Printer suggestions?

Hardware
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Has anyone any suggestions for a good home printer? A copying facility would be nice, but not essential as I have a SnapScan scanner.

Preferably not HP; I’m rebelling against, as Cory Doctorow puts it, the “enshitification” of their instant ink subscription. That said, it’s a long way from where I live to anywhere that sells ink, so if there’s a brand that does the same thing, but charges you only for pages actually printed I’d consider it.

Thanks for any tips.

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I know a lot of people suggest the Brother printer line - Best printer 2023: just buy this Brother laser printer everyone has, it’s fine | The Verge

For color printing, if that’s important to you, I found the Brother to be very nickel-and-dimey regarding consumables costs. Specifically separate drum units, which other manufacturers build into their cartridges. I personally have a Canon MF733CDW and I really like it.

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I bought this Amazon.com: Brother HL-L2460DW Wireless Compact Monochrome Laser Printer with Duplex, Mobile Printing, Black & White Output | Includes Refresh Subscription Trial(1), Works with Alexa on Amazon last January and have been very happy with it. I really don’t need color. When I had ink jets in the past they would dry up because I don’t print very often.

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No suggestions, I just love the title of the article you linked!

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@dustinknopoff The article was updated in 2024 and again this year…

brother
brother725×835 158 KB

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+1
another data point, I have one too. No issues.

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I have a Brother HL-L6200DW laser printer. The only thing it does is print in black and white, which it does reliably and fast. This particular model has been discontinued, but if I were in the market for a new monochrome printer, I’d look at Brother laser printers first.

PS: I won’t even bother with a model that doesn’t print on both sides of the paper.

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My old color laser gets little use so haven’t bought toner for it in years, but my understanding is that the drum ages/wears out on a different life-cycle than the the rest of the cartridge so potentially having them individually replaceable is consumer friendly?

Can anyone clarify if this is better or just a money grab? Or maybe brand-specific?

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It’s always coming up here (see New inkjet (or other) printer in 2025? for the last go-around) and elsewhere – if you can get by with monochrome laser, get any Brother. We’ve got two (one in 2016 and the second in 2019) and they never fail.

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I have a laser printer with a drum unit. I’ve replaced the drum unit once, but have replaced the toner cartridge several times. I haven’t checked recently, but when I bought my printer it was more economical to use separate drum units and toner cartridges if you were going to do a lot of printing.

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Thanks everyone! Looks like a Brother, but the colour one.

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Brother all the way. I have the same
One other people have linked.

Works great across iPhone, iPad, and Mac.

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I own an 8+ year old Brother printer and purchased several over the years for my company.

The ones in the warehouse were constantly exposed to dirt & dust from open doors on the truck dock, and occasionally failed in less than a year. But Brother printers were frequently on sale at local stores and I even purchased one for less than the cost of a toner cartridge.

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Last time I shopped home printers a few years ago it seemed to be the opposite.

Color lasers have a transfer belt which is always separate, and drums do wear at different rates than cartridges - but the cost of replacing a drum and cartridges can sometimes be significantly more expensive.

All math really has to be done per printer though. Just some examples I’ve run into:

  • A $100 cartridge might print 1,400 pages or 3,000 pages, even from the same manufacturer
  • Buying that same cartridge in the remanufactured market might change that page yield, since some brands will change a microchip but not a cartridge design for a new model. This means they’ll just slack-fill what used to be a 4,000 page cartridge to make a 1,500 page cartridge. The microchip prevents using the old cartridge in the new printer.
  • The cartridge that comes with a printer might be a “1234E” instead of a “1234”, and the “E” basically means “we give it to you for free, so it’s only 1/3 full.”
  • A drum might last 10,000 pages or 50,000 pages, depending on the company.
  • A manufacturer might put a chip in their drum to “expire” it after a certain number of pages, when it actually has plenty of useful life left

If you print a very low volume, some of this may never be an issue as the initial cartridge may last years. But at higher volumes, it’s important to add up every single cost and boil it down per page.

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