The fuck?
That’s a real thing. Buy Brother, brother.
Is Canon half-decent?
I don’t have any recent experience with them but they used to be. I haven’t used their laser offerings but it looks like they’re about on par with Brother from a quick Google search.
I have a cannon at home. It was super cheap and super reliable, and no possibility for an internet connection.
Same with me. I had trouble getting that anti-pale-yellow-dot program to work with it though. Still can’t do it :(
I’m guessing they signed up for HP Instant Ink, a monthly subscription service that monitors the ink levels in the printer and automatically mails you refills.
If you buy an HP printer, they HEAVILY promote this and offer discounts/free trials. I declined, because fuck that, but I could see someone agreeing and forgetting about it.
Everybody donate to Pine64 so they can get that open source printer off the ground someday.
Wait, what?
Pine64, the company that has made such excellent projects as the PinePhone, PineBook, and PineTime(open source hardware and software smartphone, laptop and smart watch), has stated that one of their dream projects would be an open source, hackable printer. There’s obviously a ton of logistics though and it will likely never materialize unless they really start making big bucks.
First time I see it and couldn’t find any sources. What kind of printer? Thermal, matrix, laser/led, inkjet?
They only mentioned it in passing once (afaik) in a blog post. These aren’t actual plans so much as a pipe dream I think
Epson EcoTank. They’re expensive printers, but the ink is so cheap they make up for it. I absolutely love mine and recommend it to anyone looking for a printer.
If you’re gonna spend money on a decent printer, go with a laser printer unless you specifically need ink printing.
I have an HP I got like a decade ago, and only had to change the OEM toner carts in the last 6mo or so. The thing has survived 3 moves too, so it’s held up like a champ. It probably helps that it’s an older HP, so it was before they went to shit.
Hi, this is Hewlett Packard here. We read your post and are happy you love our products! Wouldn’t it make sense for you to upgrade to one of our newer models? I’m sure you’re tired of lugging your heavy, old printer these days.
Our new ones are much lighter! Lighter in weight due to beautiful design! Lighter even on your wallet (at first, and for now)!
Won’t you consider upgrading and locking in - I mean - “purchasing” a new printer, pretty please? uwu :3
Here’s a friendly Kirby to convince you to upgrade! See, we’re cool and we know how to use product placement! Upgrade now or else!! We can’t wait for YOUR SOUL TO BE OURS.
Your Friend, HP
(We rebranded. Now the “P” stands for Predatory, but like the cute kind 😘. It’s okay to give us your money, trust us.)
“Predatorial is good: cats are predators, and people love cats”.
Won’t you consider upgrading and locking in - I mean - “purchasing” a new printer, pretty please? uwu :3
Not a chance lol
Yup. Inkjet printers became popular because of digital cameras. But unless you’re printing a bunch of photos, you really don’t need an inkjet. And even if you are printing photos, it’s usually better to just go to a print shop or use Google Photos.
Boom. My HP is a tiny B&W from 10+ years ago. Runs like a champ, $20 for an easy 1,000 pages, or more. WFH and do a little company printing so they buy the supplies. MUCH love. When it finally kicks it, if I can’t find a refurb kit, I’ll go Brother.
Disadvantage with laser is they are bigger and heavier and when you do have to replace parts other than the toner, it’s expensive. I don’t have a large house and went with a small Canon inkjet for space considerations. We only print occasionally so it’s worked ok for us.
Do you have issues with the inkjet heads crusting up and causing issues with ink waste? We only print like once or twice a month at most, and that was the reason I went away from them.
That was my issue. Pretty much print a handful of times a year, mostly around tax season and without fail my ink has dried out and needs to be repurchased. Got a brother laser printer 2 yrs ago, still haven’t replaced the original toner. Easily in the black for not having to buy ink 2x despite the laser printer being pricier than I’d prefer
At least you can replace parts. When is the last inkjet that had something user replaceable?
Maybe the print head?
Laser Printers are made for businesses and long lifetime generally.
