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Ask HN: Are there any normal office printers?

11 points by theK ↗ HN
Hi HN,

so My office printer (an HP inkjet-scanner office box) has just informed me via a printed page that it cannot print any more because it cannot ask the HP servers if it is allowed to print. Every time I try to print something it just spits out that page!

Its in the WiFi, can connect to the internet and I can see its traffic on the network but for whatever reason it cannot parse the responses it gets from the HP servers so it disabled itself...

I have given up on it and am looking at replacement options but I cannot find any office printers that explicitly state that they will work as long as their cartridges are full.

Are there really no Dumb printers any more?

12 comments

[ 3.7 ms ] story [ 42.4 ms ] thread
tacostakohashi
A normal office printer is a laser printer, which uses toner.

An "inkjet-scanner office box" is a device that exists primarily for the purpose of perpetuating a decades-old ink refill scam.

theK
I'm okay with that and really do not care whether the printer uses toner or ink to produce pages with content in them.

What I care about is that I don't want it to need an uplink to the Internet in order to do so.

jotjotzzz
I use the Brother hd2270dw at home. It has WiFi printing but doesn't require the internet to print anything. You can also plug into it the old fashioned way and the toner is affordable.
okeefe77
Seconding this. I've had similar Brother models for over a decade and have never run into any of the issues OP described.
ted_bunny
Am I right to think that HP printers are some of the most egregiously poor and scammy printers on the market? Whenever someone asks me for help and I see the logo, I groan.
a2800276
I have a Ricoh color laser printer (mc250fwb) which is absolutely wonderful hardware and toner wise, but the linux drivers are only provided as a self extracting exe-file, and the scanner feed is not supported.

The Android app is the biggest piece of crap imaginable. It can only scan to an app internal folder, and scans can only be moved to dropbox or google docs, not to public folders accessible to other apps on the device. And you have to move them individually, the only bulk operation is delete.

The windows driver is not as terrible, but ... wouldn't rate it better than "meh".

So great hardware, terrible driver situation.

theK
Hang on it is 2023 and there still isn't a global standard on printing interfaces? I thought all printer manufacturers had decided to use that CUPS thing more than a decade ago?
a2800276
I believe that is only the interface towards the computer, printer specific options still require that interface to be implemented. And scanners ...
nektro
inkjet is the issue. laser is what you need my friend
_ah
"Best printer 2023: just buy this Brother laser printer everyone has, it’s fine / The Brother whatever-it-is will print return labels for online shopping, never run out of toner, and generally be a printer instead of the physical instantiation of a business model."

https://www.theverge.com/23642073/best-printer-2023-brother-...