58
votes
Can someone please recommend me a no BS printer I can use like half a dozen times a year
By no BS I mean none of those online requirements or ink subscription nonsense.
Scanning isn't a huge focus but having at least some multi-page scanning functionality wouldn't hurt.
I've heard Brother is the go-to brand in the past but are they still? I thought I heard they were also starting down the anti-consumer path but I could be wrong.
I'm not kidding when I say I print like half a dozen times a year so whatever type of printer it is the ink/toner/whatever needs to have a long shelf life.
Thanks!
Brother laser printers are the answer. The inkjets have started rejecting unofficial cartridges, but if you print a few times a year, then pretty much any ink based product is going to dry up long before you've dented the capacity. Whereas at that usage, a laser toner might last you the life of the printer.
MFC-L2750DW. Printer, scanner, two-sided copier, wi-fi connectivity, mostly gathers dust until suddenly I need to print something important. Highly recommend.
Another +1 for Brother. Anything in the MFC-L models (multifunction copier laser.)
I'd be buying (if my 15-year-old brother ever quit) the MFC-L2717DW $219 on brother.com right now. Print, scan, duplex, network.
If you want something more compact and don't mind losing scanning and duplexing you can go with:
HL-L2305W $119.99.
Hey brother, I too have that model. I don't regret the purchase, as it's never let me down reliability wise, but for anyone considering this model, beware of the size. It's not as compact as you might expect from home/consumer models. Certainly not as bulky as color laser though. Those are beasts.
Got the same. It has paid for itself many times over. Need to scan a pile of pages for CPA, no problem. Copy a worksheet for my kid to practice on, done. Print a coloring sheet for my six year old, no issue. It's been a workhorse for years and has never given me any problems.
Home inkjets have basically been a scam from the start, even before the new stuff with subscriptions and DRM cartridges.
Vanishingly few people need or want to print photos. Which is really the only place they can outperform color laser printers. Even if you do want to print photos, you probably want to go to a print shop that has a printer worth thousands instead of one cheap enough that you're willing to buy it.
As long as you're not going to do something silly like try to open the toner cartridge toner be way easier to deal with and won't dry out like ink if it's just sitting there. (seriously don't, toner is too fine a powder for regular vacuum filters and you shouldn't breathe it any more than you should drink ink)
Brother printers are great. I appreciate that they have models without all the bells and whistles if you just want to print the occasional document.
This right here. I have a basic brother b&w and use it often enough but not so often that I have used my original ink cartridge up. Two years now, I expect ten or more based off history of these.
Ya just bought one a couple months ago for like 120 works great
Big +1 for Brother. For the last 15 years my family has had only 2 Brother printers because they basically last forever and don't have any weird DRM on their ink/toner. Highly recommend.
HL-3220CDW has been mine for a few years. $250, networkable, duplex color laser. Doesn't matter if I print 200 pages in a day or leave it sit for 6 months, I just connect up and print.
I've had a HL-L2340DW for 8 years, bought toner for it once, no concerns about ink drying out ever again.
Has WiFi, duplex printing, can do odd sizes with the manual feed. Has a huge paper tray.
Just to add to this, there shouldn't be a need to have any inkjet or ink tank cartridge unless you are a pro/serious photographer. Besides draining ink to prime them, many have a sponge to pour excess ink on that is often irreplaceable. Maintenance cartridges are rare.
If you're in the US, everyone is just going to recommend your local library. Mine offers a few free prints a day and they've saved my butt when I needed something done quickly.
Other than that, I have heard Brother taking anti consumer steps but their monochrome laser printers are still up there in terms of reliability... At least in the printer space.
Last I checked my library charged like $0.05/page for color. Something like a penny or two for b/w, and yea only over like 10 pages or something like that.
If you're printing less than 500 pages a year, it'd be like 10 years before buying a printer is a better value...minimum.
Even factoring in the effort it takes to get to the library you're still going to be a few years before it makes sense to waste the desk space on one, let alone the money.
I already own a laser printer, and I kinda just want to get rid of it and go to the library the 2x per year I actually need to print something. I figured that I'd keep using it until the toner runs out, but that might be a few decades at my current rate.
The effort to set up a printer probably outweighs the effort to take the bus somewhere. :)
I just want to say that the library is a really good suggestion and I would probably just do that if it weren't for work. I work from home and occasionally have to deal with a PDF software library including testing printing if a customer has a problem. So my boss said to just buy a printer and put it on the company card.
If you can put it on a company card, I will echo the recommendations for a good quality laser printer.
Adding to the "your local library" tip:
Ask any hotel reception desk.
I’ve had a Brother HL-L2315DW sitting on my shelf for probably 6 years now. Prints maybe a dozen sheets a year. Never had to replace the toner, got it at Walmart for $100.
I’ve had a Brother HL-2270DW for 11 years and it’s been perfect. Only replaced the toner once ever. And I just discovered last night that I can print to it from my iOS phone.
Printing from Android phones also works. Should be able to print from anything that shares the network.
Same model here for over a decade as well, only use it a couple of times a year on average recently but no problems.
Brother still seems to be the best bet. Get a B/W laser printer, not an inkjet. And stay far, far away from HP.
I've got a Canon Imageclass D530, which is probably seven or eight years old now, and it has worked flawlessly. Still on the original toner. But Canon may be moving more towards the dark side these days, so I don't know about their new models.
Brother DCP-L2540DW here and going strong after 6 years, still on the original toner that came with the printer.
However, it does appear it's true that Brother has started down the enshittification path, I'll quote a post from someone on another platform here:
It seems to me that only Epson EcoTank that lets you go the other way at the moment.
