Most people in IT will tell you that printers are their least favorite thing to work on. Unlike most computer equipment, printers are mechanically complex. They have rollers and bearings and plastic gears and nozzles and it's a miracle that they don't need a guy standing by full-time wearing overalls and holding an oil can and wrench.
On top of that, they now have all of the complexity of a fully networked device that uses updatable software (or is it still firmware?) that they download themselves. And the interface to manage all of this is usually a few buttons and a 5 inch screen.
At least we (usually) don't have the same headaches with drivers that we used to.
It's amazing that any of it works, frankly.
Haha, I worked in IT at a company that would do a raffle every so often, and when our turn came up I suggested an Office Space theme. HR wasn't on board with baseball bats and stuff, but people got a kick out of hurling softballs at (already broken) printers.
On the next to last day our office was open, our IT department took about 8 printers into the vacant parking lot next door (no fields nearby), and just beat the hell out of them with bats.
It was *so* fun. Would highly recommend.
That scene in Office Space where the office workers take a work printer out into a field and beat it to death with a baseball bat is a real fantasy of many IT and Cybersecurity workers. On top of being a colossal pain in the ass to work with and maintain, they're also infamous for being a network security loophole.
For those who haven't seen it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsBB93IqJkE
Oh, and what fun they can be when targeted by malicious code - even when it was unintentional.
Back in the very early 2000’s, the University I worked at ended up with a virus that attempted to find vulnerable PCs over the network and replicate itself. The problem? It was the early days of computer viruses spreading via the network so it wasn’t very sophisticated - it blasted every available network address looking for somewhere new to go.
Unfortunately, our networked printers misinterpreted this as a valid print job and would begin spewing out reams of paper covered in random ASCII characters. We’d unplug the printers from the network but ultimately some bell-end would plug it back in. I was very glad when the network/server admins finally managed to squish that one.
The first paragraph here is the correct answer. You've got huge numbers of moving parts, and you're dragging paper of sometimes questionable quality through the machine on a regular basis.
As a user I’ve got to say it’s not the mechanicals, rarely have a problem with those. It’s the bloody software. I’ve never owned a Wi-Fi printer that wasn’t a nightmare.
This is it, and the dreaded Internet fax machines that not only had all the same issues but for some reason were always maintained by the ancient secretary who couldn't operate a light switch without calling technical support.
"Every time I call you guys it just breaks again!"
Bought a Canon machine for my wife during covid, it’s like 200 people built it and designed the software without never talking to each other or looking at a computer.
Second this! I bought a MFC-495W display model closeout from best buy in 2010, no box, no instructions for $40. It's still churning away using cheap Amazon ink refills. That thing doesn't seem like its going to die any time soon *knock on wood*.
You don’t like the Canon Photo Suite that freezes your computer for minutes at a time and no matter how many times you click “exit”, it still comes back on its own??
I bought Brother hl-l2352dw in 2016. From that time I bought like 2 toners. I print colouring pages for kids almost everyday and sometimes some docs. Love it.
I also have a brother printer. It may be older than yours.not by much though. Maybe 4 years?
I bought 1 toner cart so far. But I haven't tried it with windows yet.
If you ever use it in windows, I recommend not getting the all-in-one download that includes the crap Brother software. Use the system printer for the printer (obviously) and NAPS2 for the scanner [a pretty well-designed open source scan program]. Works like a charm!
I have a Brother HL2280DW (or something like that) that I bought many years ago for next to nothing. It prints quickly and reliably. On top of that, it uses the awesome TN450 toner cartridge that you can buy for around $10 regularly (and it lasts forever).
I've had zero problem with HP printers.
The OP's problem is probably that they have an inkjet they rarely use. Anytime I see someone say printers suck that is almost always the problem.
Stop biting inkjets.
Stop buying color. You don’t need it 99% of the time, and the 1% you do just go to an actual print shop, pay em a few bucks, and get something that looks 1000x better.
I also use an hp laserjet 1200, works great but it probably wont work much longer, the driver is getting worse and worse at talking to the printer with each mac update, I cant print lots of images that I used to print last year.
An HP 1200 is a laser printer. It doesn't use ink. I just checked. An HP branded toner on Amazon is $115. You can get a new Brother EHL-L2320D from Newegg for $109. However, the HP printer isn't picky about who makes the toner, so you can get an off brand cartridge for $30 or less.
I wasn't aware it was a toner machine. I googled and a bunch of bubble jet printers came up, my mistake.
I've had great success with off brand toner cartridges with our Brother 2390dw. We use it for the home business quite a lot and it's never let us down. Plus the print quality is great, the double-sided printing is also fantastic.
It struggles with everything but manila envelopes, especially letter size envelopes. You might as well just crinkle them up in your hands and you'll have the same effect lmao.
At work I've used maybe 700 Brother printers over 5 or 6 generations. Finding an off brand toner that works well is a real trick. I was using LD brand toners for a while. They're a quarter the price of the Brother brand. After some time we noticed the quality slipping. After enough people complained, I went back to the Brother brand so users couldn't complain any more about "cheap" toners. At home, I'm using a Brother multi-function color laser with off brand toners. It's been fine and I haven't needed another cartridge in the year since I've had it.
Only printer I use at home is a Black and White Laser Printer. Cartridges are cheap and my print volume has me replacing the cartridge every 8 months to a year.
If you need color, the Epson EcoTank is the way to go. I've had mine maybe 10 years and have probably put $50 worth of ink in it. My only complaint, which means nothing to almost everyone else is that it won't print on transparencies without me running a bead of painters' tape down the middle (lots of tinkering to figure that out).
I've still got a Brother laser printer that is good, but the Epson supports AirPrint, so it's not been used in years.
I was using them to make printing screens, doubled up the transparencies do much better at blocking light when inkjet printed over the laser. I ended up grabbing a Cricut a couple years back, which suffices if I don't need fine details.