Anyway HP has turned me bitter.
I love my HP LaserJet but it’s like 7 years old at this point…
Removed by mod
Rollers seem to be difficult to swap. I did manage to combine two together to make a working unit once.
But that’s noted.
Lasers seem to have more things that can be maintained in a documented way.
Removed by mod
Photos but if I really want that I would go to a printing place.
They really don’t have to be bigger and heavier. I have a Pantum P2502w laser printer and it is seriously one of the smallest printers I’ve ever owned including inkjets. I feel like laser printers always default to paper storage being underneath them instead of having a feeder tray that sticks out further from the body? And that puts them into a larger form factor.
That being said, I’m fairly sure this is a much lighter duty laser printer than other heavier ones.
Also this is not really an endorsement for Pantum, the software and firmware are buggy as hell, but the software isn’t bad enough for me to throw it out and the hardware will probably last a decade so good luck to me.
Mine’s tiny and light and runs like a champ.
https://support.hp.com/us-en/product/details/hp-laserjet-pro-p1102-printer-series/model/4110306
I run an easy 1,000+ pages a year for work, printing targets and other misc. stuff.
Hands down the best printer I’ve ever had. Only challenge is cleaning the printer heads because I don’t print often enough.
I just run the automated thing like 4 or 5 times until it prints well again. It always works eventually.
I won’t go eco tank personally, clogs and cleaning is a royal pain on them and there’s no good purge feature. I would fully recommend going this path only if accuracy on color is requirement further then laser printers do
I’ve had mine for about four years. I’ve had clogged print heads once, and I ran the auto cleaning five times, then it worked. I’ll give you that it was a pain, but the purge feature works. You’ve just gotta do it multiple times if it’s a really bad clog.
Actually they have a power wash feature you can use. It just wastes a lot of ink.
Nah. After getting a laser jet I’ll never go back to an inkjet printer. For the cost of an eco tank you can get a solid laser printer with zero maintenance and it will last much longer.
I’ve had mine for seven years and only changed the ink twice.
Yes and no. I have one and they work fine until you unplug them for any length of time. Then you have to deal with cleaning all the printheads and getting it to work properly again. Typically needs multiple passes before it will print right. I know it’s a problem with all ink jet printers. It’s a shame toner is more expensive and colour laser printers are so expensive. If not I would switch to one of them.
The fact that HP didn’t even say anything makes it look less like profiteering and more like spite. Idiots. I’m actually in the market for a printer and from what I can tell, in order to get something that won’t stiff me in some way I have to get one which is really old. And not made by HP.
You just want a Brother laser jet black and white printer
It’s no bullshit and will work forever
I’m with the others recommending Brother. They aren’t perfect, but they’re the least bad.
Running about a 10 year old MFC 9349 CDW here, only changed the black toner so far. Used a cartridge reset truck I found on YouTube to get more life out of the original black before that.
Scans to network nicely, does 2 sided prints etc.
Go for a Brother.
I’ve owned a HL-3070cw for a decade (I think, close to if not) - I’ve changed the toner carts 4 times, it’s printed high res color daily for pennies. Shit just works, and quality isn’t bad at all. Works from any device on the network - phones tablets desktops laptops - practically zero network admin/setup, it just fucking works for everyone. Cannot recommend enough.
Which is fine until Grandma wants to print out all the selfies and other photos our Grand kids send her. Then, that black and white anything won’t cut it. And I can’t afford a photo quality laser printer…
Jesus, just get her a Digit Photo Frame. Frameo is incredibly easy and it lets you add them.
She has multiple digital frames. But she still wants to print some out. Grandma’s will Grandma…
Apparently Brother, and some Lexmark, printers don’t come with this BS DRM baked into the firmware.
Has anyone cracked the HP firmware to give us proper access to our hardware?
Thanks to DMCA, circumventing this protection and sharing it with people is illegal.
