• cRazi_man@europe.pub
      4·
      2 hours ago

      OP is right. Brother laser printer will never let you down. It will also never run around or desert you.

      • AliasVortex@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        2 hours ago

        Kind of. Some of the newer models use chip identification and refuse to print if they think the toner is out. The L3765CDW has been something of a nightmare…

  • itsgroundhogdayagain@lemmy.ml
    3·
    1 hour ago

    Right now I’m the only one in the house who can print without issues and it’s only from my phone via WiFi. The desktop and another phone cannot print at all. A 3rd phone can print but has to select the paper tray on the touchscreen every time.

  • jj4211@lemmy.world
    14·
    5 hours ago

    To make the fairy tale work out:

    • Brother laser printer. It’s there, it works, and I don’t have to think about it.

    On the other extreme, inkjet is just busted. I’ll give ecotank some appreciation for not having an ink resupply problem, but clogs like crazy and have to spend forever trying to unclog it if I have to use it.

    Then there’s HP, a brand that just works every day to think how to screw over printer purchasers to get more money out of them microtransaction style.

  • Pat_Riot@lemmy.today
    23·
    7 hours ago

    My windows computers always fought with printers, but since I switched to Linux Mint both printers in my house have just done what I asked. Maybe it was never the printer that was the problem.

    • Bytemeister@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3·
      3 hours ago

      Same. Biggest eye-opener for me. My printer was located and installed automatically during setup. Same for all my other devices. It just fucking worked, and I legit cried a bit because I’ve wasted a significant portion of my life dealing with printer and driver issues on windows.

    • balsoft@lemmy.ml
      11·
      6 hours ago

      Oh how the turntables

      Printing on Linux used to be a massive pain because CUPS, until I learned that I can just yeet PDFs at network printers with nc.

      I can’t fathom Windows printing being worse than CUPS somehow. But then again I’m pretty sure last time I printed anything on Windows it was via a parallel port.

      • InputZero@lemmy.world
        1·
        3 hours ago

        I have always had decent success with CUPS and old printers, so like printers that are 15+ years old. It just works. Now with newer printers you’d have to be a sucker for punishment to go that route.

      • Passerby6497@lemmy.worldEnglish
        4·
        5 hours ago

        I fucking hated when places like HP stopped putting out basic drivers and forced the bloated print and scan app on everyone who wasn’t using it over the network

  • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
    10·
    6 hours ago

    Half the time my printer refuses to acknowledge that it even exists. Windows lists it as an unknown device quite a lot of the time.

    I’ve started to think it might be easier to 3D print a printing press and just do it manually.

  • Passerby6497@lemmy.worldEnglish
    3·
    4 hours ago

    Can’t confirm, my 12 yo HP LJ still spits out pages as expected, and doesn’t even complain about the aftermarket toner cars I use.

    I would say I miss when printers were good, but they never were… Just less awful than they are now.

    Edit: totally forgot, the printer was single sided for the first 20 years I had it, and I have no idea why (other than windows windows-ing) it suddenly started printing duplex after I migrated to Linux!

    • Rhaedas@fedia.io
      2·
      4 hours ago

      The HPs before that were solid. We had an HP 5P that would not quit. The toner cartridge was pricy, but it did last, so it was more of something to plan for than a constant cost. And you could shake it around a lot and get a few thousand more pages before it got bad, so it gave a fair warning.

      • Passerby6497@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        3 hours ago

        Oh, tell me about it. When I was working for a local school, we ended up replacing a TON of LJ400s that were still running like champs and refused die, but it was a pain in the ass to source/config the aftermarket card that let it run on the network while we still supported them.

  • Allero@lemmy.today
    12·
    8 hours ago

    Bought a 20-year-old used Brother printer for $25, and it runs just fine! Bought it when I planned to print my thesis and figured straight up buying it is cheaper than going to the print shop.

    It still prints all I ever need to print, and I never had to change or even refill anything. I did have to install drivers as the printer is not supported in CUPS by default, but drivers are still available on the official site (as well as AUR, my Arch friends), and looks like even some spare parts are still available for purchase.

