Maybe worth mentioning the Epson EcoTank, included ink lasts forever, works offline, no weird DRM on the ink bottles that some are discussing here
To quantify that, I get about 2500 sheets on a bottle of black ink, which costs £9.
HP LaserJet Tank – Refillable laser printer
131–140 of 170 posts
Re: HP LaserJet Tank – Refillable laser printer
#132Earlier quoted context omitted.
Honestly, seing printers like this over the years and everything getting worse and worse makes me feel good about having an old Brother laser printer. It's monochrome, it's now 20 years old, but it's good enough for me. It keeps running and running, and the toner is dirt-cheap on the market. No internet, no spyware and no IoT-secured (tm) app required. Manufacturers like Epson and HP kind of force me into keeping thi…
This is mostly still valid for current brother printers. I bought one last year, and the web interface looks exactly the same on the one I bought 15 years earlier. The only difference: it can do wifi now.
AirPrint is also great.
Re: HP LaserJet Tank – Refillable laser printer
#133> Requires the HP Smart app download. > Subscription may be required; subscription may not be available in all countries > HP account required for full functionality > Get up to 5,000 pages or up to 2 years of pre-filled toner The disclaimers, or more succinctly, the anti-feature section.
I think that's only for the Wi-Fi printing. The HP smart app is terrible and makes you sign up for features that work on a local network. I just visit my printer's internal web server with a desktop user agent to show the "remote scan" features. Printing over local Wi-Fi doesn't need the HP Smart app, just the HP print service plugin that doesn't require login (and also conveniently enables USB printing, if you want…
My brand new HP laser printer literally won’t do anything until you use the app to set it up and agree to never disconnect it from the internet or use an unapproved cartridge. This is what the printer’s internal web server shows: https://pasteboard.co/L4AbwCTw7G3s.jpg
Re: HP LaserJet Tank – Refillable laser printer
#134Okay wanted to post "hahahahahahahahahahaha!" but that doesn't add much to the discussion. The HP printer product managers really seemed to believe "because HP" was a license to rip off people who bought their printers. I knew they were in trouble when I was forced to replace my completely functional HP inkjet because they refused to provide drivers for Windows 10. Did the research and found an Epson Ecotank printer[…
I purchased an EcoTank ET-2760 at Costco last year. When it prints, it prints pretty good and it seems like we get good economy from the ink. BUT we go through these cycles of printing a lot then nothing for weeks. So after one of the "rest" periods, we usually have to run the cleaning routine multiple times to get a decent print. That and my wife failed to grok how the colors were keyed to the different reservoirs a…
Could be. I find that if I haven't printed anything for a while it does it's cleaning thing (which takes a while) and then prints as expected. Some folks have complained that the 'dump tray' (where it puts ink as its trying to clean the nozzles) fills up to quickly but I've yet to see that issue pop up.
That said, nearly all the patents for the early inkjets have expired now so it is presumably possible for someone to build an inkjet printer, with affordable (and refillable/recyclable) cartridges without worrying about infringing. I don't know of anyone doing that but I could see it happening.
Re: HP LaserJet Tank – Refillable laser printer
#135> Requires the HP Smart app download. > Subscription may be required; subscription may not be available in all countries > HP account required for full functionality > Get up to 5,000 pages or up to 2 years of pre-filled toner The disclaimers, or more succinctly, the anti-feature section.
Honestly, seing printers like this over the years and everything getting worse and worse makes me feel good about having an old Brother laser printer. It's monochrome, it's now 20 years old, but it's good enough for me. It keeps running and running, and the toner is dirt-cheap on the market. No internet, no spyware and no IoT-secured (tm) app required. Manufacturers like Epson and HP kind of force me into keeping thi…
I already stockpile particular old models of ThinkPad laptops, and now I should pick up 1-2 backup no-nonsense laser printers.
As for MS Windows, that's already giving people problems from software like we're talking about avoiding from hardware.
