• Raiderkev@lemmy.world
      2·
      3 hours ago

      There were some stories about them enshittifying a few years back. Iric they were adding DRM like all the other shitcos making printers. Apparently just the older ones are good now.

    • mrgoosmoos@lemmy.caEnglish
      3·
      12 hours ago

      yeah I’ve got one that sits in my basement and gets used every few months. basically no issues, and when I do have an issue it’s pretty much always because of my shitty Wi-Fi

      100% would recommend

    • _stranger_@lemmy.world
      2·
      12 hours ago

      I replaced my original monochrome no features brother laser printer because it was physically destroyed in a move. The brother MFC that took its place lasted almost 13 years before a power surge knocked it off the network permanently. So now that one is an offline “print a huge thing and let it run all day” printer we only rarely use, and now have the most modern MFC they make, which I hope lasts another decade+. They’re awesome.

      • blargh513@sh.itjust.works
        2·
        5 hours ago

        I used my first brother MFC laser printer for probably 12 or more years. I passed it on to my brother and lost track of it. I replaced it with a color laser MFC.

        I rarely use it anymore so the fact that it works without issue is hardly a surprise. However, I would never own a printer that is not a laser printer. I’ve had three laser printers in the last 26 years. The current one is about 2 years old. They last.

  • jj4211@lemmy.world
    21·
    18 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.

    • cRazi_man@europe.pub
      8·
      15 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
        4·
        15 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…

  • Pat_Riot@lemmy.today
    30·
    19 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.

    • morto@piefed.socialEnglish
      5·
      11 hours ago

      My father migrated to linux (mint) a couple of years ago and some time after, he said that he got a printer and asked if I could help him configure it when I got some free time. He then never mentioned it again, until I remembered and asked him. He said that he didn’t need help after all, because it was very easy on linux.

    • Bytemeister@lemmy.worldEnglish
      7·
      15 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
      14·
      19 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
        4·
        16 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
        6·
        18 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

        • chiliedogg@lemmy.world
          3·
          12 hours ago

          Their plotter printing software is the worst. Not only is is proprietary bullshit, but it alsonhas like zero options. If you’re printing to a plotter you probably have enough technical knowledge to want some fucking settings.

  • itsgroundhogdayagain@lemmy.ml
    4·
    14 hours 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.

  • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
    11·
    19 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.

      • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
        2·
        9 hours ago

        USB-A to USB-B. It’s probably just a driver issue but I can’t be arsed fixing it because I barely ever use the damn thing.

        I knew the score if I needed to print with any degree of regularity I would just bite the bullet and buy a brother printer but I probably only print five documents a year so it’s not worth it.

  • Allero@lemmy.today
    12·
    21 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.

  • smiletolerantly@awful.systems
    48·
    1 day 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
      7·
      1 day 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
          2·
          15 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·
          18 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
            2·
            15 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
          2·
          1 day 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.

    • curiousaur@reddthat.com
      35·
      1 day ago

      My brother LaserJet has been unstoppable. It’s on the wifi, and has never even frustrated my wife! It just prints, every time.

      • APinkOrange@piefed.socialEnglish
        1·
        3 hours ago

        After a Samsung and a Lexmark both Laser MFC (which both had annoying quirks and had the typical printer issues, the brother I have now has been nothing but a reliable workhorse

      • stickyprimer@lemmy.world
        6·
        24 hours ago

        In 25 years I replaced it only once and that was to get a model that supported wifi. The first one could have gone another 50 years.

  • Passerby6497@lemmy.worldEnglish
    4·
    17 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·
      17 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·
        16 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.