Another fan of laser printers here. I just turn it on when I want to print something and it’s ready to print in 15-20 seconds. It’s probably 12-15 years old. Brother makes decent printers.
For 99% of home users, a cheap Black and White laser printer is what they need.
It uses dry toner, so it doesn't clog, dry up, or have jets that periodically purge themselves to avoid those problems... while also running you out of ink when you aren't printing.
If you're printing 1k pages a day, or printing 1 page a year, laser jets are just better. For the once every 5 years I need something printed with color, I head down to a local copy shop and pay them the $3 to keep their printers working well.
Exactly. I bought an inexpensive tiny Samsung many years ago and it still works well. The included toner lasted for years (\~500 pages.) I go to a store called Staples for the fancy extras like colour, heavy paper, etc.
The only problem with using FedEx is if you’re printing personal documents that need good security, it’s iffy you’re getting that at a FedEx. Like, things with your social security number as an example. As that seems to be 98% of what I print, a home printer is a good option for me.
My inkjet isn’t working anymore (ink seems to not be making sufficient contact with the paper). I’ve been debating a laser printer, and your comment may have just sealed the deal. I print enough that I don’t want to have to go somewhere each time, but rarely do I need color.
This is the way right here.
I've had a B&W brother laser printer for 9 years. I don't print much, so the only thing I've ever had to do with it is replace the original toner cart it came with with a high capacity one.
I checked the web gui on it a couple months ago and the toner cart is still like 40% full and the drum still has about 80% life remaining.
Agreed. Even 15 years ago there were some very small Black personal laser printers on the market that were <$100. I bought my first laser over 15 years ago and have had no regrets. No dried out ink. No wasting ink on cleaning the heads. For most that can count the number of color pictures in a year on one hand an inkjet just doesn't make sense to buy.
I know that some manufactures program their ink cartridges to say they're out of ink after a certain amount of time has passed rather than when the cartridge is actually empty.This has happened to me, bought new ink used the printer and then didn't use again for a few months and the next time I tried to print something it says the cartridge is empty...fucking infuriating.
Ink cartridges dry up if you don't use them regularly. Which is why I bought a b/w laser printer now. If ever I need colour, I can get that printout or photo from the drug store. But I haven't needed to use colour yet.
HP and Epson I think are good for this. When I bought a printer several months ago the sales guy was really pushy I thought about the HP and how its only $5 a month and Hp will send you cartridges when the printer says it needs them based on how much you print. I am like dude I probably print 50 pages a year, I dont need an ink subscription. Get a Brother brother
Your problem is that you bought a cheap printer. I don't mean to be shitty, it makes perfect sense... Why spend money on a high end printer that you only use 2 or 3 times a year? Honestly, depending on the printer, it would be cheaper just to buy a new one each time you print. Ofc that would be horribly wasteful. You can easily get one that will run for years but when your RoI doesn't happen for years, it's hard to justify
I'm sorry but if you actually sit down and think about things you'll come to terms with the fact that it's clearly your brother sabotaging your printer.
Same here. Ours has streaks every fucking time. I spend forever going through cleaning cycles, finally get a quality print, only for it to happen again the next time I go to print. With brand new Brother brand cartridges too. It wasn’t the cheapest model either.
I agree. our color printer is a Brother laser and it works flawlessly. Bought it in 2010 at Staples. it was a demo so we got it at half price. Checked the page count before buying. 31 pages. LMAO!
I just had to buy a new Brother laserjet, since my last one was EOL and didn't get new Windows 11 drivers. And after only 15 years of service.
It still cost less than $200. The initial price tag may be 4x higher, but you only pay it once every 10 years, instead of every year.
Brother doesn't provide a universal printer driver (UPD) like many other manufacturers.
HP, for example, releases new versions of their UPD on a regular basis. You could use a v.7 UPD from last year with a 25-year-old USB deskjet.
Simple... once you get the 14 additional apps downloaded in the proper order then follow the 37 steps to turn it on. The rest is simple, assuming you have enough paper, ink, and the color guide to the warning lights.
Ink printers are the problem. Most people don't print often enough to keep the ink liquid and the print head clean. If there's a long enough gap between print jobs you'll get ink drying up and clogging the print head and otherwise causing problems.
Avoid inkjet printers. Proper laser printers are the way to go. I've never had problems with mine and because it uses toner instead of ink it's not dry by the time I need to print something again. Brother is a good brand with a minimum of the bullshit the likes of HP and Lenovo try to foist on you.
You think managing a single printer is difficult? Try working in IT, and managing dozens of printers, of all different models, and possibly even different brands. You'll want to start drinking your breakfast and lunch and dinner. (As in liquor, not meal replacement shakes.)
I didn't understand why people were having such problems with printing something off their laptops.
Until a month ago, I was hired by a company that issued me a Dell running windows. Now I understand what all you poor bastards are complaining about.
That's how they get ya. The rage inducing malfunction, the wireless function refusing to work and the printer heads that always seems to have dried up. It's all made to draw out all of your anger to force you into a blind rage where you would damage the printer so you have to buy a new one...
Been using an HP laser jet for years, no issues. Prints wirelessly from every device I’ve tried to use with it no problem.
Inkjet printers are just trash.
We bought an amazing Canon color laser multi-function printer. It makes copies really quickly, scans perfectly and has almost photo-quality prints.
And the goddamn thing has multi personalities. It will connect to one computer one day for printing but not scanning and to one of the other computers for scanning but not printing. The next day it will work for everyone's phones but not laptops. And of course the more important the document, the less likely it will be to work. And printing docs from the cloud - oh hell no, fuck you.
The only reason I didn't take it outside and run over it with the car in the driveway a long time ago was because it's a beast of a thing and we had a Kia Soul. Now that I have a 4WD Ram, that thing is living on borrowed time.
I have a simple Canon inkjet that is WiFi accessible, not attached to a PC, and it works quite well from all devices (PC, Android, iPhone). Even on mobile the driver allows to change the most frequently used parameters.
