• Kidplayer_666@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    Buy brother laser. It’s more expensive, but it’s worth it long term. They last a real long time and the cartridges last bananas and they don’t care about “official” ink

    • Gormadt@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      1 year ago

      Straight up when I bought my black and white brother laser printer I got an extra cartridge with it because I didn’t expect it to last very long

      By the time I finally had to swap it out I couldn’t find the extra cartridge I bought with it because it had been so long

      Needless to say I’m 3 years and 500+ pages into the second cartridge and happy to have this clunky little printer

      • Kumatomic@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        1 year ago

        So far, on my 5 year old brother it annoys me to but toner from them but had a “do not show this message again” choice to click. Happened with two messages and no more so far. They also added a thing in status monitor when it tells you your toner levels wether it’s official or not and that you should not official. So far it hasn’t stopped me from using it, but like every corporation I fully expect them to go full stupid soon.

    • harmsy@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Laser printers are especially handy if you rarely ever need to print anything, because they don’t dry up and get clogged.

      • Zagorath@aussie.zone
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        1 year ago

        Yeah I tend to either not print anything for years, or print huge amounts in a short span of time. Lasers are brilliant for this use case, because they also print really really quickly when they are printing, in addition to not drying up.

    • EatYouWell@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      It’s not even more expensive. You can get a full duplex wifi printer for under $200. I want one, but my 20 year old Brother printer is still going strong.

    • Rubanski@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      My Dell mono laser is also going strong. Haven’t had a single issue in over 10 years. Ink printers have been and still are a scam

  • Colonel Sanders@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    And this is why things like pirating are not only acceptable but necessary. When companies lock services behind paywalls for products we should legally own, we are left with no recourse but to obtain the services we are owed illegally.

    • Rediphile@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      Agreed. Piracy, aka the sharing of information freely (see also: libraries), is a fundamentally ethically correct course of action. Always.

      Withholding knowledge for personal profit on the other hand is obviously not.

  • germanatlas@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    1 year ago

    HP is probably the worst big tech device company. Their products are shit, break quickly, are overpriced and econ students love them.

    • CatLikeLemming@lemmy.blahaj.zoneOP
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      1 year ago

      I bought an HP Envy, one of these convertible laptop thingies, when I didn’t know any better. The hinge broke about a month after the warranty expired. Repair costs (at a local repair shop, but still) were like 200€ because apparently I had to buy a whole new top cover for the damn repair to work

      Anyways, I’m gonna buy a Framework laptop next because fuck going through that again

      • weeeeum@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Repair technician here. Yes we get a lot of hps with bad hinges, because they screw that super stiff hinge into the most floppy wet newspaper like piece of plastic possible. 200$ is reasonable because depending which side it’s one you have to completely gut the screen assembly or the keyboard assembly (you use to be able to replace keyboards by themselves now you need to completely gut the whole computer)

        Fuck HP but also fuck a lot of other brands cause they all pull this bullshit (dell, apple, Lenovo, Acer, Asus)

        • Neofox@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          That’s a lot of the market right here. What would you recommend being a good laptop brand then?

        • RedReaper
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          1 year ago

          Company I work at does HP warranty repairs on hehalf of HP and the number of fuckin shattered screens from the shitty plastic hinge screw housing being shorn off was absurd.

          It seems to be the case with a lot of the bezel-less designs, since I know I’ve seen some other brands with the same problem.

          I just hate that they seem to have decided it’s more profitable to just leave the shitty design as-is and deal with the repairs than to actually design that shit better.

          $200 definitely seems reasonable though on part cost alone, since HUs are typically the 2nd most expensive order able part besides the system board itself.

          • weeeeum@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            I recently had a Lenovo that made me wanna tear my hair out. Bad hinge on the screen assy, I move the screen and everything to the new back cover. The way it’s designed is if you don’t route the cable on the correct side of the hinge it will rip the display cable out and short all of the pins.

            I thought I was finished after I closed it and when I opened it the backlight was dead, great, now I need another screen. New screen comes in and dead backlight again, turns out it’s a bad MOTHERBOARD. I even tested for it before ordering the screen, the motherboard worked normally and runs on an external display. So now I would have bought a new back cover, screen and motherboard. My boss just decided to buy the guy a new laptop because of the nightmare this thing has become, sucks cause it’s a loaded expensive 10th Gen Intel i7 and we obviously have to comp him with an equivalent laptop.

            Sometimes people don’t realize how hard this stuff is and why it’s so expensive. Not to mention apple will perforate their cables (just like in notebooks so the paper tears cleanly) to make the cables rip when repairing them.

      • derpgon@programming.dev
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        1 year ago

        That’s the issue, people won’t stop buying these things and then complain - selling a scam calling it a feature should be illegal and all these practices should be called out as much as possible.

