Choosing a printer
Hello,
I have decided to get myself a laser printer.
My intentions are to have a working printer occasionally. So sometimes I will print a lot, but then it can be left unused for a couple of years and I want it to be usable in the instant I want it without having to go and get new whatever.
My question is are there any considerations besides the printer being listed at https://openprinting.github.io/printers that I should make?
I will not hunt down the most open (as in copyleft/libre soft- & hardware) printer but would not mind it being open.
More importantly is the expectation that I could find new toners (I think that's the word for "ink" in laser printers) in 5 years.
I don't really want color, but if it isn't that big of a difference I might as well.
(I could change my mind to get a different kind of printer, but you'd have to be really convincing.)
Brother used to be good about not locking down toner carts, but I've had an awful time trying to get remanufactured carts working in my HL-L3230CDW the last few years. I'm not sure if the carts are of suspect quality (carrotink, usually) or if they snuck in a firmware update, but the only reliable way to get the thing to work is with first-party cartridges.
That said, they do last quite a while and every other printer brand seems even more hostile.
There is an annoying "trick" that you need to do to get third party toner carts to work (I don't remember what it is off the top of my head since toner carts last me a long time). I do not believe for a second it isn't intentional and they could kill off this trick in newer models or with a firmware update.
I second this. I also have a Brother printer (HL-L2350DW) and it works perfectly. The toner lasts quite a lot, it's pretty cheap and I have never ever installed any drive. I print from every device and the only difference from trim's printer is that mine is in black and white because I decided needed no colours (said in this way it did sound depressing... But you understood what I meant :)
I've had my Brother for 13 years, it was a low end model. I'm still really impressed by it.
I also recommend this, although in the end we got a black-and-white printer, which is fine. Where we live, there are some fairly cheap self-serve printing shops when we really need colour, and the printer at home is mainly for convenience when printing out documents and things for typical German bureaucracy purposes, and those can pretty much always just be black and white. It's also good to have something at home for emergencies, even if it's "only" black and white.
I can also vouch for Brother (at least older models) being a good option, but I also second the other comments that they have started locking things down more.
I use a print server and keep my printer offline to prevent firmware updates. That way it's still like it's online because the print server is. It's just a small dedicated low power linux box (rpi would work too) with print server software installed. Was very simple to set up
That said, probably better company than the majority of their competitors. Even if they're starting to lock down I can say that I have never had a single problem and the toner lasts a long time so overall my experience is rather positive
I can easily print to it via my iphone and linux machines.
Got mine maybe 10 years ago (DCP-L2510DW or similar multi-function that has been discontinued by now)
I don't print often and I am still on the toner that came with it!
Fantastic! Thanks <3
In general: are the toners for colour and black different? I expect to print much more in black than in colour and it would feel quite bad to need a new toner to print black when the colours are still barely used.
Yes, the 4 different colors are different toners. In my model (brother hl-3170cdw) the toner cartridges are otherwise identical, so you could put them in the wrong slot and change all the blue colors pink if you wanted for some reason. For my model, brother sells black standalone and a combo pack with the three colors which is slightly less than buying the colors separate. But you can replace each color individually as needed. Unlike inkjet printers which mix some color into black printing to get a “true black”, laser printers just use pure black toner. My printer will run just fine with only the black toner cartridge installed.
One thing to note is the toner cartridges you get with the printer are often not full cartridges. Ours listed them at like 10% the capacity of the replacement cartridges. So don’t be disappointed when you go through the first set fast. The replacements will last much longer.
Another note: these machines can last a long time, so it’s worth investing in a good one. I just pulled my dad’s printer out of his classroom. He would use it at least weekly. It was an HP laser jet 4100 from 2001. It is still a perfectly cromulent printer. The only issue with it now is that it uses a printer port instead of usb, and doesn’t have drivers for anything remotely modern. My dad fixed that by getting a network card for it. With that, it works perfectly to this day.