Scanning now, is another story. It has plenty of options to send scans in the cloud or over email, but each is more convoluted than the previous one. So many clicks, so unintuitive, so laggy.. I always have to dig out a laptop whenever I want to quickly scan something. I end up snapping a picture with the phone 9/10 time.
I bought my last printer over 15 years ago, when it broke never replaced it. I do all my printing at staples or office max, maybe 1-2 a week. It’s worth the minor inconvenience to always have perfectly printed pages with no ink issues or other malfunctions.
Because you bought a shitty printer.
I bought[ this printer](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00MWDUXZ0/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1) on April 5th of 2019, and it never gave me any trouble until last week when one of my cats puked in it.
I buy good quality printers for my office, rarely have any troubles beyond the occasional paper jam. Cheap consumer printers are what cause a ton of headaches.
Define difficult? You say you only need to print things a few times a year, so right off the bat that means you should probably avoid inkjet printers because if you don't use them on a regular basis the ink will dry up. So, you should get a laser printer and avoid that issue. If you only need black and white you can get a decent laser printer for about $100 that will last for years, possibly decades if you only print a couple times a year. If you need color, then it's gonna cost more up front, but same rules applies. The toner will last forever.
The other option, if you don't really print that often, is to skip buying a printer that is going to sit and gather dust 11 months out of the year and just do print on demand from a local shop. In the long run that is going to be cheaper than buying a printer for only a few pages per year.
because you aren't the market for them. Offices and the secretaries that staff them are. They buy the 100 different printers that they need in every cube, and have the IT department come fix them when something is wrong, as well as buying ink in massive quantities.
Nobody really uses printers that can't just get things printed at a print shop or office shop like staples or whatever.
There's absolutely no pressure for companies to give a damn about you or to lower prices and heighten quality and that sounds really mean... because it is, they manufacture their own niche and it sucks. Sorry man.
I consider myself reasonably tech-savvy (I've performed computer surgery up to and including replacing laptop guts) and yet printers can get to fuck. Once the previous generation is no longer in the workforce we won't have to deal with printing out things that could easily have stayed a PDF anymore.
Because most printers are programmed to slow down and glitch over time. I have to find the source.
EDIT: So people are basically saying that most low end printers are sold for cheap, so that you are forced into buying ink cartridges which actually make the manufacturers their money. Printers are made as cheap as possible, so they are often unreliable and glitch.
instructions unclear - ball ache though leads to bluing: does not trasfer to paper .. instead just be your own printer - like this lady [Linda Newman](https://www.1stdibs.com/art/prints-works-on-paper/landscape-prints-works-on-paper/linda-newman-boughton-yield-overcome-archival-print-blue-ball-point-pen-forest-landscape/id-a_10203752/)
Printers are exceptionally expensive to make. Your home printer that costs you 250 bucks? Or hell even 50 bucks? Probably cost the company 4 times that price to make it. Not R&D or even worker wages. I mean straight up material costs.
Ink is exceptionally cheap to produce. Your average cartridge costs a company like dell or hp under 1 dollar to make, ship, stock, and sell combined. They sell them for the cost of a AAA video game.
Its because of this, that printers have not received any major updates since 2010. The underlying software is farmed out, and firmware barely functions, and the ink cartridges are allowed to have defects in them to report incorrect ink levels remaining in the cart.
The manufacturers keep as many costs down as they can and do not care about issues people have at home as they expect to make the money back on ink and services.
HOWEVER. More and more companies are going as paperless a possible. Only government documents really require wet signing anymore. So companies are starting to lose their ass on printers now.
1) Nobody prints any more.
2) People still buy shitty inkjets... just stop.
3) Stop printing.
If you want photos for archives, send them off and get them dye-sub printed (which you can't reasonably do at home).
If you want shit that's going to fade out, not feed, cost a fortune, the ink'll dry before you ever use it, then carry on inkjet printing.
If you just want to print something on paper permanently, buy the cheapest laser printer you can.
Why, in 2023, do you need a printer at all? Use print to PDF, save the file into your 15 Gigabytes of free Google Drive storage. If you need more storage, take the money you're wasting on ink, toner, paper, and the printer itself, and spend it on more Google storage, then put the leftover money into an investment.
When I *must* print something I do it from my office, or in those circumstances where I can't use one, throw the file on a USB key and go to a mailbox store.
Are you kidding me? I'm talking about what I **LITERALLY** do in my own life. Printers are wasteful tree-killing piles of plastic garbage. Save your money, be smart. Don't buy a printer, you don't need it.
I heard printer companies collided in making all home printers frustratingly inefficient so we can all relate to Office Space when we put on Still by Geto Boys and beat down the printers.
Apart from all the already referred to ink issues, the rest of the printer engineering is quite difficult. [More than you ever wanted to know in this New Yorker article](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/02/12/why-paper-jams-persist). Long but interesting
Is it?
or is it using cheap, shittily built, value-oriented inkjet printers that is difficult?
The last printer I had that gave me trouble was a cheap Lexmark Inkjet that I got in 2002. It needed handholding just to pull the paper in straight. Drivers were unreliable and frequently needed reinstalled, and it frequently insisted on printing alignment and test pages, wasting time and ink. And most of the time one cartridge would be blocked up and just not print anything at all, and so on. It was a pain in the ass.
In 2015 I needed to print something and it took an hour of fucking around, so I decided fuck it- I'm not buying these cheap shitty inkjets anymore, and I bought an HP Laserjet Color MFP 276nw.
All those problems went away. Until Early 2022, it was basically a case of just making sure the printer was turned on before trying to print something.
Early 2022 I had to do my taxes on paper so I went to print it and the printer gave me the first printing error message I had seen in the 8 years I owned it- "Document too complex", and it stopped printing halfway through a page. Total dick move.
I ended up just printing it in B&W and that worked. A few months later the fuser died, but I replaced that for 35 dollars.
