DoorDash and Uber and friends should offer a print on demand service. Maybe even the USPS. Same day or next day printouts at a fraction of the cost of owning a printer.
Already available at lots of shipping, pharmacy, and office supply chains, plus public libraries. Unless you are suggesting a print-and-deliver service? I wonder how viable that is, I would never use it. I go to a shipping storefront three blocks from my house to print for like 15 cents per BW page.
People are tired of two things in general: lousy business practices around ink cartridges and the damn printer not cooperating.
Two birds with one stone: buy a Brother b/w laser printer or a scan/fax multifunction one. You’ll never look back.
If you for some reason don’t like Brother, you have two other brands to choose from: Ricoh and Epson. Yes, your only 3 good choices are from Japan; they seem to be the only ones who know what they’re doing.
I’ll second the brother bw laser printer. It’s been a family workhorse for a decade. I’ve hooked it up to a cups server and it pretty much worked out of the box as a network printer.
Forms that can only be filled out by hand are annoyingly common. Surprising amount of PDFs to fill out that are just a scan of a hardcopy, where they haven't bothered marking up the fields so that you can fill it out in a PDF viewer. It's essentially an image, so the infuriating process is Print --> Fill out with pen --> Scan --> Email
2. Documents I want to preserve
Financial, tax, medical, legal, school-related, receipts for major purchases etc. Trying to go paperless, so +80% of incoming paper gets thrown away. Remaining 20% gets scanned. After being scanned I shred or throw away the hardcopy. Only a tiny fraction of documents do I keep the hardcopy, where it would be important to show that you have the original (think certificates, notarized stuff etc).
I'm using a Mac and the default AirPrint drivers. Don't have any of the Brother software installed, even the scanner works perfectly through the native macOS settings.
Brother? No, they do not. Recently Airprint stopped working on our Brother printer. I have tried everything I can think of to fix it, including updating drivers, except... they no longer have mac drivers for our printer.
Sorry, yes, AirPrint stopped working. I know it is on the printer, but I was getting desperate after trying everything else and figured updating the drivers couldn’t hurt. Though, that did lead me to find a Brothers program that allows us to continue using the printer using a cable. Though it is an extremely barebones program. Everything has to be converted to a pdf before it can be printed.
Nth-ing the Brother laser printer recommendation. I bought one from Costco during the pandemic, hooked it, and everything just works - laptops, phones, etc. - and toner is dirt cheap and lasts for years. My wife is a teacher so she’s probably been responsible for 99% of the total page count and we’re still barely on our second toner cartridge 3 years later.
I've never had any issues with my HP color laser printer. Bought it about 3 and a half years ago and have never had to change the toner. It just works whenever I need it and whether I need it to print, scan or copy.
I think you're probably fine with printers as long as you buy a laser printer. Ink printers are junk and unless you use it constantly the ink cartridge will die every single time you need it. HP's InkJunk printers are cheap because they know they'll recoup the price selling you ink cartridge after ink cartridge.
Exactly! I want a printer, because my Brother b/w laser printer is a solid piece of equipment that prints many, many pages on a reasonably affordable ink cartridge, and it will last for years. What I didn't want was another crappy inkjet that was made as cheaply as possible to sell overpriced ink cartridges, and will have to be replaced in December.
Perhaps surprisingly, the HP ink tank printer ("Smart Tank 510 series") is not too too bad, we are about 300 sheets in and still lots of ink left. (This is impossible on an HP cartridge inkjet).
Print quality is good; the image does not bleed and the paper does not warp from "wet ink" syndrome.
But it is expensive.
And it has the oppressive "login to HP website to print". Nope, I avoid that.
Pro tip: decline auto upgrade of the "HP Smart" software; one day HP will "update" your software to require login before printing. The workaround is to remove that software and load the "enterprise" class packaged software.
> we are about 300 sheets in and still lots of ink left. (This is impossible on an HP cartridge inkjet).
Generally, the cartridges lasted well over a ream of paper (500 sheets) for me, often closer to two.
However, the "setup" cartridges that most of their printers come with are much smaller, and don't last as long. This fundamentally seems like a bad marketing move, giving people a poor initial impression of how long ink cartridges last.