Seconding Brother printers [for use with Linux]. I've been using a Brother MFC-9330 CDW for many years, through many Linux upgrades. No major issues with drivers once they're set up. Old drivers tend to last quite a while (they continue to work).
In my experience, while Brother black and white laser printers work very well, Brother color laser printers can have unacceptably bad print quality for color, with odd dithering, effective dpi nowhere near the specifications (or even nearby black), etc. I actually bought and returned a color laser printer from them once, as the print quality made the printer unusable (color text in scientific paper figures was simply illegible). The experience completely changed my perception of Brother; I had always preferred their printers in the past.
I would not buy an HP inkjet or a small home HP printer, but I have actually found HP color lasers reasonably reliable, and they work well with Linux.
Another vote for a brother black and white laser printer.
99.99% of my printing is just fine in black and white.
If I need color, I run down to the local color printer and pay $1/page.
The Verge releases this same article every year with the same suggestion: https://www.theverge.com/2024/4/2/24117976/best-printer-2024-home-use-office-use-labels-school-homework
And unless you know you want something very specific, it’s true every year.
Why do you need a printer?
I have found that I have neighbors that work from home and have functioning printers in regular use, and they don’t mind printing some pages for me occasionally (about once a month). I let them use my lawnmower, not as payment or equal exchange, but just because not every garage needs a lawnmower and not every house needs a printer. I’m in a large Midwest USA city if that is of interest.
Or, we also use the printers at the library. It’s a cheap option. And for us in particular— it’s 0.10$ per page, but the account is reset to a $5 balance every month. So effectively it is free. And I can send print jobs directly from my phone or computer (via email), scan my card on the machine at the library, and it prints it off. Easy.
Printers are one of the most infuriating consumer devices there are, and for some reason everyone thinks they need one even if they use it a few times a year. Obviously there can be REASONS that someone like this needs one, but I raise the alternatives in case they hadn’t been considered.
The main reason is convenience. I do have to print, sign and scan stuff a couple of times a month at least, and I am not willing to go through what you just described haha. That sounds awful to me.
Privacy and weird hours convenience are my reasons! I occasionally need to print stuff for medical care professionals, and doing so at weird hours or in public can be problematic.
Consider refurbished or ex-office (enterprise) models Brother printers. They’re usually cheap and work well and predate rumours of enshittification. Or older HP for the same reason. Avoid Samsung anything, they’re shit quality and their software gives no fucks about security or privacy.
Bonus for widely available compatible toner which is usually a function of how popular this particular model is.
I have a HP m402dn that I got for cheap lightly used. I think it’s really at the limit of when HP went hard on enshittification: I can still roll back the firmware, block auto updates, and disable genuine toner checks from the printer’s LCD. Compatible toner is about 20 EUR for 9000 pages. I can also find spare rollers if they wear out. But really check before committing: search eBay for compatible toner options for the model you’re considering. I wouldn’t touch HP anything (enterprise or not) with a ten foot pole anymore.
Colour laser printers are not that cheap to use, since they need four toners and replacement stings. A monochrome laser otoh is cheap and reliable. As for brand, Brother used to be a good choice. Just don't buy a HP.
PS. You also need to decide between a printer/scanner vs a simple printer, and also if you need dual side scan or print. Those, and your target pages per month/year should point you to a specific class of machines.
Just as a fyi, laser printers can affect indoor air quality. They release fine particles and volatile organic components during printing. Ozone as well if I remember correctly but on modern printers minimal.
Not that much that it is a big deal for an occasional single print here and there. But afaik enough to keep it in mind if you ever need to print large amounts. Just make sure the room is properly ventilated and it should be fine.
Something over ten years ago I was in a very similar situation to you and I bought the cheapest Samsung wifi-capable mono laser I could find, an M2020-W, for I think £50 and it's been rock solid ever since. Sometimes I don't print for months, sometimes every other day. It sits on a shelf out of the way and it Just Works. Every few years I buy an unbranded toner cartridge for £20 and that keeps me going perfectly well.