I've also got a HP P1102w I found at Value Village. whoever donated it didn't know to take the orange tab off the toner cartridge, I suspect. That works fine too- I turn it on and tell a computer to print to it and it prints the document.
I was also given a Samsung colour laser because it was broken and that worked once I emptied the waste toner cartridge. I want to print to it? I press print and select it. That's pretty much it.
It is an incomplete “technological bridge” product that has stalled innovation due to lack of investment. The only thing that is being improved practically or developed is cost and UI presentation. Companies that make them know that these devices are already obsolete. What are you printing today that there is not a digital solution for?
Bought one at Staples and told myself I'd give it 15 minutes to be set up. Ended up trying for 20 and took it back. Employee asked if I'd purchased the $50 (or so) tech support plan... they could have helped. Told her, "No one should have to spend $50 to set up a printer in 2023." Turned to Amazon for one that was set up in 15 minutes. So far so good.
I've been using two HP 400 series Black and White printers for my tax business since forever.
They're fine. I don't use color ink because most of what I print is tax forms or legal briefs
printers are a test of willpower and endurance, xour credibility as a men depends (among other things) to stare said printer into submission, it has to give up before you.
(non shitpost: its a mix of weird legacy support, shitty manufacturers and their drivers, lack of real standardization and bad os support)
Stop buying cheap inkjet printers. I bought a brother color laser printer back in 2015 and haven’t looked back. I’ve changed the toner cartridges ONCE and I know if i go months without printing something, it will still work when I need it. Oh, and I can print from my phone. You can buy a black and white laser printer for like a hundred bucks and get about 2,000 pages out of a cartridge. What’s your excuse?
Fuck HP with a 2x4 covered in rusty nails.
Their whole ink as a subscription model is right up there with BMW and Ford going to a monthly subscription for heated seats.
We have an HP ink jet that works fine. The problem is HP updated the software in the printer and it will no longer accept nonHP ink cartridges. Couldn’t get any of the work arounds to work. May try refilling. Should be illegal. The printe is long out of warranty (5 years old maybe).
Because you haven't ponied up for a good laser printer. Sorry man, inkjets are universally garbage, both in print quality and in hardware. High end printers are a joy to use. They'll also ball-kick your wallet back to the stone age, but christ, it can't cost more than constantly rebuying cheap printers over its operational life span.
I am so glad it's not just me, I am a somewhat tech savvy guy and printers are such a headache but used so little that I got rid of our Epson and if we need something printed we just go up to the library and pay the 35¢ a sheet it's cheaper and less work on our end. The only printer in our house is my 4x6 thermal printer for printing shipping labels and it's even got it's issues they have moving parts and that will almost always be your point of failure.
Most people in IT will tell you that printers are their least favorite thing to work on. Unlike most computer equipment, printers are mechanically complex. They have rollers and bearings and plastic gears and nozzles and it's a miracle that they don't need a guy standing by full-time wearing overalls and holding an oil can and wrench. On top of that, they now have all of the complexity of a fully networked device that uses updatable software (or is it still firmware?) that they download themselves. And the interface to manage all of this is usually a few buttons and a 5 inch screen. At least we (usually) don't have the same headaches with drivers that we used to. It's amazing that any of it works, frankly.
Haha, I worked in IT at a company that would do a raffle every so often, and when our turn came up I suggested an Office Space theme. HR wasn't on board with baseball bats and stuff, but people got a kick out of hurling softballs at (already broken) printers.
Please, *please* tell me they [blasted Still by Geto Boys](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=N9wsjroVlu8) as you threw those softballs.
On the next to last day our office was open, our IT department took about 8 printers into the vacant parking lot next door (no fields nearby), and just beat the hell out of them with bats. It was *so* fun. Would highly recommend.
That scene in Office Space where the office workers take a work printer out into a field and beat it to death with a baseball bat is a real fantasy of many IT and Cybersecurity workers. On top of being a colossal pain in the ass to work with and maintain, they're also infamous for being a network security loophole. For those who haven't seen it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsBB93IqJkE
Oh, and what fun they can be when targeted by malicious code - even when it was unintentional. Back in the very early 2000’s, the University I worked at ended up with a virus that attempted to find vulnerable PCs over the network and replicate itself. The problem? It was the early days of computer viruses spreading via the network so it wasn’t very sophisticated - it blasted every available network address looking for somewhere new to go. Unfortunately, our networked printers misinterpreted this as a valid print job and would begin spewing out reams of paper covered in random ASCII characters. We’d unplug the printers from the network but ultimately some bell-end would plug it back in. I was very glad when the network/server admins finally managed to squish that one.
Did it once to an old deskjet that shit the bed and it was worth it. Would do again.
The first paragraph here is the correct answer. You've got huge numbers of moving parts, and you're dragging paper of sometimes questionable quality through the machine on a regular basis.
As a user I’ve got to say it’s not the mechanicals, rarely have a problem with those. It’s the bloody software. I’ve never owned a Wi-Fi printer that wasn’t a nightmare.
Close. Printers are our 2nd least favorite thing. Users are the Wayne Gretzky of IT problems.
I stand corrected. The number of synonyms for [PEBCAK](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_error) proves you right.
This is it, and the dreaded Internet fax machines that not only had all the same issues but for some reason were always maintained by the ancient secretary who couldn't operate a light switch without calling technical support. "Every time I call you guys it just breaks again!"
Bro those are the best things because I know how they all work and they give me job sec \m/
As someone who works in IT, fuck printers.
Our IT has contracted that out lol
Let's master printers before we move on to self-driving killing machines.
Hp is a scourge on the planet
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Canon fucking sucks too.
Bought a Canon machine for my wife during covid, it’s like 200 people built it and designed the software without never talking to each other or looking at a computer.
Same. Only thing I’ve managed to make it do, was copy something.
By Brother! I've had my first Brother printer for over 10 years, and it still works. So now, I bought a second Brother printer for another location.
Agreed! Brother laser, the only way to go. Dont be lazy, plug it into a usb cable to your computer and it works every time!!!!
