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Never buy Epson printers

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Re: Never buy Epson printers

#12

Post by 8jef »

How hard would it be to hack an open source printer hardware, say using some standard black toner cartriges (any brand), and make a Kickstarter out of it?

Re: Never buy Epson printers

#13

Post by marijn »

Hahah, you think the other vendors are better?

At least the Epson stuff I've owned is easy to install with Linux and doesn't break after a few months of use (contrary to various Canon and HP devices). If there exists a non-terrible printer manufacturer (in a consumer budget range) do tell me.

Re: Never buy Epson printers

#14

Post by vardump »

I don't currently have a printer. I think I'd want an economic laser printer. Probably going to print less than 50 pages per month.

Needs to work fine under Linux.

Any suggestions?

Re: Never buy Epson printers

#15

Post by arethuza »

manyxcxi wrote: post #7
walrus01 wrote: post #5

Never buy any inkjet printer. I threw in the garbage a Canon multifunction that refused ton work as a SCANNER when its ink was empty. If you have the space and print a lot of black and white, buy an eight year old used HP LaserJet with an Ethernet interface.

I don't know why people still bother with inkjets. It's like the companies are actively punishing you for buying these models of printers. If they are necessary for work, then MAYBE. But even then, if you're buying commercial hardware you're not dealing with this junk either. It also used to be that laser was incredibly expensive in comparison, now they're about the same price if you compare color inkjet to black and…

We have a colour Brother laser which I got a few years back which seems pretty solid - toner isn't cheap but we can probably go for years without changing it so it's not that bad.

Re: Never buy Epson printers

#16

Post by robk »

walrus01 wrote: post #5

Never buy any inkjet printer. I threw in the garbage a Canon multifunction that refused ton work as a SCANNER when its ink was empty. If you have the space and print a lot of black and white, buy an eight year old used HP LaserJet with an Ethernet interface.

100% this! Older 4700 and 5000 series color laserjets are a tremendous value used and are totally serviceable with cheap eBay parts too.

Re: Never buy Epson printers

#18

Post by jhaand »

walrus01 wrote: post #5

Never buy any inkjet printer. I threw in the garbage a Canon multifunction that refused ton work as a SCANNER when its ink was empty. If you have the space and print a lot of black and white, buy an eight year old used HP LaserJet with an Ethernet interface.

I recently bought a Brother B/W laser printer. It has duplex, linux support and wifi. Only 81 EUR.

It works great.

Re: Never buy Epson printers

#19

Post by rileyteige »

manyxcxi wrote: post #7
walrus01 wrote: post #5

Never buy any inkjet printer. I threw in the garbage a Canon multifunction that refused ton work as a SCANNER when its ink was empty. If you have the space and print a lot of black and white, buy an eight year old used HP LaserJet with an Ethernet interface.

I don't know why people still bother with inkjets. It's like the companies are actively punishing you for buying these models of printers. If they are necessary for work, then MAYBE. But even then, if you're buying commercial hardware you're not dealing with this junk either. It also used to be that laser was incredibly expensive in comparison, now they're about the same price if you compare color inkjet to black and…

Nozzle jams were the bane of my existence with the 3 HP inkjets I inherited/bought during my college years.

I also switched to a Brother B/W laser printer last year (HL-L2380DW) and it works over my network, I can print to it from a phone/tablet/desktop (win/OSX/linux/iOS/android), and on each platform it "just works", printer/scanner/copier.

We have printed hundreds of pages thus far and have yet to replace the cartridge that came with it when we bought it. No streaking, no alignment issues, no clogging, and it even has double-sided print support. ~$200 investment, and have never had a better printing experience.

EDIT: I should highlight that the reason i ended up with 3 HP printers was because the average lifespan of each came out to ~1.5 years. Inherited 2 used, bought the last one new, and when that one also died so quickly is when we made the switch to laserjet.

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