• TrontheTechie@infosec.pub
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    3 years ago

    I had to buy a printer recently. I intentionally went through all the information i could to find out which manufacturers pull this trick and bought their competitor instead.

      • TrontheTechie@infosec.pub
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        3 years ago

        I didn’t have a wide array of choices, as I had a selection of printers in front of me at a brick and mortar store, but I went with the Brother HL-L2325DW. They offer a subscription (I don’t mind an optional convenience and monetization method) but they don’t disable your printer or force you to buy it.

        It came with a full sized toner cartridge at about 3,000 pages compared to the “demo cartridge” most printers will give you with the unit, and it worked out of the Box with CUPS and Linux, and was supported by Brother for Windows and Mac.

        Wildly enough there was a Linux utility too from Brother, but I didn’t need it.

        • EdibleFriend@lemmy.world
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          3 years ago

          Brother is the only non-evil company when it comes to printers. Every other printer company would literally stomp on your puppy given the chance.

        • HeyJoe@lemmy.world
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          3 years ago

          Funny, I knew it was going to be a Brother from your first post. Glad to see the confirmation. I still have am HP from like 2016 which they started doing firmware updates to lock ink to their official brand only so I couldn’t buy 3rd party. I had to roll back the firmware and removed the default gateway address to keep it from getting out to the internet and possibly updating again. I have made 1 3rd party ink purchase and been using it ever since. Printer works great still. The day it breaks will be the day I stop using HP going forward. I still can’t believe they pulled that, and now this.

          • TrontheTechie@infosec.pub
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            3 years ago

            Yeah, I used to have a lot of goodwill for HP. They used to be good print quality at a good price. I remember many print projects I was stupid proud of with HP, but after I fell out of printer use and saw what they had been up to, from initially shorting the included cartridges to using DRM to lock out perfectly good cartridges, I vowed I wouldn’t buy a product of theirs for myself when I did need one again.

            On a side note, I just realized you said “an HP” and it made me realize that an is usually used before vowels but H isn’t a vowel, but it was grammatically correct to the ear, but ambiguously correct on ‘paper’ when it dawned on me that we say HP as “Ay-tch Pee” and it suddenly made so much sense, and I wondered if there was a name for that exception in English.

            • BCsven@lemmy.ca
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              3 years ago

              .

              Except some parts of UK pronounce it Haitch Pee, so a HP would make sense in some areas and an HP in others

        • axh@lemmy.world
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          3 years ago

          I have an old Brother that I inherited from my mother… I had to buy toner once (I use it 5 years). It just works. I am really glad to hear that the company didn’t turn evil like (almost?) all other.

  • x4740N@lemmy.world
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    3 years ago

    I’m wondering if there’s a open source firmware for printers like openwrt for routers

    Edit: typo

    • Moreless@lemmy.world
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      3 years ago

      Who would spend their free time writing printer drivers/software?

      It’d make more sense to work on software for a paperless world

  • Facelikeapotato@lemmy.ml
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    3 years ago

    I have a 12 year old laser printer that I got for $3 from a garage sale and I’m riding this baby into the ground. Every year or two I get some generic toner for about $15.

    • CaptPretentious@lemmy.world
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      3 years ago

      Just buy from Brother. They’re not over priced, reliable, and don’t pull with nickel and dime shit.

      I’ve had my laser printer for 16+ years without issue. And everyone I suggested get a Brother as well have all been happy.

      • EtherealMoon @lemmy.world
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        3 years ago

        I updated my Brother printer just for it to decide to stop detecting my off-brand ink. They’re not free from bs.

    • x4740N@lemmy.world
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      3 years ago

      I bought an Epson ecotank that I haven’t had issues with

      They don’t make their money back on the ink cartridges and instead price the printer as a printer actually should be

      Think ink has lasted me for a while but I’m personally not using it everyday to print

      The ink isn’t cartridges but it comes in bottles you can buy to refill ink tanks on the printer

      If I have any issues then I will update my recommendation but the printer has been good for me personally

      • snapeyouinhalf@lemmy.world
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        3 years ago

        I have a canon ink tank printer and haven’t had to refill the ink tanks in 3 years. I don’t even know where they are. I print a lot of knitting patterns and workbook type stuff, but not often. Still, when I do use the printer, I use quite a bit of ink. I’ve been really happy with it! I think most printers with ink tanks are going to be a good bet, but I have never seen an HP printer function correctly after the first print or two. I won’t pay them any attention, let alone buy an HP printer. I’m convinced HP is single-handedly why printers have such a bad reputation.

    • PowerCrazy@lemmy.ml
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      3 years ago

      Laser printers. HP has been trash forever. I honestly look down on people who still buy inkjet printers. It shows they have no ability to think about future costs.

        • averagedrunk@lemmy.ml
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          3 years ago

          Depends on how good it needs to be and how often you need the color. I’ve got an old workhorse Brother color laser that has been on the same cartridges for years because I just don’t use it so often, but I still need color once in a while.

    • Xela9@lemmy.world
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      3 years ago

      I’ve had pretty good look with Brother HL printers. I bought an HL-2170 around 2008 and it’s still works great.

  • VelvetStorm@lemmy.world
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    3 years ago

    So you bought a printer with a subscription service and you were then suprised when it stopped working when you cancled the sub?

  • signofzeta@lemmygrad.ml
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    3 years ago

    I bought a used HP Color LaserJet MFP for cheap, fixed an easy problem, then installed the latest firmware update before Instant Ink became mandatory. Works great with my third-party toner cartridge. Hoping it’ll last until either it or I expire.

  • pizzahoe@lemm.ee
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    3 years ago

    Can’t believe this is legal… is there seriously a subscription model even if you’ve bought a printer? Does this happen with all hp printers?

    • aelwero@lemmy.ml
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      3 years ago

      It’s worse than it sounds… You’re not actually paying for ink, you’re paying for pages, in a similar context to how you used to pay for minutes for your cell phone.

      A buck a month gets you 10 pages printed, 100 pages printed a month sets you back $6/mo, and so on.

      The ink is shipped “free” when your cartridge runs out, and naturally, they figured out how to increase the ink capacity in the carts to be much higher than the ones they sell, so shipping a cart out will be much less frequent if you’re ponying up for each page you print.

      Odds are it’ll be cheaper over the life of your printer as long as you’re a member of the residual income brigade…

  • PrettyFlyForAFatGuy@lemmy.ml
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    3 years ago

    I have an old canon pixma MG 25505 Printer/Scanner combo i bought for £15 on facebay

    I have a cartidge refiller kit i bought on ebay for like £10.

    I’m set for all my printing or scanning needs for the foreseeable future