Actually, they don't need to be opensource. Having free firmware or being a simple machine to obey is enough. There are good printers listed on h-node. People mock fsf ryf certification but I think it is very much valid.
> Having free firmware
What good is free software when manufacturers can just require the firmware to be signed, thereby disallowing any and all modifications? We'll never be truly free until we can manufacture this hardware at home, just like we can make our own software at home.
wanting access to the source code of an early Xerox laser printer (at MIT) is what got Richard Stallman ticked off enough to devote his life to free software. when I saw the headline for this article I first read it as "Canon sued for disabling scammer when printers run out of ink" :)
Ironically, printer software remains proprietary garbage to this day and it only gets worse as the years go by.
Does your printer have two separate "black" and "photo black" cartridges?
Yep, and I am still (after 7 years) working out what the difference is. Photos come out just fine without any ink in the photo cartridge, photo paper is a must though.
I'd guess "photo black" is a higher-contrast dye, and would wonder if BW exposures printed with and without it come out with the same dynamic range.
There are a lot of people out there that haven’t figured out the scam yet, and new ones minted every day. And those brands will sell 5 of these rip-off inkjets to someone at high margin before they figure it out and buy a brother once - for 1/5 of the total profit to brother.
But between Consumer Reports, Wirecutter, the 18 million review websites, Costco, I feel like such an obviously superior brand and product should have had its reputation widely known by now, like Toyota/Honda.
I think you highly overestimate the amount of research the average person does on a printer purchase. Yes, some people will buy a CR magazine or ask their friends/relatives opinion for a $30k car, but will they do that before buying a $60 printer?
Imagine willingly working for a company that does this. Every employee of Canon should be ashamed of themselves
If you have the luxury of protesting with your job selection (as many do), then this is fine. Isn't it a slippery slope, though? I'd venture to guess almost any largish company has done something inexcusable by someone's reasonable standard. Should be all be ashamed for being members of the worker society?
I had a contrary experience and I stopped buying laser printers. I had to toss two Brother lasers in the trash because Brother's customer service on warranty repairs required more hoops than I was willing to deal with. Meanwhile, I ended up with an HP OfficeJet Pro 8620 that was recommended years ago by The Wirecutter and I use HP's ink subscription service. It's never failed on me. It never jams. No fuser or toner t…
You probably print a lot if an ink cartridge service is cost effective for you. I’ve had 2 b&w laser printers my entire life, both Brother (after getting annoyed with Epson inkjet printers that were “affordable” in high school). The first got me through engineering school printing maybe 300+ pages a year, so like 2000 pages. Did not replace the toner once and don’t recall any meaningful problems. That printer stayed…
What I noticed when you buy the printer is that for cheap laser printers, included tonner sometimes has just 1000 pages rating or so, and replacement tonners are rated for 2000 or more. Manufacturer is probably hoping people will not notice.
How about they make their money by selling a good printer? I don't have to buy has from my car company if I want a good car.
It’s has historically proven difficult to sustain that model because the consumer printer market for the past 20 years has been race to the bottom. It’s hard to compete when competitors are selling their printers at or below cost. Consumers mostly tend to make their purchase decisions on the margin, and so the razors-and-blades model works well. I guess there may be a few recent exceptions to this like the Epson Ecot…
Brother has been selling solid printers and software for as long as I have used them, which is 15+ years.