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Never buy Epson printers

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Re: Never buy Epson printers

#111

Post by brightsize »

ChristianGeek wrote: post #86
colanderman wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Second Brother lasers. My HL-3170CDW color laser is still going strong after four years. Works flawlessly with Linux, OS X, and Windows; toner lasts forever; and print quality is fantastic.

My Brother 1650 is over 10 years old and still printing as well as the day I bought it.

Yep, my Brother MFC-something-or-other laser went about 10yrs I estimate before something went south with its brains. Never had a problem with the cartridges or any of the mechanicals, but I didn't use it often either. A brand new Brother MFC-L2740DW laser sits on my desk now and if it lasts 5 years I'll have gotten my $170 out of it.

Re: Never buy Epson printers

#112

Post by icebraining »

beachstartup wrote: post #54
mbell wrote: post #49

I haven't owned a printer in probably 10 years and I'm not particularly young (32). I get their usefulness in some aspects of business operations but I'm a bit at a loss as to why an individual would purchase one. What are the use cases now? The only two I can think of are printing photos, which I get but it seems better handled either through a photo printer or an outside service or for printing 'offical' documents…

i have a cheap brother b/w laser at home, and use slightly more expensive hp b/w lasers at work because they're faster. at home i print things like movie and event tickets. i don't like fumbling around on my phone for tickets because sometimes there's no reception and the email or whatever isn't cached. occasionally i will have government paperwork or something to print from home also. i will also print out maps and…

For online tickets, you can usually download them. If not, I just take a screenshot (both Android and iOS have built-in support). I've traveled on Ryanair just fine using them.

For maps, there are plenty with offline support: Google Maps, HERE, OsmAnd, etc.

I'm not criticizing your approach, just saying that I've never felt that need. Official paperwork, on the other hand, is still a pain; our local governments seem particularly adverse to digital documents.

Re: Never buy Epson printers

#114

Post by nommm-nommm »

mbell wrote: post #49

I haven't owned a printer in probably 10 years and I'm not particularly young (32). I get their usefulness in some aspects of business operations but I'm a bit at a loss as to why an individual would purchase one. What are the use cases now? The only two I can think of are printing photos, which I get but it seems better handled either through a photo printer or an outside service or for printing 'offical' documents…

Coupons. Forms that can't be accepted electronically. Shipping labels. Tickets. Letters one is going to mail.

At work I've actually printed out database queries before so I could take a pen and mark them all up.

Re: Never buy Epson printers

#115

Post by Spooky23 »

soneca wrote: post #56

Honest question: Why printers are so stuck in time? Why no great innovations? Why there is no product out there that "Just work" and won the Market? I never heard of startups making printers, not even those dreamy kickstart projects. Why we have this product that annoy People for ages and no one fix it? Anyone could give me any insight?

People and most businesses are dumb and overweight procurement cost over TCO.

You can get a good printer. It just doesn't cost $79.99.

Re: Never buy Epson printers

#116

Post by bingobob »

JensRex wrote: post #31

I bought a Brother (HL-2170W) laser printer about 8 years ago, and it's still using its original cartridge. I do very little printing, but I do need it from time to time. During my last move, I accidentally tipped a book shelf on top of it. Cracked a few plastic bits, and bent some metal things inside it. I unbent the metal, and glued the plastic, and the thing still prints like it's new out of the box. I've talked m…

even when you hit the end of that toner cartridge there is a small hack to get you another at least 50 pages, the brother printers use some kinda beam sensor that passes through the cartridge if the printer detects this is unbroken the cartridge must be empty because there is no toner all you do is block this there a small clear plastic window on the cartridge reboot the printer and you're good to go. you may get faded pages after a while try shaking the cartridge a bit.

also people just don't buy inkjet printers if your printing patterns are limited to just a few prints a month there always just going to dry out go with the laser printers they use toner and never dry out.

Re: Never buy Epson printers

#117

Post by innocentoldguy »

I hate printers in general. After all these years, manufacturers still haven't come up with a standard communication interface that would allow me to just plug in the printer and have my OS detect and use it without issue. Instead, especially with Epson printers, I have to download some awful crap-ware driver, which supports all OS versions up to the one right before the one I'm currently running.

Re: Never buy Epson printers

#118

Post by bediger4000 »

veddox wrote: post #60
StreamBright wrote: post #51

Reminds me of: "I am going to spend the rest of my career focusing on the hard problems of computer science: printers, projectors, and screen sharing." https://twitter.com/britt/status/611996866146779136

Printers are my biggest IT nightmare. No piece of modern computer hardware fails so consistently, so ununderstandably or so frequently as a printer.

Also, printer user interfaces are consistently incomprehensible. I had a Brother 5070N for a long time, ended up giving it away. It was almost impossible to tell what the few problems it had were. I made the mistake of getting a Canon Pixma 3520. 5 LEDs and 4 buttons as a user interface for something that hooks up to a wireless network, and has all kinds of physical things to do to it? You've got to be kidding. Unfortunately, that's typical for printer state-of-the-art. LEDs and push buttons. What a joke.

Re: Never buy Epson printers

#119

Post by Ralfp »

kuschku wrote: post #55
csomar wrote: post #34

Multi-function inkjet printers are a Scam. No, I'm serious. 1. The printing functionality is flawed. A cartridge will not last for more than 100 pages. (I tried Epson, HP and Canon). 2. The cartridge will dry and not function after a few weeks only. 3. The original cartridge cost almost as much as a new printer with the cartridge. 4. The printer will not function (Scanner or Fax) without the full cartridges (black an…

I don’t know what kind of printers you buy, but the ones I had – from HP and Canon – solved all those issues: (a) you can refill cartridges, you know that? (b) printers will ask you "foreign cartridge detected, accept? yes/no", and it works (c) refill ink goes for a few cents per liter (d) the printer works fine without some cartridges, just press "yes" when it asks you "print with just black?" (e) I print 400 pages…

Vendors actually hard-code "I'm dry and won't print anymore" kill-switch into chip on cartridge as protection against regeneration. You may refill your cart, but if kill-switch went on already, your printer will not print anyway claiming dry cartrigde.

I've actually experienced this on HP printer, and quick Google search shows that I'm not alone in this: http://www.gadgetspage.com/comps-peripheral/hp-printer-consp...

Re: Never buy Epson printers

#120

Post by stordoff »

csomar wrote: post #34

Multi-function inkjet printers are a Scam. No, I'm serious. 1. The printing functionality is flawed. A cartridge will not last for more than 100 pages. (I tried Epson, HP and Canon). 2. The cartridge will dry and not function after a few weeks only. 3. The original cartridge cost almost as much as a new printer with the cartridge. 4. The printer will not function (Scanner or Fax) without the full cartridges (black an…

I've got a HP PSC1215 that is 10+ years old, and don't agree with all of your complaints.

1. Cartridges last about 200 pages, which isn't great (I use a laserjet for anything I don't need in colour, so personally not a huge issue). They are rated for 500ish pages, so YMMV.

2. Never had this issue - I've had cartridges in for over a year, and they've still worked fine

3. Not the best of comparisons, as the printers often ship with 'trial' cartridges that contain much less ink than the replacements. That said, a set of Black+Colour cartridges will cost me about £30 (a little expensive really), or a third-party/refilled set will be about £15 (always worked fine for me; YMMV).

4. Never had this issue - I used it as a scanner recently without any cartridges in at all and it worked fine.

5. It's noisy when printing. I hadn't encountered any major bugs - mostly used with OS X, so can't really comment on Windows driver quality.

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