  • laylawashere44@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    1 year ago

    Why nobody has made an open source ink jet printer design like reprap, I will never understand. The printer industry seems primed for disruption with all their bullshit and their half century old technology.

    • RQG@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      My guess. They couldn’t get the printer to work. My 3D printer has a lower problem count than my ink jet regular printed at this point.

    • TheFriendlyArtificer@beehaw.org
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      1 year ago

      The accuracy required for the ink droplets just isn’t there for prosumers.

      I can (and have!) built multiple extruders for a variety of 3D printers. Some of my own design.

      Sadly, the tolerances for an inkjet are at least an order of magnitude greater.

      I have zero doubt that a few clever hardware hackers could design an open source inkjet printer. But A: They’d get sued back to the mesolithic by every printer company with a patent. And B: the process would likely involve micro machining your own hardware.

      I’ve just said, “fuck it” to the entire industry. I’m in my early 40s and I’m reasonably sure that my Brother laser will outlive me. And possibly the heat death of the universe.

      • paholg@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        Patents expire after, what, 20 years? I’d be happy with an open source printer based on 20 year old technology.

        • ouRKaoS@lemmy.today
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          1 year ago

          I’d take a tractor fed dot-matrix printer over my current one just so I could play with the paper thingies on the edges.

    • mvirts@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Hmmm we don’t need to build a new printer, just new firmware. More like ddwrt or tomato

    • Coreidan@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Right? Why buy a paper printer for less than $100 when you can spend $2000 on a 3D printer + materials and time spent learning and fucking up! Wish I thought of that!

    • butter@midwest.social
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      1 year ago

      Probably because they wouldn’t be as profitable.

      HP could sell like a tenth the printers and still make more money

  • unreasonabro@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    there’s not a single thing radical about wanting these fuckers out of our homes and out of our lives. Kill em all as far as I’m concerned.

  • Coreidan@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I made the mistake of buying an HP printer. Fortunately I only spent $70 on it.

    Then the ink cartridge ran out as I used all the ink up. So instead of buying more ink I purchased a new printer. This time it was a color inkjet from Brother that will last me years on the first ink cartridge.

    Funny how it works. Fuck you HP.

  • tygerprints@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    I’ve been radicalized against HP for a decade now. I bought an HP printer with the guarantee of a sizeable rebate. Of course, the rebate never showed up and every time I called about it, the customer service person would read their script, “Oh we sent that out just a few days ago should be arriving soon.” Uh huh. Here it is 15 years later, no rebate check and I’m sure they never intended to send one at all. I’m not a fan of HP at all.

    • stranger@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      I recently had to set up an HP printer that literally would not function without being activated via Internet connection first, but was received with a dead NIC and no way to activate through USB connection so just another piece of plastic for the landfill due to greed 🤷🏻‍♂️

      • tygerprints@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        That’s the same as the printer I recently bought, and the problem is, my Internet connection is very spotty at best, and my computer doesn’t support the needed software. SIGH. My printer’s a paper weight until I can afford a new computer system and better internet.

    • Pika@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      yes it’s a real thing, it’s part of the HP ink program, they disable printers when your payment method rejects or you cancel the sub

        • fork@endlesstalk.org
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          1 year ago

          Sort of. You’re renting the ink, not the printer. If you went to Staples or Amazon and got regular ink for the printer, it would immediately start working again.

          If you buy ink from the Instant Ink program, the cartridges are sent to you for far less money than a regular cartridge. They sell page based plans where they make the money back and then new ink just shows up in the mail as you go. HP DRM’s these cartridges to prevent people from skipping out on the subscription and printing normally for wayyyyyyy less up front cost.

          HP printers suck. And ink sucks too. So there’s a lot of understandable suckiness. But most of the criticisms about HP’s ink DRM are just people mixing up Instant Ink and regular ink cartridges and getting mad they can’t read instructions.

        • tuhriel@discuss.tchncs.de
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          1 year ago

          Nono, you buy the printer and AFTERWARDS they sell you a subscription on top.

          That way they get paid twise, much better…

  • PopShark@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I have literally filed a BBB complaint in the past for HP over their stupid ink subscription being fucky

    • Knightfox@lemmy.one
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      1 year ago

      From what I’ve heard the BBB is as much a BS organization as HP, companies can pay to have the complaints removed.

      • calypsopub@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        They are useless, as anyone who’s ever tried to get redress through them knows. Don’t trust their ratings.

      • Kumatomic@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        1 year ago

        I’ve had good results using them, but the company you’re complaining against has to care about the rating they’re. I’ve even gotten Scamazon to replace valid reviews they removed. If the business isn’t a member and doesn’t care there’s nothing they can do but send a letter to be ignored. Not endorsing them, but just sharing my experience so far.

