I agree with others who say get an older HP laserjet, from before the DRM shenanigans. Likely it will still have enough life left in it to manage occasional use (back when I was doing more dtp work I'd run through reams at a time, but now it's only a few times a year. I don't expect to ever need to buy a new printer.)
Ask HN: What printer do you recommend for rare printing?
81–90 of 131 posts
Re: Ask HN: What printer do you recommend for rare printing?
#82Only thing I can add to the laser printer choir: I used to try to go with inkjets because they were so cheap, and the price of a laser really put me off (wanted a color one). The inkjets jammed and clogged every time I tried to use them, which was very infrequently. I finally bit the bullet and went with a Brother color laser (MFC-9340CDW) and it is one of the best purchases I have ever made. You can print stuff dire…
Brother printers are great. I have a B&W Brother laser printer (HL-2280DW) that I bought used in 2015 for $50. It still works perfectly, can print/scan directly from Android and iPhone apps. We would only print a few times a year but now that the kids are older is gets used once or twice a week. It supports IPP so I can even print to it from a Chromebook.
Re: Ask HN: What printer do you recommend for rare printing?
#83You want a laser printer. Inkjets will clog up with infrequent use, but lasers won't. HP makes some interesting compact laser printers these days that could easily be stored away while you're not using them -- something like the HP LaserJet Pro M15w might be nice for infrequent use.
> You want a laser printer. I agree. I bought a Epson ET-2750 EcoTank InkJet to replace a really old Brother laser printer and regret it. Text and even graphics (to look at UI designs, etc.) from a laser printer are so much better.
I bought a HP small b&w office printer in 2005. I still am using the original toner I got with it then and it's still doing a fine job. I loved it so much I bought a few more to use in the office I was IT'ing for at the time, and saw them die glorious deaths after printing 10's of thousands of pages. Meanwhile I haven't seen or used a consumer inkjet printer that has lasted more than a few months.
Re: Ask HN: What printer do you recommend for rare printing?
#84> I need to print something once a month at best. I can use FedEx or other to print but it can be a PITA. I was hoping there are others here on HN that are in a similar situation. I'm looking for a printer that will do fine with infrequent use and the ink will still work when I go to use it. > I'm looking to print way less that 100 sheets/yr, we are talking shipping labels here, nothing serious. Contrary to most of t…
>> Make sure you can buy cheap compatible cartridges
This is not always an option.
Some companies have DRM on their cartridges. My dad's Epson printer's DRM wasn't strictly enforced until a recent firmware update rendered third party cartridges useless. I had to find a way to downgrade the firmware (which wasn't easy, because Epson took down all their old downloads) before compatible cartridges would be recognized again.
Re: Ask HN: What printer do you recommend for rare printing?
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
That sure is a compact laser printer! And it only draws 210 watts while printing! Unfortunately, I was disappointed by this part of the description: > Dynamic security enabled printer. Only intended to be used with cartridges using an HP original chip. Cartridges using a non-HP chip may not work, and those that work today may not work in the future. DRMed toner cartridges with OTA "security" improvements? That sounds…
I'm glad my LaserJet 1020 just keeps working and working. For infrequent printing it's just perfect. I always get the cheapest refill from Amazon and it's doing just fine. One refill lasts about two years and is 15€. The last two times I ordered the seller even included a note that if I'd give them a positive rating I'd get another one for free. Didn't do it cause I'm lazy.
What a great printer! My 1020 finally died after my kids knocked it off its stand too many times. I replaced it with a "HP LaserJet Pro M15w Wireless Laser Printer" and am very happy with it. The included toner ran out quickly, but a 3rd party replacement cartridge from SwiftInk works just fine.
Re: Ask HN: What printer do you recommend for rare printing?
#86I got pissed off supporting my parents' non-stop issues with inkjet printers, and bought them a nice Brother laser printer with duplex printing about 15 years ago.
This year I replaced it with another Brother Laser, and in between then and now, I've only had to buy a toner cartridge about once every 3 years or so.
Zero other issues. Worth every penny.
At home I have a cheap Samsung M2820DW (duplex as well).
