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Tell HN: Brother printers now locking out non-OEM paraphernalia

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Re: Tell HN: Brother printers now locking out non-OEM paraphernalia

#71

Post by Spooky23 »

colechristensen wrote: post #36
carpenecopinum wrote: post #13

I can't wrap my head around how the printer market has turned into this absolutely dispicable, foul state that it is in right now. Decades of innovation that have been invested, not to make a better product, but mostly on how to extract more and more money from their victims, I mean "customers". I would like to own a printer again, but for printing something like once a month, I just can't financially justify spendin…

> I can't wrap my head around how the printer market has turned into this absolutely dispicable, foul state that it is in right now. Rent. You are effectively renting your printer, supplies are the payments. The hardware is expensive, sold cheaply, and supplies have high margins to make up for it. It is often investors forcing this model.

I don’t think so. Nobody likes paying up front for equipment.

People lease cars, which is also a bad deal. Same motivation.

Re: Tell HN: Brother printers now locking out non-OEM paraphernalia

#72

Post by gandalfian »

Yeah I'm struggling. Last 15 years I bought £50 multifunction brother or canon printers with separate ink cartridges and fake ink for a £1 a cartridge. Wore the heads out in about five years, repeat. Now they seem to have disappeared, all the cheap canons have combined colour ink cartridges not separate. A colour laser multifunction is expensive and may have pricey toner too. People here seem to like the Epson Ecotanks but the reviews say they struggle on anything but thin paper. The canons megatank look a bit better but still £200 for a fairly basically built printer. You really need wifi for airprint as its not clear that OSX will have much usb printer support in future. Which leaves you paying £250 for something like a G650 megatank Canon. I partly blame the home printer market shrinking due to everyone going paperless but suddenly being faced with paying more for a printer than I did for my desktop PC is irritating. (I did suggest a basic laser but everyone said nooo we need colour and copying).

Re: Tell HN: Brother printers now locking out non-OEM paraphernalia

#73

Post by julienfr112 »

colechristensen wrote: post #38
joshuajill wrote: post #34

Is there a printer that isn't a proprietary ink dispensing jail? I'm with current knowledge and tech it should be possible to print your own printer?

Epson EcoTank, pretty hard to lock out other vendors when your supply is delivered as a liquid.

you can have some sensors that test whatever physical property of the liquid (spectrum, electrical and thermal conductivity, viscosity,...) and turn off if it's not in the range of the genuine product.

Re: Tell HN: Brother printers now locking out non-OEM paraphernalia

#74

Post by sithadmin »

kalleboo wrote: post #51
qwerty456127 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would like to own a printer again, but for printing something like once a month, I just can't financially justify spending several hundred bucks on a device For printing something like once a month, it is even harder to justify wasting space by putting a printer. Printers should be put around in form of vending machines which would let you you insert a USB stick, drop some pennies and print the PDFs.

Where I live convenience stores (7-11) and most larger supermarkets have this. Basically a combo photo printer + office copier with a touchscreen and USB/memory card readers. Some of the are also loaded with postcards (for xmas cards) or even sticker paper to make your own stickers. I also like to print out A3 posters for my kids and these printers can do that, whereas I'd never buy a huge A3 printer to have at home.

Japan?

US 7-11's absolutely do not have this service, and you're lucky if you find a grocery store that has a photo copier these days (was somewhat common in the 90s).

Re: Tell HN: Brother printers now locking out non-OEM paraphernalia

#75

Post by ghaff »

sricks3 wrote: post #59
hotpotamus wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you print something once a month, then shouldn't the starter cartridge last for about the life of the printer (maybe a decade or so)? That's been my experience with the B&W Brother laser printer I bought about 2010. I've never changed anything on it. And really I don't find much need to print anything these days anyway.

This is actually the biggest problem with my current home printer. My wife or I will print something after installing brand new ink cartridges. Then a month or two later, we try to print something again. The printer acts like it's printing (and seems to think that it's printed the document correctly), but the page comes out with little or no ink inconsistently spread around the page, as if the cartridges were empty.…

A laser printer, even a B&W laser printer, is the best choice for a lot of people. I ended up getting rid of my ink jet for the reason you say. I don't print a lot but I do need to print semi-regularly and I'm certainly not going to drive 15 minutes to the nearest Staples every time I need a page or two printed out.

Re: Tell HN: Brother printers now locking out non-OEM paraphernalia

#76

Post by cm2187 »

carpenecopinum wrote: post #13

I can't wrap my head around how the printer market has turned into this absolutely dispicable, foul state that it is in right now. Decades of innovation that have been invested, not to make a better product, but mostly on how to extract more and more money from their victims, I mean "customers". I would like to own a printer again, but for printing something like once a month, I just can't financially justify spendin…

And the question is why competition isn’t working

Re: Tell HN: Brother printers now locking out non-OEM paraphernalia

#77

Post by dgl »

rustyf wrote: post #57
GiorgioG wrote: post #33

I have an epson eco-tank printer. I buy 3rd party bottles of ink once every 2-3 years. The upfront cost of the printer (multifunction model ET-4550) was high in 2015 ($500) but I've spent maybe $60-70 in ink to print (as of this morning) 19,536 pages (13,954 in color, 5,582 in B/W). I can't see a good reason to keep buying printers that are locked into proprietary cartridges or toners.

Me too. Credit to Epson for taking this track. I wouldn't consider a cartridge printer again.

Sadly only applies to these high end ones; I got a cheap Epson one and found out after moving it to another country, that the cartridges are indeed vendor+region locked.

Re: Tell HN: Brother printers now locking out non-OEM paraphernalia

#78

Post by pfortuny »

GiorgioG wrote: post #33

I have an epson eco-tank printer. I buy 3rd party bottles of ink once every 2-3 years. The upfront cost of the printer (multifunction model ET-4550) was high in 2015 ($500) but I've spent maybe $60-70 in ink to print (as of this morning) 19,536 pages (13,954 in color, 5,582 in B/W). I can't see a good reason to keep buying printers that are locked into proprietary cartridges or toners.

Well, Brother had never done this to date. That is the real shocker.

Re: Tell HN: Brother printers now locking out non-OEM paraphernalia

#79

Post by b112 »

alistairSH wrote: post #47
hotpotamus wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you print something once a month, then shouldn't the starter cartridge last for about the life of the printer (maybe a decade or so)? That's been my experience with the B&W Brother laser printer I bought about 2010. I've never changed anything on it. And really I don't find much need to print anything these days anyway.

Toner cartridge? It should (artificial limitations notwithstanding). Ink jet? Nope, those starter packs are only enough to get you hooked on expensive replacements.

Toner != ink, in printer tech speak. Toner is a dry powder, and lasts forever, and laser has no jets to block.

Laser is more expensive, but is the only way to go for rare printing.

Re: Tell HN: Brother printers now locking out non-OEM paraphernalia

#80

Post by pid-1 »

danpalmer wrote: post #50
carpenecopinum wrote: post #13

I can't wrap my head around how the printer market has turned into this absolutely dispicable, foul state that it is in right now. Decades of innovation that have been invested, not to make a better product, but mostly on how to extract more and more money from their victims, I mean "customers". I would like to own a printer again, but for printing something like once a month, I just can't financially justify spendin…

> I can't wrap my head around how the printer market has turned into this absolutely dispicable, foul state that it is in right now. This is the dying gasps of an industry that is mostly irrelevant in the modern age. When I was growing up we always had a printer, and while ink wasn't cheap, it wasn't too bad, so we used it a lot and printed everything we needed. The industry grew to expect this, most households with…

IDK, I'm in my mid 30s and I really can't remember printers being alright.
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