. The scale just doesn't line up for a company of this size.

How many people have printers at home anymore, and even if they went after offices looking at only a couple per (most) offices at most unless you are specifically an organization that does a lot of printing.

Laptops, yeah one per person. Printers, 1 for every few hundred employees? Would they even sell enough for it to make sense for a brand that is not as well known as the major players.

Uh, that little X post doesn't actually say "we're developing a printer".

It's probably just trying to complain about printers (a computer-user pastime probably about as old as ... printers) in a humorous way.

The only difference is that Framework has threatened to make printers multiple times before.

https://x.com/FrameworkPuter/status/1857110846780145910 https://x.com/FrameworkPuter/status/1750545558765519344 https://x.com/FrameworkPuter/status/1617566347877298177

Those are also jokes.

Never buy a printer that uses cartridges, you'd forever forever be a hostage. Use bottled ink printers only.

This Tweet is not saying that they are working on a printer. I wish it said that somebody works on an open printer, but I don't think it should be Framework. Framework are doing a good job pushing the laptop/desktop computing products down the pipeline.

Looks like Apple is as well: https://theonion.com/new-apple-ceo-tim-cook-im-thinking-prin...

Framework Making Jokes

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