[jackson1way]

I don‘t understand why people keep buying these inkjet scam printers. It‘s been like this for almost 2 decades.

That‘s about the time I switched to laser printers. Currently I equipped myself and my family with a Brother HL 3152CDW. I got it for around 160-180€. The included toners print 1-2k pages. A new toner does 2-2,5k and costs around 60€ per color (genuine Brother) or around 50-60€ for a 4-color-toner set from noname brands. We have the printer since maybe 3-4 years and had to buy 1 black toner. I think I got a noname cartridge for around 25€.

If you want a smaller device and save a little money, get a b/w laser printer for less than 100€.

If I need to print photos, I go to a store with instant printing kiosks. It takes a few minutes to print dozens of photos and it‘s cheap, around 0,20-0,30€ per print (10x15cm).

I hope laser printers will never become such a scam product like inkjet...

[jaclaz]

>I hope laser printers will never become such a scam product like inkjet...

They can already be, JFYI.

For years I had HP printers (only), when they (particularly their drivers) started to become crap (around 10 years ago) I switched to Brother (small office, 3-4 printers, very little print volume).

Lately, on two different multifunctions, "low cost" but rated for around 10,000-15,000 pages per month (we do like 1/10th of that or less) multifunction B/W laser printers, the fuser (rated for 100,000 pages) failed, on one machine at 18,000 pages, on the other at 46,000, printers are 3 or 4 years old (models DCP-8110DN and MFC-8520DN).

Cost of the spare fuser around 150 Euro! + some 30-50 Euro of labour, total 180-200.

Cost of a comparable brand new printer from Brother around 200-220 Euro.

After some research, I found out that half the world experienced the same on that particular "printing engine", which was used on several Brother models, and new series printer use a different one, with a fuser hopefully more reliable.

Anyway, besides the money involved, the obvious choice, buying two new printers would have meant sending to waste some 15 kg x 2 = 30 kg of material, so searched and found a few videos about the issue, bought for 25 Euro each two "fuser refurbishing kits" from China (roller+sleeve+grease) and in less than two hours time I "fixed" (at least temporarily) the issue (it is too recent to know how long the fusers will last).

Imagine that your car, that you paid some 30,000 Euro and that reasonably could do 200,000 km, at 50,000 and right out of warranty breaks a piston and you can only replace the whole engine block and it is a 28,000 Euro repair.

[sokoloff]

To be fair, if you took it back to the car dealer, the only repair they're likely to offer is a factory engine swap. They're not going to do an engine rebuild in the service bay.

Taking it to an independent or DIY, you could rebuild the engine (analogous to what you did on your printer).

[jaclaz]

Sure, the point is that the car dealer would ask a "proportionate" price for the engine swap (even if not cheap, or not as cheap as a "punctual" repair) in the order of magnitude of 3,000 to 6,000 Euro, at the most 10,000 i.e. 10% or 20% or 30% at the most of the price of the car "new".

Here we are talking of 90% to 100% of the price of a new printer.

[bradknowles]

2011 Nissan Juke with five year/50,000 mile warranty. Bought in 2012, only one owner. In good condition with roughly 45,000 miles in December of 2019, Kelley Blue Book resale value of about $7,000.00 USD.

Timing chain breaks. Out of warranty. Cost from dealer is estimated at $10,000 for a complete engine replacement, plus turbos. No joke.

Takes the vehicle down to net negative value, which can only be declared a complete loss and sold for parts.

NB: Cost estimate from reputable third parties is $7,000-8,000, not a full replacement but only a partial rebuild. Doesn’t materially change the result.

[zrail]

Not quite true. I took our car in for a weird noise and they rebuilt just part of the transmission. The noise happened again and then they decided to replace the entire transmission. Both repairs were under warranty.

[jaclaz]

Well it is what happens when the item is out of warranty the issue at hand.

I am pretty sure that if my fusers went bad within the warranty period I might have had them replaced under warranty, or at least there are several reports that Brother did that.

My rant was only about the absurd prices of the spares.

[GordonS]

I put up with crappy inkjets for years, but last year finally had enough and bought a Brother DCP-L2530DW, for only £135.

What a revelation! Cartridges that seem to last forever, it never jams, it doesn't take an eternity to start and stop, it doesn't waste ink on every startup, it doesn't need "realigned" or "unclogged" or "cleaned" 3 times every single time I just want to print something...

I'm never going back to inkjets. I encourage anyone who is still putting up with them to make the switch to a small laser printer.

[james_s_tayler]

Yup. We did the same. For years we didn't even have a printer because of being burned by so many crappy inkjets. Eventually my wife got sick enough of going to the copy shop to print stuff she insisted we buy a printer. I made sure we got a black and white laser printer. Best thing ever. It works like I expect it to work.

[AtlasLion]

Checkout Epson inkjet Ecotank printers they are great.

https://epson.com/ecotank-ink-tank-printers

[tzs]

What happens with those if you go a long time between print jobs?