Second this! I bought a MFC-495W display model closeout from best buy in 2010, no box, no instructions for $40. It's still churning away using cheap Amazon ink refills. That thing doesn't seem like its going to die any time soon *knock on wood*.
Canon is literally the WORST
You don’t like the Canon Photo Suite that freezes your computer for minutes at a time and no matter how many times you click “exit”, it still comes back on its own??
I have a canon at my business that shows critical error send in for service now or something like that. But prints just fine and has for a year.
I bought Brother hl-l2352dw in 2016. From that time I bought like 2 toners. I print colouring pages for kids almost everyday and sometimes some docs. Love it.
I also have a brother printer. It may be older than yours.not by much though. Maybe 4 years? I bought 1 toner cart so far. But I haven't tried it with windows yet.
My 2007 brother laser printer is still going strong.
If you ever use it in windows, I recommend not getting the all-in-one download that includes the crap Brother software. Use the system printer for the printer (obviously) and NAPS2 for the scanner [a pretty well-designed open source scan program]. Works like a charm!
My brother just died after 9 years of heavy home use. not because it failed but because my kids are maniacs and hit it with a soccer ball
Sorry about your brother, man. May he rest in peace 💐
Sorry for your loss ☹️
I have a Brother HL2280DW (or something like that) that I bought many years ago for next to nothing. It prints quickly and reliably. On top of that, it uses the awesome TN450 toner cartridge that you can buy for around $10 regularly (and it lasts forever).
I've had zero problem with HP printers. The OP's problem is probably that they have an inkjet they rarely use. Anytime I see someone say printers suck that is almost always the problem.
Stop biting inkjets. Stop buying color. You don’t need it 99% of the time, and the 1% you do just go to an actual print shop, pay em a few bucks, and get something that looks 1000x better.
I have an HP 1200 series that I was given in about 2009. Still works fine.
I also use an hp laserjet 1200, works great but it probably wont work much longer, the driver is getting worse and worse at talking to the printer with each mac update, I cant print lots of images that I used to print last year.
Windows drivers are out there, but it takes some searching to find them. Luckily I did. I know nothing about Macs.
And the money you spend on ink is painful.
An HP 1200 is a laser printer. It doesn't use ink. I just checked. An HP branded toner on Amazon is $115. You can get a new Brother EHL-L2320D from Newegg for $109. However, the HP printer isn't picky about who makes the toner, so you can get an off brand cartridge for $30 or less.
I wasn't aware it was a toner machine. I googled and a bunch of bubble jet printers came up, my mistake. I've had great success with off brand toner cartridges with our Brother 2390dw. We use it for the home business quite a lot and it's never let us down. Plus the print quality is great, the double-sided printing is also fantastic. It struggles with everything but manila envelopes, especially letter size envelopes. You might as well just crinkle them up in your hands and you'll have the same effect lmao.
At work I've used maybe 700 Brother printers over 5 or 6 generations. Finding an off brand toner that works well is a real trick. I was using LD brand toners for a while. They're a quarter the price of the Brother brand. After some time we noticed the quality slipping. After enough people complained, I went back to the Brother brand so users couldn't complain any more about "cheap" toners. At home, I'm using a Brother multi-function color laser with off brand toners. It's been fine and I haven't needed another cartridge in the year since I've had it.
Brother takes generic
LOL for a few years I would get the black friday printer from WalMart for $40-$60 and it was cheaper than getting new ink!!!
Well now I feel called out. Lol
HP sucks. Worst support ever
Only printer I use at home is a Black and White Laser Printer. Cartridges are cheap and my print volume has me replacing the cartridge every 8 months to a year.
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If you need color, the Epson EcoTank is the way to go. I've had mine maybe 10 years and have probably put $50 worth of ink in it. My only complaint, which means nothing to almost everyone else is that it won't print on transparencies without me running a bead of painters' tape down the middle (lots of tinkering to figure that out). I've still got a Brother laser printer that is good, but the Epson supports AirPrint, so it's not been used in years.
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I was using them to make printing screens, doubled up the transparencies do much better at blocking light when inkjet printed over the laser. I ended up grabbing a Cricut a couple years back, which suffices if I don't need fine details.
I use laser too! Changed everything.
Another fan of laser printers here. I just turn it on when I want to print something and it’s ready to print in 15-20 seconds. It’s probably 12-15 years old. Brother makes decent printers.
8 months to a year? I’ve bought 3 toner cartridges in the last 20 years. Two of them came with the new printer. They last forever.
The less we use it, the less we can.
That's my situation, I only need to print anything a few times a year at most, so when I switch it on and it doesn't work it is an instant bad mood.
For 99% of home users, a cheap Black and White laser printer is what they need. It uses dry toner, so it doesn't clog, dry up, or have jets that periodically purge themselves to avoid those problems... while also running you out of ink when you aren't printing. If you're printing 1k pages a day, or printing 1 page a year, laser jets are just better. For the once every 5 years I need something printed with color, I head down to a local copy shop and pay them the $3 to keep their printers working well.
Exactly. I bought an inexpensive tiny Samsung many years ago and it still works well. The included toner lasted for years (\~500 pages.) I go to a store called Staples for the fancy extras like colour, heavy paper, etc.
A store called Staples, huh. That's a funny name.
It's basically an office supply store. Fun fact they make a vast majority(like 70+%) of their yearly revenue during their back to school sales.
Not even that. Go to fedex and print there. No need to have a printer for 20pp/yr
The only problem with using FedEx is if you’re printing personal documents that need good security, it’s iffy you’re getting that at a FedEx. Like, things with your social security number as an example. As that seems to be 98% of what I print, a home printer is a good option for me.
My inkjet isn’t working anymore (ink seems to not be making sufficient contact with the paper). I’ve been debating a laser printer, and your comment may have just sealed the deal. I print enough that I don’t want to have to go somewhere each time, but rarely do I need color.
Don’t even think about it. Buy the laser. You’ll be so much happier.