  • TheBlue22@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    1 year ago

    I have an HP printer now, Epson before that. Both are dogshit. When the HP eventually kills itself, as they tend to do, should I buy a Brother? I heard a lot of good stuff about it but have 0 experience with it.

    • DrownedRats@lemmy.world
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      I’ve had a brother printer going on 10 years and it’s never let me down. I’ve changed toner three times over that time and each cart has never cost me more than 20 ish quid. No DRM carts, no jamming, no subscriptions just a printer that does its job. Even when it’s running low, it doesn’t prevent me printing, it’ll let me know it’s low then keep on printing until you can’t see the letters any more.

      • Zagorath@aussie.zone
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        1 year ago

        I swear, if it weren’t for the fact that I’ve also had good experiences with Brother, I’d be thinking they have an insanely good astroturfing department. Every time there’s a thread about printers, there are dozens of comments saying how good they are.

        • TwanHE@lemmy.world
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          Having a brother laser printer as well it’s honestly not even about how good brother printers are, just about how shitty the competition is.

        • fork@endlesstalk.org
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          I have a friend who works in the engineering department of HP designing ink jet printing heads.

          He uses Brother at home. They’re actually that good.

      • xav@programming.dev
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        10 years ? Mine is around 20 years old. I slapped a Raspberry Pi on it to have it network-enabled and it still works like a champ. Never ever will I buy another brand.

    • dingleberry@discuss.tchncs.de
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      I have a Brother DCP L2541DW. Bought it last year and has been working since with no hiccups nor drum change.

      Regardless of brand, don’t buy “at home” printers. Those are straight up scams. Just buy office printers.

      • Zagorath@aussie.zone
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        I have a Brother HL-2365DW. It’s a home printer, or maybe at most a home-office printer. I’ve had it nearly a decade with only two toner replacements. Being laser and networked solve the two biggest problems I’ve had with inkjet printers in the past, and those two categories are the main things I would strongly recommend to people when choosing a printer.

        edit: I initially wrote “it’s not a home printer” (emphasis added here for demonstrative purposes). This was the exact opposite of what I intended to say.

          • Zagorath@aussie.zone
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            1 year ago

            There do exist colour laser printers, although I suspect if you’re interested in artistic printing their quality may not be good enough.

            I couldn’t tell you what brands or models are good, but I’m sure some inkjet printers do exist in a less user-hostile business model. You just might need to pay a bit more for them up-front. You’d need to ask the opinions of other people in your hobby’s community for better advice I think.

    • Comptero@feddit.ch
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      1 year ago

      I have a epson EcoTank printer and I really really love it.

      The Ink is cheap and very good. I will never go back to cartriges.

    • Squirrel@thelemmy.club
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      I have had no trouble with my Brother printer in ~7-8 years of use. Of course, laser vs inkjet is not a particularly fair comparison, but I am still never going back to HP, Canon, and the like.

      • TheBlue22@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        It was a long time ago, so I can’t remember the specifics. But it was the ol’ asking for ink when it was obviously still full, bad software, unresponsivness and gradually getting worse and worse prints as it aged.

    • Voroxpete@sh.itjust.works
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      Yeah, Brother have been real good so far. Their shit is rock fucking solid reliable, and you can use third party ink with no issues.

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    1 year ago

    I wish there was a cheap simple laser engraver that could just “burn” black the surface of generic bulk printer paper. As in an inkless monochrome printer.

    A bit like How to Cut, Score, and Engrave Paper With a Laser but without the need to use dedicated laser cutter.

    With the explosion of interest in 3D printing, machining and laser cutters, I’m just eager to get hold of a printer like that and forever give up on liquid ink and toners of all sorts.

    • bufalo1973@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      This does exist and you can see it in almost every supermarket in the World: the ticket printer. And the tickets end up fading

    • stewie3128@lemmy.ml
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      I get the sense that everyone responding to this is completely missing the joke.

      They mean laser printers, people.

      • mellejwz@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Laser printers don’t burn the paper. They require toners. So it wasn’t a joke unless they also didn’t know how a laser printer works.

      • fork@endlesstalk.org
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        No he clearly says no ink and no toner. Toner is melted onto the paper after a laser (now mostly LEDs) heat up a drum. He’s talking about burning the paper with a laser… Which would be interesting but really hard to do where a top layer is burned black without toasting the rest of the layers.

    • Annoyed_🦀 @monyet.cc
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      Maybe because they already have dot matrix printer, so that new type of printer might not be high in demand if it’s on the market today.

  • grandpaST@lemmy.world
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    HP reached its pinnacle in 1993 with the 4L laser printer. They were practically indestructible. I bought one and it took 15 years of heavy use to kill it.