One of the big points in favor of laser printers has been that they can be idle for a very long time without problems.

[namibj]

If you leave them plugged in, they'll squirt out a little ink to prevent said clogging of the head. This is much more economical than washing dried ink residue out with loads of fresh ink.

[Spare_account]

I have a Brother with a similar approach. It has ink tanks with huge capacity and it powers up once a day to do something which I presume is keeping the heads clear.

It frightened the crap out of me once but I'm used to it now.

[ansible]

Depends on the printer and manufacturer.

We've had a couple different HP inkjet printers, they would clog all the time when not used frequently. Run the cleaning cycle, still doesn't work, clean the nozzles with steam, repeat next month.

We've had a Brother inkjet, and it has been smooth sailing so far.

[GordonS]

Nope, sorry, I'm really never going back to inkjets. I've wasted far too much money on them in the past, but more to the point I've wasted too much energy and time on them.

Across several inkjets over 10+ years, they've all been horrible, and maintenance-heavy - especially when they know you really need to print something!

[itronitron]

I've had an Epson ecotank for over a year now, and I've never needed to refill the ink tanks once. I purchased it because our previous inkjet printer's cartridges would run out about once every month or two. The driver software sucks but that is true for all home printers.

[kmarc]

> I don‘t understand why people keep buying these inkjet scam printers. It‘s been like this for almost 2 decades.

I chose an inkjet for its size. I wanted a printer+scanner combo but the laser ones were enormous. Thankfully I don't have to print a lot so I don't mind the slower printing performance.

[GordonS]

Size was a big concern for me when I made the switch to laser to - I can recommend the Brother DCP-L2530DW, which isn't any bigger than a lot of inkjets.

[kmarc]

Looks compact, yes. I was more looking into something with feeder. (I scan a lot)

Also, this is monochrome.

[GordonS]

Brother have a lot of different SKUs, and I seem to recall there were ones with feeders.

It is mono, yes. If you want a colour laser, it's going to cost a lot more, and be larger. There weren't too many practical (for me) options when I looked last year.

Personally, I'm really happy with it, as 99% of the time I don't need colour. When I do want to print photos, I use a print shop, which are cheap, can provide a variety of sizes, and produce much higher quality photos than you will get with consumer grade printers.

[fiblye]

I bought my parents a $50 Brother laser printer about 12 years ago. They’ve been using it since then and I don’t think they’ve ever even changed the toner.

Before that, they’d buy new inkjet printers every year for the same price and ink a couple times a year because some specific color would dry up, and printing black and white wouldn’t work since the printer couldn’t print the mandatory stealth tracking codes. So much time and money wasted buying shitty inkjet printers (which seems to be all of those in the consumer market).

[scarface74]

If I need to print photos, I go to a store with instant printing kiosks. It takes a few minutes to print dozens of photos and it‘s cheap, around 0,20-0,30€ per print (10x15cm).

It may be hard to imagine, but different people have different desires. Some people want the ability to print pictures at home.

Some people would also ask why I have an at home gym setup that all in cost a little under $10K when I could go to gym when I want to work out.

[agumonkey]

It's true but I'd be surprised if it was a majority these days.

[hunta2097]

I will never buy another inkjet, they are simply too unreliable even using official inks.

My old Canon inkjet lasted me about 8 years but eventually died. After that I had a steady stream of $150-ish printers that were unreliable as the build quality had become too cheap.

I too have now a Brother colour laser and it's awesome. So reliable and fast, I no longer have to worry about my kids printing homework etc.

[beatgammit]

Same. I got a B&W Brother laser printer (and scanner/fax) from Costco a few years ago and we haven't needed to get another toner cartridge yet, but toner is quite reasonably priced if I ever need it. I think we've done over 1000 pages (definitely hundreds), so it has more than paid for itself compared to a comparably priced inkjet.

Growing up we always had color inkjets, and while it was cool being able to print stuff in color at home, we always went to the local pharmacy to get pictures printed because the quality was so much better. Looking back, I think it was more expensive to print worse pictures at home anyway.

Black and white is enough for my uses and I have had zero problems with this printer, whereas previous printers always seemed to have a issues (smearing, jams, feed issues, etc). When I need pictures, I upload them to Costco and pick them up the next day.

[AtlasLion]

For inkjet, i have an Epson Ecotankprinter that's equipped with refillable ink system. Very good move from Epson.

https://epson.com/ecotank-ink-tank-printers

[rsync]

"I don‘t understand why people keep buying these inkjet scam printers. It‘s been like this for almost 2 decades."

Genuinely interested to know your thoughts on the danger of toner particles - either during normal operation or potential leaks/spills in changing cartridges.

We wanted out of the inkjet scam and I initially leaned towards a solid laser printer but then decided I didn't want to worry about toner in the air or potential toner spills.