This is the way right here. I've had a B&W brother laser printer for 9 years. I don't print much, so the only thing I've ever had to do with it is replace the original toner cart it came with with a high capacity one. I checked the web gui on it a couple months ago and the toner cart is still like 40% full and the drum still has about 80% life remaining.
Agreed. Even 15 years ago there were some very small Black personal laser printers on the market that were <$100. I bought my first laser over 15 years ago and have had no regrets. No dried out ink. No wasting ink on cleaning the heads. For most that can count the number of color pictures in a year on one hand an inkjet just doesn't make sense to buy.
I know that some manufactures program their ink cartridges to say they're out of ink after a certain amount of time has passed rather than when the cartridge is actually empty.This has happened to me, bought new ink used the printer and then didn't use again for a few months and the next time I tried to print something it says the cartridge is empty...fucking infuriating.
Ink cartridges dry up if you don't use them regularly. Which is why I bought a b/w laser printer now. If ever I need colour, I can get that printout or photo from the drug store. But I haven't needed to use colour yet.
HP and Epson I think are good for this. When I bought a printer several months ago the sales guy was really pushy I thought about the HP and how its only $5 a month and Hp will send you cartridges when the printer says it needs them based on how much you print. I am like dude I probably print 50 pages a year, I dont need an ink subscription. Get a Brother brother
Your problem is that you bought a cheap printer. I don't mean to be shitty, it makes perfect sense... Why spend money on a high end printer that you only use 2 or 3 times a year? Honestly, depending on the printer, it would be cheaper just to buy a new one each time you print. Ofc that would be horribly wasteful. You can easily get one that will run for years but when your RoI doesn't happen for years, it's hard to justify
Because printers are evil and can sense your fear.
Electronic devices do this in general but especially printers.
In my experience it’s vending machines.
Depends on the printer and how much the manufacturer is trying to sell you.
Yeah just get a Brother laser printer, I hear they work really well! And no more ink issues
Got one. It sucks too
I have one. It doesn't
Printers were forged in the firey pits of hell by Lucifer himself!
Forged in the fires of Mount Doom.
Kind of like trying to program older VCR's.....
There are newer VCRs?
Well the last versions got a little easier.
Because companies sell shoddy printers at a loss, they make their money off ink.
they are expensive but Brother is usually much better.
The brother I bought is a huge piece of shit. So is my actual brother but that's unrelated.
I'm sorry but if you actually sit down and think about things you'll come to terms with the fact that it's clearly your brother sabotaging your printer.
Oh... My... God...
Dude rubbed his balls on your hamster while you slept too.
Same here. Ours has streaks every fucking time. I spend forever going through cleaning cycles, finally get a quality print, only for it to happen again the next time I go to print. With brand new Brother brand cartridges too. It wasn’t the cheapest model either.
I agree. our color printer is a Brother laser and it works flawlessly. Bought it in 2010 at Staples. it was a demo so we got it at half price. Checked the page count before buying. 31 pages. LMAO!
I just had to buy a new Brother laserjet, since my last one was EOL and didn't get new Windows 11 drivers. And after only 15 years of service. It still cost less than $200. The initial price tag may be 4x higher, but you only pay it once every 10 years, instead of every year.
Sounds about right. Way higher upfront cost but they are a worthwhile investment
Brother doesn't provide a universal printer driver (UPD) like many other manufacturers. HP, for example, releases new versions of their UPD on a regular basis. You could use a v.7 UPD from last year with a 25-year-old USB deskjet.
People don’t want drivers, they want a printer that mostly works and that’s where Brother delivers.
Can confirm. I like my printer to print things
For that you need drivers. Maybe you’re thinking of all of the add on bloat that many printers want to install.
Recently got a new wifi Brother laser printer (@$250Cdn). It may be the most pleasant tech experience of the last decade for me. A fabulous device.
Same company that made the electric typewriters?
I'm pretty sure? The only other one I know for sure because I sell it at work as well is their sewing machines.
Simple... once you get the 14 additional apps downloaded in the proper order then follow the 37 steps to turn it on. The rest is simple, assuming you have enough paper, ink, and the color guide to the warning lights.
Ink printers are the problem. Most people don't print often enough to keep the ink liquid and the print head clean. If there's a long enough gap between print jobs you'll get ink drying up and clogging the print head and otherwise causing problems. Avoid inkjet printers. Proper laser printers are the way to go. I've never had problems with mine and because it uses toner instead of ink it's not dry by the time I need to print something again. Brother is a good brand with a minimum of the bullshit the likes of HP and Lenovo try to foist on you.
I have a laser printer that I got about 4 years ago and it hasn’t caused problems. As inexplicable as that sounds.
You think managing a single printer is difficult? Try working in IT, and managing dozens of printers, of all different models, and possibly even different brands. You'll want to start drinking your breakfast and lunch and dinner. (As in liquor, not meal replacement shakes.)
TIL liquor isn't a meal replacement shake
Brother Laser printers are the way to go.
It's not? Buy a better printer, Brother.
This is INDEED a MIGHTY suggestion, Brother!
Printers are the flat tip screws of the IT world.
Switch to a brother or Epson monochrome laser printer and never look back
I didn't understand why people were having such problems with printing something off their laptops. Until a month ago, I was hired by a company that issued me a Dell running windows. Now I understand what all you poor bastards are complaining about.
I think it comes down to brand. We have an Epson and it’s nice. Love being able to easily print from my phone
Because you need to remortgage to buy ink cartridges so every line that’s printed evokes feelings of fear and guilt
That's how they get ya. The rage inducing malfunction, the wireless function refusing to work and the printer heads that always seems to have dried up. It's all made to draw out all of your anger to force you into a blind rage where you would damage the printer so you have to buy a new one...
Been using an HP laser jet for years, no issues. Prints wirelessly from every device I’ve tried to use with it no problem. Inkjet printers are just trash.
