I switched to a Brother printer not only because of the toner/ink issue, but because it was the only model which afforded a straightforward USB printer. No useless bells and whistles, not even WiFi, which I neither need/nor want in a printer. It has been the best printer I ever bought.
With Brother printer here, WiFi works to print straight from iPhones and Androids. This works excellent for apps that otherwise make you mail a pdf to yourself.
The initial WiFi setup was done straight from the printer using buttons. Never asked to install any driver. Hands down the best one I've ever had.
I have what sounds like the same one, at my business. My employees frequently print things from their phones, which saves me a lot of hassle printing it for them.
I also love it, and hvae set up the wireless twice on the machine, like you say.
I have an EPSON MFP, had the exact same experience. Their mobile app integrates with everything I need and the amount of control I have over printing settings is great.
They introduced recharging cartridges, dropping ink prices by an order of magnitude, while still keeping ink quality very high. Third party ink quality was always hard to predict, I prefer relying on the manufacturer's.
My point is, I've been printing from IOS (via AirPrint) and Android (via Google Cloud Print) for 5 years, never installed an app. I've also printed (wirelessly) from Mac and Windows, never downloaded their drivers, or installed any software, or created an account, or passed any personal data, etc. There's no subscription either. It just works as is.
As long as Brother will make printers that work that way, I will continue to buy them.
All of the brother printers I've owned have had ethernet so I just plug them into the network -- no wifi problems then either.
Wired networks are so much better than wifi, so anytime I have walls/ceilings open for renovations, I always come in after the contractors leave to run some ethernet wires for future use. After a couple of renovations I've got some really useful runs for hardwiring some of the things I use most: TVs, printers, and an extra wireless access point in my garage for extra range.
That's true, but it's a one-time pain, and if you prefer you can configure it by downloading software and connecting the printer. I really like the fact that no-software option is there, though.
I have a similar printer, the HL2240. Bought it for uni probably 7 years ago now and it just keeps soldiering on. Nothing but USB for input, which admittedly has caused some headache since my spouse and I use it regularly and needed a good central place for it. However, that problem is very quickly remedied with CUPS on a Raspberry Pi.
My Brother printer's Bonjour server is wonky, and sometimes the only way it works is if I myself start advertising its IP on Bonjour. Even that doesn't work perfectly, e.g., double-sided printing does not work.
A family member bought both an Epson and a large flatbed HP printer in the past few years. Neither of them work (recognized, but do not print) while my much older (over a decade and a half) HP printer does work including scanning.
Sadly, not my experience. I bought a Brother HL-L3210CW an my advice is to avoid it.
Cartridges have chips and the printer randomly stops recognizing the third party ones. The official service provider told me it's the cartridges and the solution is to buy original ones at over 3x the price.
Hmm, I have been using generic toner in Brother DCPL2540DW and HL-L2370DWXL laser printers for years without issue.
My vague impression is that Brother printers try to detect whether a cartridge is for the correct printer model, but not whether the cartridge is Brother brand. So long as the generic cartridge has a chip that says "I am designed for this printer", it should work.
(The worst they do is advise you on the website to buy "genuine Brother ink" because of the increased risk of jams, cloggings, etc with generics. Im sure this is overplayed, but its not an altogether imaginary risk.)
Is it possible that your generic cartridge is just crummy? There really are a ton of Chinese generic cartridge brands, and it would not be surprising if some are crap. Maybe try a different brand of generic?
I cannot rule this out. This happened twice so far, with a different cartridge brand each time.
Also, the last time two slots failed at once, or in a very short timespan (black and yellow). Unfortunately I don't remember which slot failed when it happened for the first time.
So, the data suggests it's the printer but as always, more data is needed.
Every time there's talk of printers on HN someone inevitably praises Brother, so there must be something to it. I'm getting really sick of HP's unnecessary and horrible software so once my MFP inevitably dies due to some minor but entirely unfixable issue, I'll definitely be looking into Brother's stuff.
Here's a contrary voice for an underappreciated option, despite the villain in this story.
I wanted a networked color laser MFP that could be used from within Linux without proprietary binary drivers, i.e., needed to natively support PostScript and have PPDs available. I did not want to give HP any business given what it has turned into.
Canon has color "imageClass" devices that fit this bill. I wasn't able to find a Brother unit where the PPD was self-contained, but maybe I missed something. The Brother PPDs I was able to get from their site had additional filter scripts or binaries to which they called out. The scanning function works great on the Canon via the "AirScan" SANE backend (I use it in WSD mode). Third-party toner cartridges are available. I needed support on an occasion and found competent, pleasant, non-outsourced Canon staff via their phone support line. Pretty happy with mine.