(My personal reason for always going for HP is that they reliably work with Linux, even over the network, for both printing and scanning.)
Just one anecdote, but I bought a Canon in either late 2014 or early 2015 and it works great- it looks like I have printed about 6000 pages on it- mostly academic papers. IIRC it was a clearance that was selling for $300ish when it originally listed for about $700. I use off-brand toner replacements which work fine, from what I recall I have only bought one set of replacements. My only real complaint with it is that its large and weighs about 80 pounds, not that I move it often, but it takes up a significant amount of room.
Yours is the correct answer (B&W laser). Ours reports 8,620 pages successfully printed. The laser cartridges last an absurd amount of pages, and they don't dry out.
I've had to replace our Brother printer's feeder cam lever (part #LY2579001) twice. I expect I'll have to do that a few more times before I'm done with this printer. But, what do you expect after 12 years?
Brother DCP-8155DN multifunction, 10 and change years old,
- Pages printed: 18151
- Total Paper Jams: 5
- Toner replacements: 3
Working like a charm EXCEPT that on the last toner replacement I must have spilled some toner and haven't finished fixing it, so I have a few speckles on the first page that prints. But happy other than that and has been going strong for years.
Five paper jams in 10 years is simply amazing to me (and it's accurate).
Canon is also fine. I have a Canon laser that's worked fine for 10 years now, even with generic toner cartridges. (I don't know if newer Canons behave well in that area.)
I thought Epson was notorious for playing lockout games with toner cartridges, almost as bad as HP, although the info I've seen is only anecdotal.
Canon is off my list. Not only did I have the usual inkjet issues with my last canon multifunction printer, but it refused to scan when it was out of ink too. That's just inexcusably and intentionally bad behaviour.
We have a Brother printer, but recently AirPrint has stopped working (despite working fine for years). I have not been able to figure out why and have come to the conclusion that it must be a hardware issue. Has anyone had any experience with this? I haven't tried opening it up to see if maybe there is something I can replace to get it working again.
This is good advice, but I don't think this is why most people with printers don't have them. I need to print something approximately two times a year. I would rather go to my office or the library when that happens rather than have even a very functional appliance taking up space in my apartment. I have never in my life needed to print something so urgently that I can't wait until the library is open.
Maybe it's the combination of living in the US + having kids, but I'm finding myself printing a LOT. Not a week goes by without a couple of forms to print, fill out by hand and (perversely) scan and email back.
Main culprits are schools, doctors, dentists and extracurricular activities.
A few years ago I got a Fuji Xerox DocuPrint P115 monochrome laser printer. It's small/compact, looks elegant, fits nicely in a corner of a top shelf in a closet, works fine over Wi-Fi, and it always works perfectly about the 3-4 times a year I need to print something. It cost about $150 and didn't hook you into any toner subscriptions or other strings attached. It's been perfect.
Fuji Xerox doesn't make it or anything like it anymore. HP has one that looks similar [1] – could that be as good? The equivalent Brother models all seem much bigger and uglier.
I'm not looking forward to having to replace it, whenever that day comes.
The Brother HL-L2370DW is in the same price class ($159) and is a solid monochrome laser printer. I'm about 1000 pages in and no issues. Maybe you don't like the dark color scheme, but I find it to be quiet when not in use, unobtrusive, about the same size as everything else, and no more or less ugly than other printers.
Thanks for the tip. That Brother unit is quite a big bigger, particularly the depth. I most like the Fuji Xerox for being so compact (it has a tray that folds out to store the paper).
Fuji Xerox:
W 340 x D 238 x H 189 mm
Weight 4.6 kg
Brother HL-L2370DW:
W 356 x D 361 X H 182 mm
Weight 7.2 kg
But yep, the Brother units are certainly good for performance and cost, and I'd probably go for one of them rather than an HP.
Wow, I didn’t realize how shallow that is! It would be super nice to have something like that for my space. I wonder why other manufacturers haven’t followed suit.
In Germany, there are two services that let you mail things from your computer. I barely used my printer since I discovered them.
There is one exception. The KSK requires me to send them everything by mail - two hundred pages and counting. They also require everything on A4 with no tacks, because they will scan everything back.