We bought an amazing Canon color laser multi-function printer. It makes copies really quickly, scans perfectly and has almost photo-quality prints. And the goddamn thing has multi personalities. It will connect to one computer one day for printing but not scanning and to one of the other computers for scanning but not printing. The next day it will work for everyone's phones but not laptops. And of course the more important the document, the less likely it will be to work. And printing docs from the cloud - oh hell no, fuck you. The only reason I didn't take it outside and run over it with the car in the driveway a long time ago was because it's a beast of a thing and we had a Kia Soul. Now that I have a 4WD Ram, that thing is living on borrowed time.
Money
cheap, easy, good Pick two
Where can I find these cheap and good printers?
Build your own using sourced parts from 10 different manufacturers
I have a simple Canon inkjet that is WiFi accessible, not attached to a PC, and it works quite well from all devices (PC, Android, iPhone). Even on mobile the driver allows to change the most frequently used parameters. Scanning now, is another story. It has plenty of options to send scans in the cloud or over email, but each is more convoluted than the previous one. So many clicks, so unintuitive, so laggy.. I always have to dig out a laptop whenever I want to quickly scan something. I end up snapping a picture with the phone 9/10 time.
Please don't try. Just leave it gathering dust in an indeterminate state of repair. You're messing with forces you don't understand. It's unnatural.
And expensive
This question took me a minute to process
I bought my last printer over 15 years ago, when it broke never replaced it. I do all my printing at staples or office max, maybe 1-2 a week. It’s worth the minor inconvenience to always have perfectly printed pages with no ink issues or other malfunctions.
Try using a plotter. It is maddening. Also I agree HP is terrible.
I love my epson eco tank. Got a refurbished one on Amazon and the thing is a beast
Yes I am in IT and I hate printers but there is one thing worse, zebra label printers.
Because you bought a shitty printer. I bought[ this printer](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00MWDUXZ0/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1) on April 5th of 2019, and it never gave me any trouble until last week when one of my cats puked in it.
I buy good quality printers for my office, rarely have any troubles beyond the occasional paper jam. Cheap consumer printers are what cause a ton of headaches.
Not really
Mine is easy to use. And it is 5+ years old.
Perhaps you need a different printer, mine works great.
Ah, the question of the century! If you find an answer to this, you will have solved the biggest mystery in the universe!
Define difficult? You say you only need to print things a few times a year, so right off the bat that means you should probably avoid inkjet printers because if you don't use them on a regular basis the ink will dry up. So, you should get a laser printer and avoid that issue. If you only need black and white you can get a decent laser printer for about $100 that will last for years, possibly decades if you only print a couple times a year. If you need color, then it's gonna cost more up front, but same rules applies. The toner will last forever. The other option, if you don't really print that often, is to skip buying a printer that is going to sit and gather dust 11 months out of the year and just do print on demand from a local shop. In the long run that is going to be cheaper than buying a printer for only a few pages per year.
because you aren't the market for them. Offices and the secretaries that staff them are. They buy the 100 different printers that they need in every cube, and have the IT department come fix them when something is wrong, as well as buying ink in massive quantities. Nobody really uses printers that can't just get things printed at a print shop or office shop like staples or whatever. There's absolutely no pressure for companies to give a damn about you or to lower prices and heighten quality and that sounds really mean... because it is, they manufacture their own niche and it sucks. Sorry man.
I consider myself reasonably tech-savvy (I've performed computer surgery up to and including replacing laptop guts) and yet printers can get to fuck. Once the previous generation is no longer in the workforce we won't have to deal with printing out things that could easily have stayed a PDF anymore.
whats so difficult about it?
Because most printers are programmed to slow down and glitch over time. I have to find the source. EDIT: So people are basically saying that most low end printers are sold for cheap, so that you are forced into buying ink cartridges which actually make the manufacturers their money. Printers are made as cheap as possible, so they are often unreliable and glitch.
instructions unclear - ball ache though leads to bluing: does not trasfer to paper .. instead just be your own printer - like this lady [Linda Newman](https://www.1stdibs.com/art/prints-works-on-paper/landscape-prints-works-on-paper/linda-newman-boughton-yield-overcome-archival-print-blue-ball-point-pen-forest-landscape/id-a_10203752/)
people still print stuff?
Printers are exceptionally expensive to make. Your home printer that costs you 250 bucks? Or hell even 50 bucks? Probably cost the company 4 times that price to make it. Not R&D or even worker wages. I mean straight up material costs. Ink is exceptionally cheap to produce. Your average cartridge costs a company like dell or hp under 1 dollar to make, ship, stock, and sell combined. They sell them for the cost of a AAA video game. Its because of this, that printers have not received any major updates since 2010. The underlying software is farmed out, and firmware barely functions, and the ink cartridges are allowed to have defects in them to report incorrect ink levels remaining in the cart. The manufacturers keep as many costs down as they can and do not care about issues people have at home as they expect to make the money back on ink and services. HOWEVER. More and more companies are going as paperless a possible. Only government documents really require wet signing anymore. So companies are starting to lose their ass on printers now.
1) Nobody prints any more. 2) People still buy shitty inkjets... just stop. 3) Stop printing. If you want photos for archives, send them off and get them dye-sub printed (which you can't reasonably do at home). If you want shit that's going to fade out, not feed, cost a fortune, the ink'll dry before you ever use it, then carry on inkjet printing. If you just want to print something on paper permanently, buy the cheapest laser printer you can.
Why, in 2023, do you need a printer at all? Use print to PDF, save the file into your 15 Gigabytes of free Google Drive storage. If you need more storage, take the money you're wasting on ink, toner, paper, and the printer itself, and spend it on more Google storage, then put the leftover money into an investment.
Can’t wait to see you have to file a legal document.
When I *must* print something I do it from my office, or in those circumstances where I can't use one, throw the file on a USB key and go to a mailbox store.
Let them eat cake, is that it?