    It also doesn’t have any connectivity except USB, which adds some peace of mind.

  • FireWire400@lemmy.worldEnglish
    6·
    8 hours ago

    I never had any issues with Canon or Brother printers at work, but HP printer are almost always unnecessarily complicated and frustrating all the way through, starting at the initial setup.

    • Tiral@lemmy.world
      4·
      7 hours ago

      Yeah, HP is currently in several lawsuits for their printers. They remotely disable them and a bunch of crazy stuff.

    • badgermurphy@lemmy.world
      2·
      6 hours ago

      I saw this color laser HP printer at work some years ago where the toner cartridges were in this “Ferris Wheel” apparatus and were moved to the paper, rather than the paper moving past them.

      I couldn’t believe it even worked for a week.

  • smiletolerantly@awful.systems
    43·
    14 hours ago

    I bought a Brother HL-L2375DW a couple of years back specifically for Linux compatibility, and it did NOT disappoint.

    • haven’t had a single error
    • has not refused to print a single time
    • super quick, good quality, duplex
    • using cheap 3rd party toner without complaint
    • works perfectly from Linux

    I don’t usually like to recommend brands/products, but this is the exception. If you need a printer, and black and white is all you need, go for this one.

    • assembly@lemmy.world
      6·
      12 hours ago

      Recently got a the Brother L2460DW and that thing was not expensive yet works so well. I got rid of a Canon Inkjet that no longer has supported print drivers. The Canon did fine with third party ink but it was from like 2009 and lasted to 2026 so I figured it did its duty with honor.

        • assembly@lemmy.world
          1·
          3 hours ago

          I thought about getting a color printer but I realized that I hadn’t used the color features in years anyways. I print documents maybe once a week and with my inkjet I waited for it to do a dance, warm up, and then print. This thing has like a 3 second delay and then immediately prints. It’s pretty amazing. Double sided printing saves paper so I’m happy with it.

        • jj4211@lemmy.world
          3·
          5 hours ago

          Better in almost every single respect.

          Photo printing is about the only thing I say I haven’t seen laser do, but the people in my family that appreciated printed photos over screens we would just order them printed to their local Walgreens instead of trying to mail them prints anyway. Don’t do that anymore either as they passed away some years back.

          • Bytemeister@lemmy.worldEnglish
            1·
            2 hours ago

            Laser does well for photos, but you gotta remember to get laser specifically photo paper. The fuser can get hot enough to damage the gloss, or even melt it and smear it around in the printer.

            Other than that, crisp photos, no bleed from the ink spread. Holds up well to light and moisture too.

        • mojofrododojo@lemmy.worldEnglish
          1·
          11 hours ago

          have a decade+ old hl-3070CW brother color laser printer, it’s great. I used brother toner for about 8 years, got a third party toner then and it’s not nearly as good color quality, will probably replace these when these no-names run out. get over a year of printing out of a set of 4 colors.

          I like it because I can leave it for two months then print a few hundred pages w/o worrying ‘oh shit is the ink all gummed up / dried out’.

          edit: I’ll add it’s a networked printer and everyone can print to it from our network w/o bullshit; androids, desktops, laptops, even the occasional visiting i-person device. shit just works.

    • KernelTale@programming.devEnglish
      5·
      13 hours ago

      I did not choose a printer but I have this one at home and it is really good. Definitely adequate for home use.

  • Nickelalloy@lemmy.world
    6·
    9 hours ago

    Some years ago I worked in a place thst had several Canon printers, it hit me after several years that I had never had any problem with them (except a stuck paper on some rare occasion)

    Later at a metal festival i talked to a man who worked for Canon, I assuned he worked with cameras but still menetioned how good of a brand it was when it came to printers.

    Turns out he worked with canon printers after all and according to him they have way more reliable up-time than the competitors, which he also worked for before.

    So yeah, a proper office printer from Canon is something diferent!