I don't want to print things. I'm just forced to. I suspect that it's the same for most people.
Is this a trick question? Isn't the answer: "because they need to make hard copies"? The scumminess of the business notwithstanding, "printing-as-a-service" is not much of an option for most people unless they happen to live next door to a Staples or something.
I have two printers (one at home and one at my office) and at least 3 family members who rely on my printers. In fact, they probably use my printers more than I do. I don't blame them, it's the same reason I don't own a boat.
Printers are a pain. Full of stuff that dries up, in different ways. Rubber rollers become hard, print media dries up. And if that's not bad enough, predatory practices by the printer manufacturers with their "razors and blades" business models.
But +1 on Brother laser printers, at least older ones. I have two. Aftermarket consumables are cheap and good quality, and the printers, even at months between prints, just up and print, no fuss. The MFC7020 one can also scan and photocopy, and the other, the HDL2270DW, is more reliable than a lightweight plastic construction that can flip pages and print on both sides has any right to be.
This is surreal to read. I've always had a printer.
The last one we got is a Brother MFC-J5945DW. What's really nice is that it has refillable ink tanks (I'm using 3rd party refills to save a ton of money) and it'll print on ledger/tabloid/A3 paper (as well as regular sizes). This is particular nice for printing booklets.
I took a super old printer from work when they didn't need it anymore. This was years ago. HP LaserJet 1320. It's been working perfectly. Needs cartridge replacement very rarely. And works like a champ.
That is what I recommend to all my relatives - find an old business Laser printer on Craigslist or eBay. Otherwise you are endlessly buying cartridges.
I connected a Raspberry Pi Zero to the USB slot and shared it wirelessly. Now I can print from a laptop or a phone or whatever.
Older HP LaserJet printers are wonderful. HP 4, 4000, 4050, etc, machines, fed with new fusers and rollers periodically, will be printing long after all of us are dead. Since they speak PCL and have good network connectivity options they’ll work with virtually any software from the last 30 years.
I have stood by HP printers for 30 years but I stopped recommending them and I don't think I'll buy another one. For most people, a LaserJet printer was a one-time purchase but HP has become hostile to this practice. They have reduced the capacity of the standard cartridges, equipped printers with starter cartridges, and increased their price dramatically.
I recently had to purchase replacement cartridges for a 7 year old Color LaserJet and genuine cartridges were going to run $450 for a full set. I think I paid $240 for the printer but HP saw the pandemic as an opportunity to raise prices so the equivalent now costs over $600.
I ended up purchasing Non-genuine cartridges and when this printer dies I'll probably get a monochrome Brother.
I have long wondered why Amazon doesn't offer a print on demand service, they have the shipping infrastructure to pull it off.
I finally broke down about a year ago and got a color brother laser printer. It does the job I need it to do, I can leave it alone for months and come back and print like nothing happened.
I can't exactly say that I have paid for it vs just going to staples and doing prints. But the convenience is nice.
I have no idea why people persist in buying inkjets. Years ago I bought a cheap ($90) black & white Brother laser printer, and now I just don't worry about it. Even the starter toner lasted us for at least a year. We don't print every day, or even every week necessarily, but it always works just fine. I don't think toner ever really goes bad like ink does.
I had to argue with my mom for a couple years to convince her to ditch the inkjet. I was tired of having to help her fix it. She kept insisting she needed it to print photos. I finally convinced her that Walgreens will always print higher quality photos than her inkjet, and a cheapo laser printer will easily handle her other occasional printing requirements.
I also have a brother monochrome laser. My wife is a teacher at a school with an understocked library, so we easily print 50k pages a year. It just keeps going...
I found my HP Envy printer in an alley and and I'm worried it'll stop printing some day or I'll stop getting cartridges. Not sure what I'll do then, lol.
Also, worse than the printing experience, a thousand times worse, scanning. Works 20% of the time. Files are always waaaaaaaay to big, I hate it every time I have to scan. Maybe I should just take photos and collate those.
Here's the thing you come to realize as the owner of a 3D printer: Ink cartridges are expensive for a good reason. Printing is hard. 2D printers are amazing. You can feed in cheap paper that's been sitting in a humid environment and they work very reliably. We get frustrated when they don't work because it's unexpected.