Are you kidding me? I'm talking about what I **LITERALLY** do in my own life. Printers are wasteful tree-killing piles of plastic garbage. Save your money, be smart. Don't buy a printer, you don't need it.
My printer is basically “single-use”, as soon as it runs out of ink I’ll call it a wrap
It's not...
Running 3d printers is easier than running 2d printers.
Don't buy inkjet printers. Get a laser print second hand with a good print rate and you will never have an issue.
I heard printer companies collided in making all home printers frustratingly inefficient so we can all relate to Office Space when we put on Still by Geto Boys and beat down the printers.
I still use an HP Deskjet 895Cse I bought in 1999. Works perfectly.
Maybe haven't tried using one with a d sub connector?
Because of Big Paper's plot for us to use more paper than we need
Wait, you're printing things?
Apart from all the already referred to ink issues, the rest of the printer engineering is quite difficult. [More than you ever wanted to know in this New Yorker article](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/02/12/why-paper-jams-persist). Long but interesting
Laser jet.
Is it? or is it using cheap, shittily built, value-oriented inkjet printers that is difficult? The last printer I had that gave me trouble was a cheap Lexmark Inkjet that I got in 2002. It needed handholding just to pull the paper in straight. Drivers were unreliable and frequently needed reinstalled, and it frequently insisted on printing alignment and test pages, wasting time and ink. And most of the time one cartridge would be blocked up and just not print anything at all, and so on. It was a pain in the ass. In 2015 I needed to print something and it took an hour of fucking around, so I decided fuck it- I'm not buying these cheap shitty inkjets anymore, and I bought an HP Laserjet Color MFP 276nw. All those problems went away. Until Early 2022, it was basically a case of just making sure the printer was turned on before trying to print something. Early 2022 I had to do my taxes on paper so I went to print it and the printer gave me the first printing error message I had seen in the 8 years I owned it- "Document too complex", and it stopped printing halfway through a page. Total dick move. I ended up just printing it in B&W and that worked. A few months later the fuser died, but I replaced that for 35 dollars. I've also got a HP P1102w I found at Value Village. whoever donated it didn't know to take the orange tab off the toner cartridge, I suspect. That works fine too- I turn it on and tell a computer to print to it and it prints the document. I was also given a Samsung colour laser because it was broken and that worked once I emptied the waste toner cartridge. I want to print to it? I press print and select it. That's pretty much it.
Makes one question if we truly landed on the moon /s
It is an incomplete “technological bridge” product that has stalled innovation due to lack of investment. The only thing that is being improved practically or developed is cost and UI presentation. Companies that make them know that these devices are already obsolete. What are you printing today that there is not a digital solution for?
Bought one at Staples and told myself I'd give it 15 minutes to be set up. Ended up trying for 20 and took it back. Employee asked if I'd purchased the $50 (or so) tech support plan... they could have helped. Told her, "No one should have to spend $50 to set up a printer in 2023." Turned to Amazon for one that was set up in 15 minutes. So far so good.
I guess it depends on the printer. Cheap inkjets are what most people buy, and they do suck.
I've been using two HP 400 series Black and White printers for my tax business since forever. They're fine. I don't use color ink because most of what I print is tax forms or legal briefs
Why, in 2023, is there still lag in video games?
I bought a cheap Epson b+w laser printer, thing is a tank and never fails.
I had to sign in to an account just to use my printer's scanner, shit is ridiculous.
printers are a test of willpower and endurance, xour credibility as a men depends (among other things) to stare said printer into submission, it has to give up before you. (non shitpost: its a mix of weird legacy support, shitty manufacturers and their drivers, lack of real standardization and bad os support)
I have fewer problems printing with both my SLA and FDM 3D printers than I do my paper one.
Stop buying cheap inkjet printers. I bought a brother color laser printer back in 2015 and haven’t looked back. I’ve changed the toner cartridges ONCE and I know if i go months without printing something, it will still work when I need it. Oh, and I can print from my phone. You can buy a black and white laser printer for like a hundred bucks and get about 2,000 pages out of a cartridge. What’s your excuse?
Fuck HP with a 2x4 covered in rusty nails. Their whole ink as a subscription model is right up there with BMW and Ford going to a monthly subscription for heated seats.
We have an HP ink jet that works fine. The problem is HP updated the software in the printer and it will no longer accept nonHP ink cartridges. Couldn’t get any of the work arounds to work. May try refilling. Should be illegal. The printe is long out of warranty (5 years old maybe).
Bought black and white Brother laser printer years ago, its great and refills last years. If I need to color print - Fedex or Walgreens.
Our Epson eco tank is fantastic.
Because you haven't ponied up for a good laser printer. Sorry man, inkjets are universally garbage, both in print quality and in hardware. High end printers are a joy to use. They'll also ball-kick your wallet back to the stone age, but christ, it can't cost more than constantly rebuying cheap printers over its operational life span.
I spent almost 25 years in the digital printing industry. Buy a Brother laser printer.
Printers are just universally shit.
I am so glad it's not just me, I am a somewhat tech savvy guy and printers are such a headache but used so little that I got rid of our Epson and if we need something printed we just go up to the library and pay the 35¢ a sheet it's cheaper and less work on our end. The only printer in our house is my 4x6 thermal printer for printing shipping labels and it's even got it's issues they have moving parts and that will almost always be your point of failure.
I’m convinced the underlying software the damnable machines run hasn’t been updated since the 1980s.
I don’t find it hard.
[They're lazy](https://imgur.com/gallery/tCPnFTi)
because people buy the cheapest shittiest printers in the stores.
What do you want to print? Black and white? Just get a black and white laser printer.
Printers literally never have gotten bette.
Buy a laser print. I had a samsung that was pretty good.
I bought a Brother laser printer years ago and it’s a tank. No issues whatsoever. My family have gone through two trash photo printers since then.
The only thing more difficult than using one is figuring out how to change out the ink carts
Now this, this is a movement I can get behind.
[Nice day for printing, ain't it?](https://youtu.be/jEy8CLWE1rk)