Re: HP LaserJet Tank – Refillable laser printer
#136Avoid HP at all cost and stick to Brother, Cannon and Epson. HP is a company that had the privilege of having their logo on a iPod but is a complete turd at the end of the day.
Apple (name also on thr ipod) does somewhat similar tactics with ram and storage pricing and storage compatibility. Maybe even more similar are iphone repair parts and the printer ink-DRM like restrictions on them.
Re: HP LaserJet Tank – Refillable laser printer
#137> Requires the HP Smart app download. > Subscription may be required; subscription may not be available in all countries > HP account required for full functionality > Get up to 5,000 pages or up to 2 years of pre-filled toner The disclaimers, or more succinctly, the anti-feature section.
Honestly, seing printers like this over the years and everything getting worse and worse makes me feel good about having an old Brother laser printer. It's monochrome, it's now 20 years old, but it's good enough for me. It keeps running and running, and the toner is dirt-cheap on the market. No internet, no spyware and no IoT-secured (tm) app required. Manufacturers like Epson and HP kind of force me into keeping thi…
Mine is about 4 years old but same experience. Cheap to refill and works every time, even with Linux.
Re: HP LaserJet Tank – Refillable laser printer
#138Earlier quoted context omitted.
Linux support for Brother printers is variable. brlaser kind of works for mine, but only with a patch, and some documents still end up producing a white page...
For laser printers there are always models that support PCL and Postscript. They work with any operating system and can be used with generic drivers. Usually they are a few bucks more expensive, but you will be able to still use them in 30 years, when nobody knows anymore what windows 11 was.
That's what I don't get: why is there still API "innovation" going on for printing?
Especially for a bog-standard black-and-white laser, there's nothing that needs to be done now that couldn't be done with PostScript or PCL circa 1995. (Yeah, there's a bazillion stupid ideas for mobile-device connectivity and wireless setup, but those are tangential to "here is an IP address and port, feed it PostScript and pages come out") I could see a case for a minor "reverse channel" extension to allow for feature detection and probing consumable supplies, but that's something that should have been a documented, industry-standard API, and could be optional.
I assume it represents two factors:
1. They believe there's enough "value add" in the software (enforcing accounts or consumable purchases) to carry its weight on the books. 2. The hardware is so phenomenally bad that they're relying on mountains of model-specific firmware and driver glue to make it even remotely resemble a functional printer.
I suppose we missed our chance at the USB cutover-- we seemed to get a unified standard for HID and mass storage, but nobody wrangled the printer and scanner people.
Re: HP LaserJet Tank – Refillable laser printer
#139> Requires the HP Smart app download. > Subscription may be required; subscription may not be available in all countries > HP account required for full functionality > Get up to 5,000 pages or up to 2 years of pre-filled toner The disclaimers, or more succinctly, the anti-feature section.
Honestly, seing printers like this over the years and everything getting worse and worse makes me feel good about having an old Brother laser printer. It's monochrome, it's now 20 years old, but it's good enough for me. It keeps running and running, and the toner is dirt-cheap on the market. No internet, no spyware and no IoT-secured (tm) app required. Manufacturers like Epson and HP kind of force me into keeping thi…
Epson EcoTank printers work well.
Re: HP LaserJet Tank – Refillable laser printer
#140Earlier quoted context omitted.
For laser printers there are always models that support PCL and Postscript. They work with any operating system and can be used with generic drivers. Usually they are a few bucks more expensive, but you will be able to still use them in 30 years, when nobody knows anymore what windows 11 was.
That's what I don't get: why is there still API "innovation" going on for printing? Especially for a bog-standard black-and-white laser, there's nothing that needs to be done now that couldn't be done with PostScript or PCL circa 1995. (Yeah, there's a bazillion stupid ideas for mobile-device connectivity and wireless setup, but those are tangential to "here is an IP address and port, feed it PostScript and pages com…
We even got standards for audio and networking over USB - printing sadly, not so much.