There are a whole bunch of different factors that go into something as simple as 2D printing. For example, what are the physical characteristics of the paper? Are the sheets stuck together? Is it too thick for the rollers to pick up? Are the edges within good enough tolerance that it'll move in a straight line through the printer?
And then ink (for an inkjet printer) is a whole other level of chemistry and materials science. You have a suspension of pigment in a solution that has to reliably form consistent sized droplets that get sprayed out of microscopic holes in the printhead onto the paper, and stick there. What if the ink is too viscous for the holes? What if the holes are clogged? The end-user doesn't want to worry about these things, they just want to print. So you end up packaging the ink into sealed containers with the printhead built in so that in theory the end user never has to worry about these issues as long as the cartridge is reasonably fresh.
So why are they so expensive? Because people don't want to spend a lot of money on a machine they only see themselves using occasionally. So if they buy a printer, they will generally buy the cheapest one that fits their needs. That means if a printer manufacturer wants to sell printers to the average consumer, they need to compete with their competitors on price, which is a race to the bottom. So the printer manufacturers figure that they'll sell the printer at a loss and make the sales up on ink cartridges.
In reality, the reason that inkjet printing is so expensive is because a ton of complexity is abstracted away from the average consumer. Laser printers win because they're in a different category of technology than inkjets, so consumers are willing to overlook the high price because it's a laser printer. Combined with the fact that toner expires much more slowly than ink, and drums and other laser printer parts generally wear much longer, and laser printers end up with a better reputation.
These problems have not yet been solved for consumer 3D printers. The best you can do is buy a reliable printer (like a Prusa) and then buy good quality filament that has been tested with that printer (like Prusament) and then follow all the instructions very carefully. But if you buy a cheap printer and cheap filament then you start to realize why good quality stuff is expensive. The reason why commercial and industrial printers are so expensive is because businesses don't want to mess around with tweaking their printers constantly, they just want them to work. Which is the same as most consumers want out of their 2D printers, which is why they're perceived to be so expensive, when in actuality they are surprisingly affordable for what they do and how accurately they do it.
I've seen an HP Officejet All-in-one inkjet literally fall apart in less than a year because of (mild) daily use. Inkjet printers are trash. I would not rescue an inkjet printer from the curb.
I volunteered at a non-profit that had some sort of xerox solid wax BS printer that cost hundreds of dollars to maintain, we swapped it out with a laser and suddenly all the problems disappeared.
The daily printer problems my profession has to deal with - did you really intend that job to use legal size paper in the bypass tray?? People don't deserve this.
What I've done is 15 years ago I bought the smallest laser I could find (HP p1005) and I keep it in a cupboard. I use it maybe once a year and it never has ink clogs.
I suspect the most realistic route for most people is to use Other People's Printers, which is what this article is describing.
An amazing solution to this problem I have seen in Taiwan almost 8 years ago.
7/11 is ubiquitous. And every store had a multi functional, professional grade printer.
You simply email your document to a central address. It emails you back a code. Go to any 7/11, pay (using a card that works everywhere, including public transport), enter the code, and get your document printed.
63 comments
[ 3.7 ms ] story [ 129 ms ] threadTwo birds with one stone: buy a Brother b/w laser printer or a scan/fax multifunction one. You’ll never look back.
If you for some reason don’t like Brother, you have two other brands to choose from: Ricoh and Epson. Yes, your only 3 good choices are from Japan; they seem to be the only ones who know what they’re doing.
This.
People don't want crappy inkjet printers that are expensive to refill, the ink dries up, the machines break.
A medium-sized Brother laser printer is worth its own weight.
The only reason you may not want it is the space it takes.
Let's mostly have good printers and share them.
Having a separate scanner, I'm really liking the size of Brother's smallest models: 14 inch long, 14 inch wide, 7 inch tall.