Honestly hasn’t stopped people in the past but I suspect it hasn’t been cracked because of how it connects to an external server to verify. Probably need to patch the firmware entirely
I’ve been around in IT long enough… The emails went to someone who has left or someone set auto delete “on these annoying spam emails!”.
Not to make it right or better, hp sucks donkey balls, but I don’t believe the would’ve been zero contact. If you buy a subscription printer and stop paying for a subscription… That’s on you.
Subscription printer. Why the fuck is that even a thing.
Because if you make everything this level of shit and you sell someone “printer that always works at £6 a month!” It sounds like a great deal.
For those who don’t know, Wendigoon is a creepy lore youtuber.
He’s also sometimes been acredited with creating the aesthetic of the boogaloo boys, not sure how true that is.
As far as I’ve heard, his videos are fairly consistent with documentation of the events he covers, such as the unibomber, the MLK assassination, etc.
It’s very funny to think he wasn’t radicalized before the printer situation.
Yeah, he has a… questionable history, what with the “boogaloo boys” memes, but he stopped engaging with that pretty quickly around the time it became associated with Actual Nazis instead of semi-ironic government-hating libertarians.
I did not know that! Thank you.
He interviewed a fed.
He is not exactly radical, he is not a fan of the government and loves a good conspiracy.
He also is a devote Christian, but not a dick about it.
He, by all accounts, is a wonderful person that everybody who knows him loves.
He’s also sometimes been acredited with creating the aesthetic of the boogaloo boys, not sure how true that is.
I don’t really know anything about him, but I just checked out his channel and I don’t really think that’s true since its only 3 years old
Printers shouldn’t be allowed to the edge…vlan with no Internet access… it’s a fucking printer not a web host.
Seen this so many times and glad to keep seeing it.
More people being informed on these scummy practices to look out for and avoid is a good thing.
Fuck HP. Simple as that.
As other comments have said. Never buy anything from HP.
Get a Brother printer.
every time I see this screenshot I’m disappointed that it misses the photo of Ted Kaczynski he responded with
this one?
No this one
My mom bought a cheap HP printer/scanner several years ago and subscribed to their “instant ink” subscription which was actually surprisingly cheap (like $3/mo) but once the printer stopped reliably connecting to the internet and nobody could print wirelessly anymore with it, she canceled the subscription and HP DISABLED ALL OF THE INK CARTRIDGES. The cartridges themselves have wifi connections so HP can automatically send you new ink when they get low. What a scam.
Never use a smart printer. If this is your only choice, make sure this dorker has no internet connection. If it does make any sudden movements, use the 9mm.
Don’t buy HP ever, they straight up refuse to work without wi-fi.
I got an old… Ricoh? machine from some company sellout with a heck of a lot of toners. Was €500 but I’ll never need to buy anything again for the next 3 decades.
I prefer the .45 for stawpping powa. PC Load Letter?! Blamblamblam.
It’s crazy how the people and govt have let this go on for so long. This has been a known issue with consumer grade printers for a long time now. I remember my parents bitching about ink costs when I was in grade school. Now these companies have raced to the bottom and are locking them down.
Personally, I have found myself to print less than a dozen pages per year. Usually it’s some government office that wants hard copy. For every instance, I just used my local Office Depot to handle all of my printing needs. So glad I don’t have to deal with printer bs
I did an internship at an OEM that was the dying most of the revenue came from government make work money for economic development and selling machines to the 3rd world because they were too dangerous for first world.
Our high end products did this remote deactivation thing. Hated it at the time still hate it today.
Wait a second, people still use printers in 2024!
Part of the reason I got a brother LaserJet instead of an Epson eco tank was because I don’t need to worry about toner drying out. As much as I try to avoid it, I still need to print once in a blue moon and it’s not really “efficient” to drive to the library.
Yeah, the only time I needed to print something in the last 5 years was a passport renewal form. I just spent 10 cents to print it at my local library. I really don’t understand why anybody really needs a printer nowadays.
Join the wendigoon trail, REBEAL