If I ever need to replace it, I'd look at Brother devices first, a friend has one and it's equally rock solid but looks slightly nicer. I don't know if Samsung even make a cheap mono laser any more. I just checked and toner carts are still available for mine.
Excellent! Thanks <3
Yeah, mono laser seems like the way to go, I just have a small itch around colour but I suspect it's more of a FOMO than actual wanting.
The very few times I want/need colour it's either photos, in which case I pay a photo printing service a few pounds for the use of their insanely high quality photo printers (which I could never afford to own one of); or it's just a document that I can print at my local library on a colour laser for a couple of pence (I can even email a document from home and have it ready at the printer when I get to the library).
Of course your mileage may vary on that front, but I don't miss having colour printing at home at all.
Another one for Brother - we have an HL-L3270CDW and it's a tank. My wife likes organizing things and being able to print in colour was a must for her. Looking at the stats page, we've only replaced the toners once.
1817 total pages
98% remaining on maintenance kit (belt, fuser, paper feeder) - estimated 48700 pages left
60% left on Cyan
60% left on Magenta
80% left on Yellow (Apparently this one is higher yield than the other two, looking at Amazon it's cheaper too)
70% left on Black
I'd say we got through at least 600 pages on the included toner. So probably at least another 1200 pages till I have to start thinking about the next replacement. I think the full set of 4 cost around 360 CAD (they range from 80-100$ each I think) but obviously they last a lot lot longer than the equivalent inkjet cartridges. I've not tried third party toner kits so I can't provide any info there sadly.
We've had it for four years now I think? Well worth it I think. Despite the higher volume, a lot of those are my wife doing big batch prints of 150+ pages. Often times it goes unused for weeks if not months.
As for enshittification rumours, I've just completely blocked the printer from the Internet via my router firewall. Local access only, I've got a CUPS server set up too to facilitate access from all devices.
So, obviously the consensus is Brother. I'm still going to give my HP story.
Our first printer in my dad's home was an HP LaserJet 4L. Made me fall in love with laser printers. It was pretty slow, but in the mid-90s it was good enough for a self-employed lawyer.
When I went to college in the early oughts, I inherited an HP LaserJet 5L (or at least I think L) from a company I worked for. I had to buy a little kit to replace the paper rollers, and it was cheap and simple. Then an aftermarket toner cartridge, also cheap enough, and it lasted 10 years of dual home graduate school usage (500-1500 pages a year).
Moved into a new home in 2015 and bought a used HP LaserJet 6L. Did the same thing with replacing the rollers and toner, and we're still using the same stuff (this time 500-1500 pages a year as faculty). It's not fancy at all. No color. On the 6L you have to enable duplex and manually flip the stack of printed pages to get double-sided printing. But I love a workaround solution, and it certainly felt like one and saved a lot of money over the decades.
I also had a LaserJet 4, complete with the network interface. I literally printed entire books with the thing. It was amazing. It’s so sad that modern printers don’t do that, though to be fair they are much cheaper today than that thing was. It looks like the MSRP was over $2000 at launch, and with inflation it would look more like $5000! It turns out there was a reason why we got that thing used.
For sure. Used was really the only option for us, too. It seems like a great bet looking back. I think I've spent less than $500 on printers, toner, repair kits, and paper during my 20+ years of adult life.
My black and white Canon LBP151 is a network printer that gets used... like... 6 time a year, max, for maybe one or two pages? I couldn't get it to correctly allow connections for about 3 years, but I finally sat down with the manual one day, forced a firmware update and it worked right ever since. I'm still on my original toner cartridge and my first box of paper reams. I can't speak to their color laser printers, but I imagine they're every bit as good as the black and white laser printers.
