$4 vs $400 Printer

[JordB]

 

There’s always that one form that you just HAVE to print out, that one professor that demands a hard copy.

Is it really worth buying a printer for that once-in-a-while problem?

 

Check out Epson's EcoTank Printers here: https://epson.com/ecotank-home-office-printers

 

 

Purchases made through some store links may provide some compensation to Linus Media Group.

[TempestCatto]

I have a black and white laser printer from 2003 (back when HP actually made good printers). I really only print a few things a year, and don't need colour for those things. Got it for free from a local school offloading old stuff. Prints the second I click "print" and takes only a few seconds at the most. It is never leaving my desk. Wish tech wasn't so needlessly complicated.

[Senzelian]

Too bad LED printers weren't mentioned  

[iLikeBananas]

So can anyone recommend a decent printer? I have a hard time believing that printers are still bad after all those years.

[swimtome]

1 hour ago, iLikeBananas said:

So can anyone recommend a decent printer? I have a hard time believing that printers are still bad after all those years.

As hinted as in middle of video, Brother laser printers are mostly fine.  All color sucks IMHO because of the must-use-or-it-dries.

[silentdragon95]

2 hours ago, iLikeBananas said:

So can anyone recommend a decent printer? I have a hard time believing that printers are still bad after all those years.

I'd argue that they somehow managed to get even worse. These days it is almost impossible to find a new printer that actually accepts third party ink cardridges, and it's not like inkjet printers have gotten more reliable either. And don't even get me started on HP, their ink subscription and printer driver that requires users to create an account

 

I'd say that for most regular users, a black and white laser printer is probably the most sensible option. There are models that include a scanner as well and they still shouldn't break the bank. The advantages are as mentioned in the video, toner will basically never dry up and so there is a high chance that the thing is still going to print just fine 10 years from now. In fact, I own an Apple Laser Writer that is literally 28 years old (yes it is as old as I am), and it has at times saved my ass because it has always worked unlike the other printers we've had over the years.

 

I wouldn't bother with a color laser printer as they are big, expensive and generally not suitable for printing photos or large images (the color will end up being uneven), so if you absolutely need to print photos or colored documents I'd skip everything else and go straight to an inkjet with a tank like the one in the video. Keep in mind however that this only really makes sense if you use it regularly, because un-clogging print heads is never fun.

 

If you're on a budget but do have some spare time on your hands, you can take the chance on some older inkjet printers (though not as old as the one in the video), as people will often sell those for cheap due to the print head being clogged. For example, I used to own an Epson WF-2760 that still accepted those dirt cheap third party ink cardridges which I got for €20 since it wouldn't print in color. I then got a printer head cleaning kit that basically comes with a syringe and a bottle of cleaning fluid which you push though the print head, which cleared it successfully. It would probably be a good idea to check the specific model of any printer for availability of third party ink cardridges before buying though. Right now I have a Canon Maxify MB5150 which was by far the cheapest new printer to feature an ADF duplex scanner that could save directly to an SMB share, but outside of that, I honestly wouldn't really recommend it - print quality is fine but honestly worse than the Epson, and the Windows software for the thing looks to be 20 years old (no really, we had a Canon inkjet in circa 2004, and the drivers looked the same). At least it's not going to sell me any subscriptions though I guess, so there's that

[dogwitch]

5 year old Conan going strong. no third party driver needed for it with win 10 or above.

ink cheap and you can use third party to!

[MarkPol88]

6 hours ago, dogwitch said:

Conan

The Barbarian?

 

Sorry, I had to...

[Biohazard777]

13 hours ago, iLikeBananas said:

So can anyone recommend a decent printer? I have a hard time believing that printers are still bad after all those years.

12 hours ago, swimtome said:

As hinted as in middle of video, Brother laser printers are mostly fine.  All color sucks IMHO because of the must-use-or-it-dries.

I have a BROTHER DCP-720DW, and I haven't ran into the must-use-or-it-dries issues.... yet, maybe I will, bought it a couple of years ago.
I do not print a lot, but I do leave it plugged in, it does the self-clean automatically.

 

[choocurrier]

Printers are definitevely just like cats:

 

[Needfuldoer]

I did the "cheap inkjet because I'll rarely use it" thing once. Never again.

 

Laser printers that happily run on third party toner are the way to go. I got lucky finding an HP LaserJet Pro P1606dn at a thrift store for $5 several years ago. It had less than 500 pages on the odometer, can duplex print, and takes HP 78a cartridges that aren't chipped and cost $10 for remanufactured replacements.

 

My current printer is a color Canon MFP I got for free off Marketplace. It needed regular maintenance items (a roller kit and lid hinges), but I'm only $40 into the thing. When it's due for toner cartridges, the third party ones are $50 a set.

 

The only other printer I currently have is an ImageWriter II to go with my Apple IIgs and small armada of old Macs. It's got the LocalTalk option card too, so it's even networked.

 

  (Not my video. Ignore the red and green at the top of the page; they're using a black ribbon and pre-printed stationery.)

 

16 hours ago, TempestCatto said:

I have a black and white laser printer from 2003 (back when HP actually made good printers).

My parents had a ca. 1998 HP LaserJet 4000 for 20 years. It was relatively slow, took forever to warm up, and chugged power, but it was dependable. Granted it only had a couple reams of paper pass through it once us kids passed school age, but it didn't let us down until the aging toner cartridge leaked and ruined the fuser. I gave them the HP 1606dn to replace it, then got them an HP color MFP (also from Marketplace) to replace the OfficeJet they kept fighting every time they wanted to print something in color. It took some convincing to get them to actually make the switch () but they were happy with it once they did.

 

16 hours ago, Senzelian said:

Too bad LED printers weren't mentioned  

The vast majority of modern "laser" printers are LED printers. I think actual "laser pointed at a revolving mirror" tech is only for very high end printers and imagesetters these days.

 

 

[dogwitch]

12 hours ago, MarkPol88 said:

The Barbarian?

 

Sorry, I had to...

i always make the same mistake. with the printer right next to me to!

but said printer are that good thru

[Bitter]

I had a Pantum printer once, it worked fine in Windows but never Linux or Mac. It smelled like death cancer every time it printed. When the toner ran low I found that the toner was completely discontinued and unavailable and better yet the PCB on the cartridge was a page counter so even if you refilled it it wouldn't work. I gave it to someone who didn't print often and would probably use it for another year before it actually 'ran out'. It caught fire.