Author Topic: Home Printer Recommendations?  (Read 2128 times)

Boomhauer

  • Former Moderator, fired for embezzlement and abuse of power
  • friends
  • Senior Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 14,274
Re: Home Printer Recommendations?
« Reply #25 on: November 11, 2020, 07:26:53 PM »
I should try third party in my Brother next time around. I have always used OEM because of very bad experiences with the HPs at the old job. I don't think I ever got a third party cartridge to work in them correctly. Maybe on the old 2xxx series printers we had, but the newer (at the time) ones were extremely finicky on cartridges.

Jesus I remember having to use that off brand bullshit working for the Feds. We saved SO much money trying four cartridges to get one that worked.

Even the broke ass state was smart enough to buy name brand
Quote from: Ben
Holy hell. It's like giving a loaded gun to a chimpanzee...

Quote from: bluestarlizzard
the last thing you need is rabies. You're already angry enough as it is.

OTOH, there wouldn't be a tweeker left in Georgia...

Quote from: Balog
BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD! SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE! AND THROW SOME STEAK ON THE GRILL!

zxcvbob

  • friend
  • Senior Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 12,208
Re: Home Printer Recommendations?
« Reply #26 on: November 11, 2020, 07:52:13 PM »
I really liked my ancient Brother laser printer; I think the model was HL-1650, or something like that.  Very hard to find drivers for it now, even tho' it emulates Postscript.  It died last year (bearing went out, probably fixable) so I gave it to a colleague who needed something that would work with Linux and wanted to tinker with it. 

I replaced it with a Oki B412dn.  It has worked flawlessly, but it's obviously less than a year old so it ought to still work good.  Time will tell.

Both are monochrome lasers with duplex capability.

Wife bought an HP inkjet about the same time.  It seems to work well but I refuse to use it because the ink is so expensive.  We have an early HP inkjet that probably still works and takes huge-capacity cartridges, but they don't make cartridges for it.  HP still sells them, direct order only, but I suspect they are new old stock and might not work.  I don't want to chance it.  Finding a driver for such an old printer would be an adventure anyway.
"It's good, though..."

HankB

  • friend
  • Senior Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 16,564
Re: Home Printer Recommendations?
« Reply #27 on: November 11, 2020, 10:33:13 PM »
Here's a question about laser printers - does the printer stop printing entirely if ONE toner cartridge is empty?

That was a peeve about my Epson inkjet - if one of the C-M-Y ink cartridges was empty the %$#! printer wouldn't print black, even if the black cartridge was full.

(I started to develop anger issues with that thing towards the end.   ;)   )
Trump won in 2016. Democrats haven't been so offended since Republicans came along and freed their slaves.
Sometimes I wonder if the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on, or by imbeciles who really mean it. - Mark Twain
Government is a broker in pillage, and every election is a sort of advance auction in stolen goods. - H.L. Mencken
Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it. - Mark Twain

RocketMan

  • Mad Rocket Scientist
  • friend
  • Senior Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 13,578
  • Semper Fidelis
Re: Home Printer Recommendations?
« Reply #28 on: November 11, 2020, 10:50:15 PM »
I should try third party in my Brother next time around. I have always used OEM because of very bad experiences with the HPs at the old job.

We've got a couple of Brother printers here at the house.  Third party cartridges have always been... problematic.  We've gone back to OEM cartridges.
If there really was intelligent life on other planets, we'd be sending them foreign aid.

Conservatives see George Orwell's "1984" as a cautionary tale.  Progressives view it as a "how to" manual.

My wife often says to me, "You are evil and must be destroyed." She may be right.

Liberals believe one should never let reason, logic and facts get in the way of a good emotional argument.

Brad Johnson

  • friend
  • Senior Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 18,030
  • Witty, charming, handsome, and completely insane.
Re: Home Printer Recommendations?
« Reply #29 on: November 12, 2020, 10:19:49 AM »
HP printers are good so long as you don't load their clunky, invasive front end. Unless you need MFP functionality, the basic Windows print drivers are fine. The HP front end is tolerable if you disable the notifications.