Nobody mentioned Xerox so far. I switched form HP to Xerox a few years back due to cheaper toner and I've been very happy with how hassle-free the printer is to install and operate so I wanted to mention it. (Mine is a colour printer, C310, but a similar B&W model is likely available.) I'm happy with print quality and the printer lets me make small adjustments to the amount of toner it dispenses. I haven't been met with any user-hostile features or gimmicks; it just works.
When it comes to toner, we can't know for sure when some type will go out of production. There are other reasons besides enshittification that can lead to that, for example new regulation or raw material availability etc., so it may be wise to just buy large enough cartriges that you won't need to replace them soon and/or buy an extra set. The price of toner also goes down if you buy a larger cartrige, so I chose to get the largest available ones for every colour.
With the large cartriges and my actual usage the cost per printed page is 0,08 € on the Xerox when it used to be 0,15 € on my old HP. Using normal cartriges, the numbers would be 0,12 € for Xerox and 0,25 € for HP.
I use my printer fairly often and not just for printing text documents but photo/image proofs as well, so ink consumption is at the higher end for me. The large cartriges still last me several years so if your use case is just text documents, you may get several years out of a regular cartrige.
(I tried to check if my model is listed on the site you linked to but for some reason it gives zero results for me, even when I try different browsers.)
Xerox doesn't get a lot of attention because they don't really have a "home" printer lineup. They do have cheapish office printers that are pretty good for home use, but they don't target the home market.
That's probably a good thing; pretty much every "consumer grade" printer I've dealt with was shit. Brother's lauded laser printers are just less shitty than the competition, but I wouldn't necessarily call them "good" let alone "great". Compared to my memory of how they were, it seems like they produce less crisp and with less consistent tone, especially when dealing with shades of grey.
The consumer printer market is in a continuous race to the bottom, and it seems like the small business sector is pretty close to it as well, in my personal experience. Small office printers seem to always have pretty short support lifespans and so, just like with consumer printers, if something goes wrong the best solution is usually to just buy an entirely new one, chucking the old one into the e-waste bin.
Yep, I've experienced a couple troublesome printers myself and thought I was doomed. But the Xerox has been great and frictionless to the extent that I sometimes say "I love you" to it out loud XD
The only thing I dislike about it is that wi-fi had to be configured using a numpad. Each number button will cycle through 3 letters, first lower case, then upper case, so if you need the third one in upper case, you have to press the button 6 times to get it. My wi-fi has a fairly long name and password. It was a pain in the butt. Everything else works like a charm and without any extra steps or enshittification!
Fingers crossed, hoping they haven't installed a chip that makes it go kaputt at a predetermined time. (Actually, that's probably illegal in the EU so I won't need to worry about it.)
This sounds like a plus! T9 ftw!
Oh, how I miss the olden days of non-smart phones with actual buttons.
Now that I think of it, the satisfaction of pressing those physical buttons probably alleviated some of the pain of having to spend a few extra seconds of my life to get the configuration done.
Seconded for a second hand pro/business printer. I got good result and good price from a second hand Canon mf8500cdw.
I have an Epson Eco Tank model from about 2021. Still on original ink. It’s a perfectly cromulent printer and hasn’t given me any headaches.
As far as I can tell, nobody would be able to stop you from squirting off brand ink into the tanks. It’s got a special nozzle interface but it doesn’t seem especially complicated.
Ecotank printers are good for someone who prints at least weekly, but not good if you wish to print very occasionally (eg. every three months), like the OP said.
That’s basically me, I print a few pages every two or three months. I think I’ve had an issue one time. I printed a test page or two and it was back in action.
YMMV of course, but it hate my anecdata
LTT just released a video about printer shopping. Honestly it’s more about general interest than advice for someone who is buying a printer, so I’ll outline the important bits. Ecotank printers can be surprisingly good on a budget. They get the advantages of ink and remove a lot of the disadvantages of cartridge based ink. They ended up with a brother monochrome and an epson tank color. Both were in the $230 range (I think that was Canadian dollars).
I don’t think this video has any information that other people in this thread haven’t already said, but I found it entertaining.