1. Forms that can't be filled out digitally
Forms that can only be filled out by hand are annoyingly common. Surprising amount of PDFs to fill out that are just a scan of a hardcopy, where they haven't bothered marking up the fields so that you can fill it out in a PDF viewer. It's essentially an image, so the infuriating process is Print --> Fill out with pen --> Scan --> Email
2. Documents I want to preserve
Financial, tax, medical, legal, school-related, receipts for major purchases etc. Trying to go paperless, so +80% of incoming paper gets thrown away. Remaining 20% gets scanned. After being scanned I shred or throw away the hardcopy. Only a tiny fraction of documents do I keep the hardcopy, where it would be important to show that you have the original (think certificates, notarized stuff etc).
Canon basically deprecated my perfectly working all-in-one laser + scanner by refusing to update the drivers for new MacOS versions.
edit: specifically, the scanner, esp the autofeed scanner bits
I think you're probably fine with printers as long as you buy a laser printer. Ink printers are junk and unless you use it constantly the ink cartridge will die every single time you need it. HP's InkJunk printers are cheap because they know they'll recoup the price selling you ink cartridge after ink cartridge.
Print quality is good; the image does not bleed and the paper does not warp from "wet ink" syndrome.
But it is expensive.
And it has the oppressive "login to HP website to print". Nope, I avoid that.
Pro tip: decline auto upgrade of the "HP Smart" software; one day HP will "update" your software to require login before printing. The workaround is to remove that software and load the "enterprise" class packaged software.
Generally, the cartridges lasted well over a ream of paper (500 sheets) for me, often closer to two.
However, the "setup" cartridges that most of their printers come with are much smaller, and don't last as long. This fundamentally seems like a bad marketing move, giving people a poor initial impression of how long ink cartridges last.
(My personal reason for always going for HP is that they reliably work with Linux, even over the network, for both printing and scanning.)
Its a Canon Color ImageClass MF8580CDW, its well past its sale date, but it looks like this line of printers still exists: https://www.usa.canon.com/shop/printers/multifunction-printe...
- Pages printed: 18151
- Total Paper Jams: 5
- Toner replacements: 3
Working like a charm EXCEPT that on the last toner replacement I must have spilled some toner and haven't finished fixing it, so I have a few speckles on the first page that prints. But happy other than that and has been going strong for years.
Five paper jams in 10 years is simply amazing to me (and it's accurate).
I thought Epson was notorious for playing lockout games with toner cartridges, almost as bad as HP, although the info I've seen is only anecdotal.
I've had a few cheap Brother laser printers. They've both been good enough and cheap enough to operate, but neither did graphics well.
Main culprits are schools, doctors, dentists and extracurricular activities.
Fuji Xerox doesn't make it or anything like it anymore. HP has one that looks similar [1] – could that be as good? The equivalent Brother models all seem much bigger and uglier.
I'm not looking forward to having to replace it, whenever that day comes.
[1] https://www.hp.com/us-en/shop/pdp/hp-laserjet-m110we-printer
Fuji Xerox: W 340 x D 238 x H 189 mm Weight 4.6 kg
Brother HL-L2370DW: W 356 x D 361 X H 182 mm Weight 7.2 kg
But yep, the Brother units are certainly good for performance and cost, and I'd probably go for one of them rather than an HP.
If it has HP anywhere on it, the answer is no.
There is one exception. The KSK requires me to send them everything by mail - two hundred pages and counting. They also require everything on A4 with no tacks, because they will scan everything back.
I don't want to print things. I'm just forced to. I suspect that it's the same for most people.
For those who aren't, I can see why they would buy a printer. But they're still getting scammed.
But +1 on Brother laser printers, at least older ones. I have two. Aftermarket consumables are cheap and good quality, and the printers, even at months between prints, just up and print, no fuss. The MFC7020 one can also scan and photocopy, and the other, the HDL2270DW, is more reliable than a lightweight plastic construction that can flip pages and print on both sides has any right to be.
The last one we got is a Brother MFC-J5945DW. What's really nice is that it has refillable ink tanks (I'm using 3rd party refills to save a ton of money) and it'll print on ledger/tabloid/A3 paper (as well as regular sizes). This is particular nice for printing booklets.
That is what I recommend to all my relatives - find an old business Laser printer on Craigslist or eBay. Otherwise you are endlessly buying cartridges.
I connected a Raspberry Pi Zero to the USB slot and shared it wirelessly. Now I can print from a laptop or a phone or whatever.
