this post was submitted on 06 Aug 2023
71 points (96.1% liked)

Technology

59533 readers
4418 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.

Our Rules

  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related content.
  3. Be excellent to each another!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
L3s@lemmy.world
L3s@fry.gs
L4s@fry.gs
L4s@lemmy.world
enu@lemmy.world
71
Printers (lemmy.world)
submitted 1 year ago by 3h5Hne7t1K@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world
37 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Throughout my life i have set up a multitude of different printers. None of them have been a pleasant experience. Why is this, and is there a printer that is actually good?

Order of priorities:

  1. Free/open software and hardware
  2. Available ink/toner and spares
  3. No connectivity "dumb as a rock"

Print quality really doesent matter unless it is really bad. Of course, im willing to make sacrifices on all of these points, but you get the gist.

Any suggestions for models that comes even close to any of these requirements?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[โ€“] krayj@lemmy.world 12 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I would NEVER recommend a modern HP printer, but...I have a HP Laserjet 4000 (Circa 1997) that I 'acquired' from the company I worked for that went bankrupt.

This thing refuses to die. current impression count is over 500,000 prints. All its patents expired over a decade ago, and it's still easy to find parts and toner (originals, and now even 3rd party knockoffs). It's old enough now that modern generic drivers have built in support for it. The only parts I've ever had to replace are the rubber sheet feeder rollers which dry out and stop working correctly after 12-15 years.

So, I guess the point here is that some really solid printers were made a couple decades ago, back when manufacturers still took pride in their products, and they are old enough that the hardware is no longer protected by patents (so practically open) and robust driver support without all the bullshit. Picking up something from this era and cleaning it up would come close to satisfying a lot of your requirements.

[โ€“] Hyperreality@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago

Also has a smaller laserjet. No nonsense, just USB. Toner lasted a few thousand pages.

Basically indestructible. Brother replaced it with a wifi samsung laser, bad move.

Wifi? Rarely works and requires a data harvesting app to be installed on your pc.

NFC? Doesn't work.

I now connect to it via usb. Works fine like that. I preferred the old printer.