Both Brother and Samsung seem to have good Linux support.
Re: Ask HN: What printer do you recommend for rare printing?
#87Any entry level Laser printer will do the work. You have to avoid inkjets because with so low printing jobs the ink will become thicker and it could clog the heads. Shelf life for toner is higher. As long as you keep the printer in a low-humidity area one toner could last you a decade.
And they're often faster, which is useful even if it's used rarely. We bought our laser printer because of the shelf life thing, and then we needed to do a ton of immigration stuff and the fast printing was nice. I wouldn't buy a printer just because of speed, but it was a nice value add. We got ours at Costco for <$200 IIRC (base model monochrome Brother with WiFi), and it has worked well and we're still on the tone…
I'm still on a Lexmark E232 I bought back in 2006. I've printed like 80k pages and the thing keeps working fine. I bought it for less than $150.
Re: Ask HN: What printer do you recommend for rare printing?
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yep! I have similar personal experience with that particular beastie and can confirm that it is to-be-avoided. I think "base model _monochrome_ Brother printer" is a safer guideline
Brother mono laser printer which explicitly has an ethernet port, duplex, and PostScript (BRScript). Right now, Newegg is selling a new HL-L5100DN for $180 with free shipping. It should last for five to ten years of low-volume printing.
Good call, I forgot they don't all have ethernet -- the L5xxx is in fact the most recent one I've purchased [L5200DW to be exact] -- stone reliable so far with low volume
Re: Ask HN: What printer do you recommend for rare printing?
#89+ Impact printers are the most reliable. That's why they are still available new. They last for decades. They don't run out of ink, the print output just become progressively lighter. eBay often has used impact printers stupidly cheap. Ribbons are still around. Ribbons can be reinked if you really want, but at 100 pages per year, you'll probably never have the chance. They are eminently hackable at the low level. The downsides: slow for graphics, centronics or rs232 interfaces typical, They're obnoxiously noisy. Don't play well with CUPS for graphics.
* Laser printers are reasonably reliable for occasional printing. But my more recent experience is that they are getting "ink-jet" like planned obsolescence/built-in failure modes because otherwise they're not very profitable. Other's have mentioned Brother, and I had great experience with cheap Brother printers back in the early 00's. Even their inkjets. The last $80 Brother I bought started producing crap after about a year of light use (I had a Brother laser-fax that went five years of moderate use).
+ Inkjets are reliable if you use them all the time. They have amazing color. They're cheap to run if you're willing to refill cartridges. The two go hand in hand, the low cost from refilling cartridges ends aversion to printing. The commitment to printing all the time justifies the overhead of learning to refill cartridges efficiently. Refilling cartridges efficiently makes printing all the time no big deal. Refilling all eight cartridges of my photo printer takes about twenty minutes now. Less time than going to the store and buying a replacement.
+ If you can live with only printing 4"x6" a Canon Selphy 1300 is an option for ~$100. It uses dye-sublimation and 108 sheets of media can be bought for ~$30. Not exactly cheap, but the process is reliable because the rate of consumption is fixed. Each print uses the same amount of "ink", the "ink" is stable, and the whole process is predictable. 4x6 will work for a shipping label if that's all you do.
Re: Ask HN: What printer do you recommend for rare printing?
#90Any base model brother laser printer, preferably any that support wifi printing. i’ve had one for 7 years, and replaced the toner exactly once.
Another general vote for a Brother laser printer, though I differ on some details here.
In 2014 (if I'm remembering right...) I bought a DCP-7065DN (B/W all-in-one with wired Ethernet).
I don't print much (sometimes go months without). By volume, the lion's share of my printing is documents I need to copyedit/proof, followed by random receipts, tickets, shipping labels, etc--so I was hoping to optimize for cost and reliability. I make the same tradeoff wrt to using a local or online print service for anything that needs to be high-quality or color.
I didn't have to replace the undersized starter toner cartridge included until earlier this year. I haven't had any trouble with it so far (aside from having to occasionally prod it to keep printing until quality actually fell off a cliff at the end of the first toner cartridge.)