Back in March I used a bit of house sale proceeds to up our printer game, excuse being SWMBO's department transitioning to a COVID-related home office format. HP M479fdw color laser. Went ahead and popped for extra high-capacity cartridges in all colors. It's ouchy expensive up front, but copy/scan functionality is fantastic, print quality is superb, it's fast, and per-page cost is extremely low, especially with the high-capacity cartridges. The print service plugins are nice, too. I never in a million years though printing directly from my phone would be a thing but I find myself using it all the time. We even occasionally use the fax function (why health and banking sectors still cling to the technology is beyond me, but whatever).

Brad
« Last Edit: November 12, 2020, 10:52:26 AM by Brad Johnson »
It's all about the pancakes, people.
"And he thought cops wouldn't chase... a STOLEN DONUT TRUCK???? That would be like Willie Nelson ignoring a pickup full of weed."
-HankB

Ben

  • Administrator
  • Senior Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 45,745
  • I'm an Extremist!
Re: Home Printer Recommendations?
« Reply #30 on: November 12, 2020, 10:35:11 AM »
HP printers are good so long as you don't load their clunky, invasive front end. Unless you need MFP functionality, the basic Windows print drivers are fine. The HP front end is tolerable if you disable the notifications.

That used to not be the case with the HPs. Again, with the 2xxx series, they had a very streamlined package for drivers and a very intuitive and easy manual network setup. The later versions of the install software were just gross with bloat, and it was even difficult to try and drill down to just the driver install setup.

I actually installed the full Brother suite with my MFC and have found most of it useful. What I haven't found useful, I easily disabled. This is a five year old MFC. I don't know about the current software.
"I'm a foolish old man that has been drawn into a wild goose chase by a harpy in trousers and a nincompoop."

lee n. field

  • friend
  • Senior Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 13,534
  • tinpot megalomaniac, Paulbot, hardware goon
Re: Home Printer Recommendations?
« Reply #31 on: November 12, 2020, 12:17:00 PM »
That used to not be the case with the HPs. Again, with the 2xxx series, they had a very streamlined package for drivers and a very intuitive and easy manual network setup. The later versions of the install software were just gross with bloat, and it was even difficult to try and drill down to just the driver install setup.

I actually installed the full Brother suite with my MFC and have found most of it useful. What I haven't found useful, I easily disabled. This is a five year old MFC. I don't know about the current software.

Go to HP's support website for the latest.  You have to be careful what you download.  You want "basic drivers".  Lately I see 2 downloads under that.  One is raw drivers, what you point the windows printer setup interface to if it doesn't know what you have.  The other is an installer without bloatware, but that will search your network for the printer.

If you go full installer, you'll get all the extra crap.
In thy presence is fulness of joy.
At thy right hand pleasures for evermore.

HankB

  • friend
  • Senior Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 16,564
Re: Home Printer Recommendations?
« Reply #32 on: November 13, 2020, 10:32:57 AM »
Just did a little reading on Brother laser printers . . . looks like they're taking a page from HP and shipping their printers with "starter" toner cartridges that aren't full capacity.  =(

Apparently their toner monitoring will disable the machines after a certain number of prints unless you put in a new toner cartridge, even if there's plenty of toner remaining.

Unclear if

a) you can still print black if C-M-Y is empty;

and

b) if you can reset the toner count from the front panel on current machines the way you could on those from a couple of years ago.
Trump won in 2016. Democrats haven't been so offended since Republicans came along and freed their slaves.
Sometimes I wonder if the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on, or by imbeciles who really mean it. - Mark Twain
Government is a broker in pillage, and every election is a sort of advance auction in stolen goods. - H.L. Mencken
Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it. - Mark Twain

lee n. field

  • friend
  • Senior Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 13,534
  • tinpot megalomaniac, Paulbot, hardware goon
Re: Home Printer Recommendations?
« Reply #33 on: November 13, 2020, 10:59:54 AM »
My daughter and SIL complain greatly about their Brother inkjet.  Apparently there's an automatic cleaning cycle it goes through that just sucks ink mightily.
In thy presence is fulness of joy.
At thy right hand pleasures for evermore.