I got the b&w brother printer (inkjet) that everyone loves and we've been perfectly happy with it...

[Spare_account]

Not the same person but I'm not aware of any health risks with laser toner

https://www.nhs.uk/news/cancer/office-printers-study-made-no...

"This study indicates an area for possible further environmental research. However, currently no health-related conclusions can be drawn from it."

[skissane]

> I don‘t understand why people keep buying these inkjet scam printers. It‘s been like this for almost 2 decades.

Once, I bought a HP color inkjet multi-function device for AU$30 (new). (That's about US$21.)

As a printer it had lots of problems and soon I gave up even trying to use it as one. Never even bothered buying replacement toner.

But I was happy with it as a flat-bed scanner. And I only paid $30 for it.

[sfifs]

> I don‘t understand why people keep buying these inkjet scam printers.

Flexibility. If my daughter wants to print something on photo paper for a craft she is doing, I can print right now and she can continue her work instead of having to find time to go to a store and wait. We switched from Laser to Inkjet.

[romwell]

>I don‘t understand why people keep buying these inkjet scam printers

>If I need to print photos, I go to a store with instant printing kiosks.

Your solution to inkjet printer ownership is... paying to use one.

"I don't get why people keep buying cars. When I need to use one, I just hail an Uber."

[GordonS]

I do the same, and it works well for me.

The printers they use at print shops are not the same crappy, consumer-grade inkjets that people have in their homes - the quality is much better. And you don't need to deal with a constantly "needy" printer that guzzles ink like it's going out of fashion, and needs cleaned/declogged/realigned every time you look at it.

[ahartmetz]

According to my Wikipedia research, the photo kiosk printers are not even inkjets at all. They are thermosublimation printers. In any case, their output looks just like chemically developed photos, no comparison to any inkjets I have seen.

They might also be wax printers. When I worked (student job) for a medical imaging company, they had their customers use wax printers IIUC. At least that was what they used internally.

[tomatocracy]

At the other end of the market, if you're putting photos on your wall, specialist photo printers who target the art market have quite a few different process options and some very interesting paper options, although you'll be looking at maybe GBP10+ or equivalent for an 8x10 print.

Many will give or sell you cheaply a sample pack - it was a revelation to me how good and broad the options were. This includes printing using old fashioned optical photo paper and a machine which is effectively a projecter to expose the image on it - I like this for black and white prints especially.

[vanniv]

I have one of the Canon PRO-1000 printers. There was a really good sale going on a couple years ago, where I could get the printer + 2 full sets of inks for just the price of the inks.

It is incredibly expensive to operate, especially at low print volumes. If I were printing on it all day, it would probably be fine -- but I end up wasting probably half the ink in startup cycles.

But, when using good papers, it produces the most amazing prints I've ever had.

Now that I've used one, I'd never buy it again unless I had some sort of business that produced more volume -- but until I use up all the supplies I bought, I have the most amazing prints!

[rmetzler]

I think it doesn’t work like you said. The GP has a printer, but one where he doesn’t need much maintenance. It just works. No need to have a 4 color printer that doesn’t print black and white when yellow is run out. No need to buy a new cardridge when the one you bought together with the last one is dried out. No need to buy original manufacturer cartridges because of some kind of DRM.

And frankly I do the same as the GP. I have a b/w Brother network laser printer and all computers in my home print to this. When we need to print photos once or twice a year we go to a shop and get 100 different photos at once.

If you want to compare this to cars I think it’s more of a “buy a good car that is reliable and works most of the time and rent a bus or get an uber for a special case”. Like these VW Bullis I hear about. They are great when they work but you don’t want to own one.

[james_s_tayler]

We do the exact same. Hands down it's the best solution.

[pergadad]

No the solution is that inkjet is not needed except for a few rare moments where it delivers better results.

I have an oki laser colour printer, quality is on par with any inkjet I've seen except professional photo printers.

[Piskvorrr]

"Don't do it then" might be the most reasonable option,depending on the frequency of use.

If I had to buy a color printer for all the color printing I did during the last decade, it still would have cost me at least 10x more than paying through the nose for each printout - and that's for a cheap printer, never mind maintenance and the quality of the results.

In other words, ownership makes sense only from some level of usage.

[ogre_codes]

If you only drive a car once a month (or less), then you should probably just hail an Uber. Color prints aren’t a big part of my life... I suspect this is pretty common. If I want to share a photo there are plenty of ways to share it them without committing them to paper.

[tensor]

If you rarely need a car, using an uber is absolutely the right solution. Most people don't print high quality photos at the frequency to justify owning an ink jet.

[agumonkey]

I was actually shopping for 2nd hand all in one wifi laser printer. Any good recommendations ? ~100 bucks (linux friendly would make it perfect)

[dsq]

Brother is absolutely better than HP. Ink cartridges last forever and no/less scammy spyware installs.