I recently had to purchase replacement cartridges for a 7 year old Color LaserJet and genuine cartridges were going to run $450 for a full set. I think I paid $240 for the printer but HP saw the pandemic as an opportunity to raise prices so the equivalent now costs over $600.
I ended up purchasing Non-genuine cartridges and when this printer dies I'll probably get a monochrome Brother.
I finally broke down about a year ago and got a color brother laser printer. It does the job I need it to do, I can leave it alone for months and come back and print like nothing happened.
I can't exactly say that I have paid for it vs just going to staples and doing prints. But the convenience is nice.
I had to argue with my mom for a couple years to convince her to ditch the inkjet. I was tired of having to help her fix it. She kept insisting she needed it to print photos. I finally convinced her that Walgreens will always print higher quality photos than her inkjet, and a cheapo laser printer will easily handle her other occasional printing requirements.
I'm very very happy with it. As of now, a few months in, I would never go back to color laser. Simpler mechanism and much lower running costs.
Also, worse than the printing experience, a thousand times worse, scanning. Works 20% of the time. Files are always waaaaaaaay to big, I hate it every time I have to scan. Maybe I should just take photos and collate those.
There are a whole bunch of different factors that go into something as simple as 2D printing. For example, what are the physical characteristics of the paper? Are the sheets stuck together? Is it too thick for the rollers to pick up? Are the edges within good enough tolerance that it'll move in a straight line through the printer?
And then ink (for an inkjet printer) is a whole other level of chemistry and materials science. You have a suspension of pigment in a solution that has to reliably form consistent sized droplets that get sprayed out of microscopic holes in the printhead onto the paper, and stick there. What if the ink is too viscous for the holes? What if the holes are clogged? The end-user doesn't want to worry about these things, they just want to print. So you end up packaging the ink into sealed containers with the printhead built in so that in theory the end user never has to worry about these issues as long as the cartridge is reasonably fresh.
So why are they so expensive? Because people don't want to spend a lot of money on a machine they only see themselves using occasionally. So if they buy a printer, they will generally buy the cheapest one that fits their needs. That means if a printer manufacturer wants to sell printers to the average consumer, they need to compete with their competitors on price, which is a race to the bottom. So the printer manufacturers figure that they'll sell the printer at a loss and make the sales up on ink cartridges.
In reality, the reason that inkjet printing is so expensive is because a ton of complexity is abstracted away from the average consumer. Laser printers win because they're in a different category of technology than inkjets, so consumers are willing to overlook the high price because it's a laser printer. Combined with the fact that toner expires much more slowly than ink, and drums and other laser printer parts generally wear much longer, and laser printers end up with a better reputation.
These problems have not yet been solved for consumer 3D printers. The best you can do is buy a reliable printer (like a Prusa) and then buy good quality filament that has been tested with that printer (like Prusament) and then follow all the instructions very carefully. But if you buy a cheap printer and cheap filament then you start to realize why good quality stuff is expensive. The reason why commercial and industrial printers are so expensive is because businesses don't want to mess around with tweaking their printers constantly, they just want them to work. Which is the same as most consumers want out of their 2D printers, which is why they're perceived to be so expensive, when in actuality they are surprisingly affordable for what they do and how accurately they do it.
I've seen an HP Officejet All-in-one inkjet literally fall apart in less than a year because of (mild) daily use. Inkjet printers are trash. I would not rescue an inkjet printer from the curb.
I volunteered at a non-profit that had some sort of xerox solid wax BS printer that cost hundreds of dollars to maintain, we swapped it out with a laser and suddenly all the problems disappeared.
The daily printer problems my profession has to deal with - did you really intend that job to use legal size paper in the bypass tray?? People don't deserve this.
What I've done is 15 years ago I bought the smallest laser I could find (HP p1005) and I keep it in a cupboard. I use it maybe once a year and it never has ink clogs.
I suspect the most realistic route for most people is to use Other People's Printers, which is what this article is describing.
7/11 is ubiquitous. And every store had a multi functional, professional grade printer.
You simply email your document to a central address. It emails you back a code. Go to any 7/11, pay (using a card that works everywhere, including public transport), enter the code, and get your document printed.