Brad Johnson

  • friend
  • Senior Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 18,030
  • Witty, charming, handsome, and completely insane.
Re: Home Printer Recommendations?
« Reply #34 on: November 13, 2020, 11:46:55 AM »
My daughter and SIL complain greatly about their Brother inkjet.  Apparently there's an automatic cleaning cycle it goes through that just sucks ink mightily.

Unfortunately that's a universal constant of ink jet printers. Cleaning cycles chug ink like a fat kid on a grape soda. Lasers cost more and cartridges can be spendy, but the cartridges last far longer, the toner doesn't dry up, and the per-page cost is much lower.

Brad
« Last Edit: November 14, 2020, 12:46:28 AM by Brad Johnson »
It's all about the pancakes, people.
"And he thought cops wouldn't chase... a STOLEN DONUT TRUCK???? That would be like Willie Nelson ignoring a pickup full of weed."
-HankB

HankB

  • friend
  • Senior Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 16,564
Re: Home Printer Recommendations?
« Reply #35 on: November 13, 2020, 07:24:52 PM »
My daughter and SIL complain greatly about their Brother inkjet.  Apparently there's an automatic cleaning cycle it goes through that just sucks ink mightily.
First, understand this: PRINTERS ARE MADE TO SELL INK. There is a HUGE markup on ink cartridges - probably orders of magnitude more than on the printers themselves.

Cleaning cycles are a way to sell MORE ink.

From my own experience, Canon and Epson printers do the same as the Brother your daughter and SIL complain about.
Trump won in 2016. Democrats haven't been so offended since Republicans came along and freed their slaves.
Sometimes I wonder if the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on, or by imbeciles who really mean it. - Mark Twain
Government is a broker in pillage, and every election is a sort of advance auction in stolen goods. - H.L. Mencken
Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it. - Mark Twain

Brad Johnson

  • friend
  • Senior Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 18,030
  • Witty, charming, handsome, and completely insane.
Re: Home Printer Recommendations?
« Reply #36 on: December 21, 2020, 12:55:11 PM »
Quick revisit because I discovered an important non-feature in the default HP Scan "lite" software package that loads with the printer. Namely, the inability to scan to a PDF. Unless you have a network document server that the printer can be linked to in it's onboard menu, you're SOL. The default app has no scan to PDF function. A little digging turned up that the full HP scan app does. Why HP wouldn't include such a basic and widely-used function in the default app is beyond me, but that's the way it is. Good new is that the full app is a simple download and easy install.

One caveat. Uninstall the default HP Smart app first or it will butt heads with the full suite. Took me a good half hour to figure that one out. Once I uninstalled the default suite and the secondary instance of the printer, all was fine. I must admit that the app is impressively intuitive for those with a decent working knowledge of office computing. I did take pains to turn off the data collection aspect. Thankfully HP makes this a simple toggle during the install. It also includes an IRIS OCR function which seems to work very well.

Also, because the LaserJet Pro SWMBO and I got was so impressive, I recommended its baby brother for my parents. They were going through insane amounts of printer ink due to lack of use. Every time they wanted to print something at least one of the cartridges was either very iffy or completely dried up. With the LaserJet that won't be an issue. It also prints and scans duplex, something their old InkJet couldn't do.

Brad
It's all about the pancakes, people.
"And he thought cops wouldn't chase... a STOLEN DONUT TRUCK???? That would be like Willie Nelson ignoring a pickup full of weed."
-HankB