Every other vendor is going the genuine route. I suppose Epson do say that all warranty is void upon using non-genuine ink, so they have quite an out.
I ran a ‘free’ HP into the ground an then an Epson ET-3850 which I liked at first but after installing prints around my home and office I found the color dyes were unstable and could fade severely in just six months if prints are exhibited unframed on the wall.
I upgraded to the ET-8550 which uses a much more permanent ink and my tests are showing these hold up much better under exhibition. I make beautiful photo, art reproduction and anime art cards usually between 5”x7” and 13”x19” and would endorse it for anybody who expects to make at least a few prints a week.
Everyone is already steering you right with the Brother laser printer recommendations, but I will add that I did have to actually replace a toner cartridge in my Brother laser printer after years of ownership and Monoprice had a dirt cheap replacement cartridge that has performed as well as the official one for a stupidly cheap price. The fact that the printer doesn't know or care that I'm not using an official cartridge is really the greatest thing about their printers.
Buy a Brother printer and when you someday in the far future need to replace the toner, go find a cheap third party cartridge and love it even more for continuing to be amazing even with a cut rate toner cartridge installed.
I just got an epson ET-2850 color inkjet in a deal from Costco. It uses 'ink tanks', eliminating any cartridge or ink subscription worries. It's network connected with no bloatware, no software or drivers required. We've had it almost a year printing about as often as you do and have had no problems at all so far. It replaced a b+w Brother laser printer that was bulletproof for ~10 years, but we needed color printing capability.
Got one of those too. Although the ink tank sidesteps the cartridge problems, I'd still reccomend making sure to do a test page every month or so and a cleaning cycle twice a year if you're not using it much.
Leaving it plugged in and turned on all the time solves that (at least my L3250 randomly cleans itself every once in a while), but it does sip some power.
Heh, we actually just fully disassmbled it after my child shoved an array of crap in the paper loader and jammed it up. Knocked a few things out of alignment and some springs popped off.
What I have learned is that this printer would do well with some proper metal parts instead of plastic for a few key components. And a small dab of glue in a few key spots would really prevent a lot of easy-to-fix but hard-to-diagnose problems....namely the one spring popping loose.
I've had the ET-2710 since mid 2020 and it's still going strong. I use it semi regularly, I've refilled the black twice and the colours once in that time.
I have had the ET-2650 for ~3 years. Some comments:
Overall, I'm not enjoying the product. The only good thing about these printers is that ink is cheap and you don't need to refill as often as you would with cartridges.
I have a Brother that I have had for years.
But when I chose it, I didn't know the brand. I knew I wanted to load paper into a flat drawer at the bottom rather than loading from the top. I knew I wanted a printer that advertised durability and reliability, so I looked for one that promised the ability to print many thousands of sheets per year if needed. This printer is bullet proof. I specifically chose black and white because color can cause hassle. I also bought a dedicated scanner because multifunction machines are more fragile.
I'm curious, why did you want one that loads at the bottom specifically?
So that I can store the paper in the printer and have it be ready to print as needed with no work from me. It's a stable position. Some printers seem vulnerable to tipping over if bumped or in an earthquake. I don't want to have to manually load paper each time I print.
Interesting! I assumed you could leave paper on a vertical one, too, but to be fair the last time I saw one of those I was at most 10 years old.
I think you can leave some paper in the top of a printer. However with mine, I unwrap the package of paper and it all goes in the printer.
Oh wow that's a lot of paper at once 🤣 the one we have gets loaded with like a cm or so tall wad of paper and no more until it runs out.
There was a time when I used that much paper in a year...
I have a Samsung something something something wireless mono laser and it's probably ten years old now and still going strong. It needs a new toner cart occasionally but is perfectly happy with non-branded ones.
I was going to get a Brother like everyone recommends but the Samsung is slightly smaller and was on special offer at the time. I think it was something stupid like £50.
Another vote for brother. Had one for 8.5 years, still going strong. Replaced the ink with cheaper 3rd party toner cartridges with no issue. Easy to print wirelessly from my Mac/windows pc and iOS and Android phones.
The Verge has the best printer recommendation: just buy this Brother laser printer everyone has, it’s fine
If you want a more in-depth review, check out The Wirecutter's laser printer guide. But IMHO, The Verge is right. Just buy whatever Brother laser printer is on sale and never think about it again.
I have a Brother something-or-other in my home office I got from some business that threw it out. I've had it for years—long enough that I've actually bought replacement toner for it a couple of times. It just sits there and prints black and white documents when I need it to and never causes any problems.
I have a Dell 1130, which is a monolaser printer, and it just sits in the corner and prints the HECK out of anything I want to print. And then 5000 pages later I buy another toner cart and it keeps going.
It's a rebadged Samsung ML-2525.
These are ten years old. Buying second hand printers is a bit scary, but often it's people just clearing out clutter now they're almost paper free.
Here's a review: https://www.cnet.com/reviews/samsung-ml-2525w-review/
Im going to join the Brother army and say my HL-L2300D has been going strong for like 3 years. Only had to replace the toner once and thats when i had to do a bunch of shipping labels for work.
I have a canon pixma mp280 (printer/scanner) and it works fine! I use it maybe once a month or so. No online or ink subscription, I just buy ink cartridges.
There are many stores like Staples or Kinkos that you can upload files to and get prints if you are printing ‘office’ documents or most drug stores and Wal-Mart that make ‘photo’ prints. You upload your files to a web site or with an app and can pick them up at a store, get them in the mail, etc. and the cost is modest for the occasional user compared to the least cost printer.
Wish Brother could make a non-nonsense A3 laser printer. Doesn't have to do colour.