Now that WSD and AirScan are popularly supported on business-class MFPs and don't require manufacturer-specific SANE backends, there are probably other choices worth looking at as well. Kyocera is another brand that seems to support first-class PostScript printing.
I bought two HP printers, hated them for the standard reasons, then read HN comments praising Brother printers, bought two of those, and have since been very happy.
This experience led me to permanently distrust Wirecutter recommendations, as they (currently and for many years) have listed HP as their #1 recommendation for both lasers and inkjets.
Got a small b+w brother printer for a couple 100 last year and it’s been great. Wired in with lan, everything can print to it. Solid “just works” experience.
I don't think shipping a binary CUPS filter you're just supposed to trust counts as good Linux support. Never buying a printer without a fully working PPD without blob dependencies.
Brother MFCs support IPP Everywhere (aka AirPrint), so you shouldn't need drivers in the first place. If the UI doesn't let you use the IPP Everywhere driver, you can add it with
One of the posters wondered why disruptive billions aren't being made by new printer companies.
Well not that long ago look what happened with disruptive scooter and ebike rental.
Those things piled up faster than landfills could handle it.
With printers billions were already made in the 20th century.
There are so many thousands of tonnes of surplus printers at any one time, a huge percentage of which have not yet been landfilled, that all I use are rescued printers and I'm in a business where the only deliverable product is paperwork.
Even though I am the pioneer of the paperless approach.
Anyway, recently things like the discontinued Brother HL-2270 series are more common as discards but have plenty of life left in the hardware.
When I got one complete with a couple new toner refills, it was a good time to add it to one of my paperless subnets. Printing which had been non-essential could then become discretionary and the actual cost per page would start at zero and stay that way for the remainder of the toner it had plus the two new cartridges. Well actually only zero compared to other printers considering the cost of the paper is the same.
I like this printer better than the equivalent HP's and Lexmark I have kept running in those offices still largely doing full paperwork output for each job.
When Windows 11 was released the Brother website posted a message having a positive outlook for compatible drivers to become available for download within a few weeks.
That did come true and it turned out better than anticipated since it was still just the same drivers that had been validated for Windows 10.
That's the kind of engineering I like.
Now they have a detailed list of all their printers supported for Windows 11 with a highly respectable array of discontinued models going back many years.
With the printer connected to a regular Windows network, wireless or not, you can fire up a Linux workstation and the printer is easily detected, although you may need to select something like USA Letter Size paper if the default is European A4.
Once again I don't recommend actually purchasing a printer when there are so many homeless needing adoption.
Whatever you're printing will look 100% better/more professional if you get someone else to print it using commercial tools.
Printers are cool if you need to quickly print some black-and-white papers in a jiffy. But anything more than that (and even that) is never going to compare to getting it properly printed.
It's like filming video with your phone: it will always pale in comparison to an actual, video-oriented camera.
My experience with Brother printers has always included having to download a package containing a PPD + binary blob from their support site after someone blindly bought one because they are cheap/someone suggested them. Always check before buying if you stand by good OSS support.
Always check before buying if you stand by good OSS support.
I typically always do. I have a 20 year old HP colour laser, but it is showing its age. All the praise for Brother printers on HN, somehow short circuited, bypassed my check-it filter.
HP ships Open Source support for just about every printer they provide. (You have to bypass the pile of steps in the on-printer portion of setup that desperately want to push you into an ink subscription, though.)
I was sharing what printer I got and that I was happy with it. Nothing more. Yes, it’s a laser printer. No, it wasn’t meant to be a comparison to Canon, ink printers, or any other printers. I’m not sure why you felt like I was trying to compare them.
The article is about Canon inkjets, mostly consumer ones. You said:
"Switched to a Brothers printer well over a decade ago that uses toner instead of ink and couldn’t be happier."
So, you seemed (I may have been mistaken, but your statement was far from being clear and explicit) to make quite an apple-to-oranges comparison. First, you were likely comparing products from different price brackets, then, you were comparing products with different technologies.
How does the brand matter? But the first thing you said was "Brothers", as if it was the most important and relevant info. You really seemed to imply that "Brothers" is what matters here.
If you said "I switched from low-end inkjets a decade ago, now I use SOHO laser printers - mine happens to be a Brother one which I find great", that would have been perfectly fine to me. Or even if you said "Canon low-end inkjets are crap - buy low-end Brother inkjets and they're far better!" - all of those are great contributions. Yours wasn't.
Historically, Brother has done a better job of getting affordable lasers or laser like printers out to consumers. Canon rested on their laurels and played catch up afterwards (much like they did in the mirrorless camera space)
That's totally possible, but laser tech exists beyond Brother nevertheless. And Brother does sell inkjets as well; so there's no 1:1 match between "Brother" and "toner".