I had to get one during covid lockdown since I wasn’t going to the office and staples messed up my jobs most of the time (and it wasn’t cheap). I got a laser all-in-one and got knock off toner from Amazon and it works great and I got it for less than $90
A printer’s cheap. It’s the ink.
Who the hell can figure out how to make a printer work
The entire printer industry is being funded by our grandparents, I am not fucking joking. My grandpa has bought MULTIPLE printers last year alone, please some one send help.
My entire family for probably 30 years thought i was gaslighting them about how bad my grandfather is with computers. And phones. And the internet. And phones.
He’s 93 and he’s convinced them really well these last 5 years or so. It’s a nightmare lol.
Help in the form of more printers?
Personally, I like not needing to dedicate the space to a printer. The rare times I need to print something, I’ll just go to a store with a print shop like staples. Over the last 8 years, I’ve spent less than $10 on all of my printing needs, which is still way cheaper than even the most cost-effective, least-HP printer out there.
Your problem is comparing to the shittiest of printers.
Home printers suck, too much gadgetry and bs involved. Industrial printers are far better at being plug and play. I dont need apps or anything at all.
Given the extortionate cost of printer ink, owning a printer is a mug’s game. Much like owning a car if you live in a walkable urban environment but might need to drive somewhere once every year or two.
If this is me in several years, I think my version will be “my precious pre-enshittification brother laser is so old they stopped making third party toner carts for it” or probably more likely something like “how do we have a working plugged-in printer on wifi that we can’t find? Did we build a wall in front of it? How long was it sitting in the corner of that spare room?”
What? I have a working printer and a box full of power cables.
Was gunna say, I have 3.
Brother b/w Laser Printer - Most things
Epson Ecotank - Color prints (usually stickers/heat transfer vinyl + cutting machine below printer)
Canon PIXMA large format - Got this one for free, I use it to print 18*24 (usually knock off posters for photography sets, or cus I HAVE THE POWER TO MAKE MY OWN BOOTLEG POSTERS FEAR ME)
Brother b/w laser ftw
I recently bought a nice Epson tank printer and I love it. The ink is lasting so long too I print a ton and am not even halfway through the ink it came with. Nice prints too. Photos
I think, for me, owning a printer is like owning a van. You’re the only person your friends know who has one, so every time someone needs it you’re the one they ask.
Except for my wife and kids almost nobody knows I have one. But yes I have gotten pdfs from my mother in law to print.
Joke’s on you; I have no friends.
I don’t understand why laser printers aren’t more affordable. way back in 2010 I bought a full colour Samsung laser printer for $200. Nowadays you can’t find a full color printer for under $500.00
We bought a laser printer during the pandemic to keep the kids occupied with educational tasks and general craft type models.
It has been fucking awesome this past few years. It has supported the weight of many a schoolbag, been a home for car keys, kept a judo gi flat for a few days, and has even proven to be a worthy store of the multitude of swimming goggles we seem to accumulate.
Oh, it’s printed a couple of documents too. I can’t remember the last time I refilled the paper tray.
Yeah, I have a 20yo laser printer that’s still going strong, although the network card crapped out.
Yeah laser units are pretty much indestructible in decent conditions. Can yours be connected by USB or parallel instead?
Yeah, the USB cable still works. I could set up a print server, but it’s pretty unnecessary for the 3-4 times a year I print something.
Bought a Canon laser printer a decade ago. Only needed a new set of toner and a bunch of paper obviously. Standard power cord, standard USB 1.x cable. Still works in Windows 11. I think I got it working in Linux at some point, but I don’t know if it does nowadays, because I probably don’t have the mental fortitude to touch CUPS again in this lifetime. (People keep saying audio is a nightmare to set up in Linux. Ohh you clearly haven’t tried to set up a printer or you would not be complaining)
(People keep saying audio is a nightmare to set up in Linux. Ohh you clearly haven’t tried to set up a printer or you would not be complaining)
My single worst experience with Linux was getting audio to work with an ISA Plug ‘n’ Play Sound Blaster card back in the late 90s. Eventually I got it to work, but after installing the card I had to dig through documentation and forums to figure out that in addition to audio drivers I needed to install a package for ISA PnP cards, run a tool that came with that to generate a config file, realize that config file contained every hypothetical configuration my card could potentially have all commented out, find and uncomment the actual configuration I wanted the card to use and then restart the isapnp driver. All of that to get basic functionality. For Windows, I literally just installed the card and it worked with basic functionality out of the box, with an option to go to their website and download a driver for some extra functionality specific to that card.
That…soured me on the idea of desktop Linux for several years.
Linux is fine for printers. As long as you don’t want to print more than one copy. But even then you just start multiple print jobs. Unless you need a lot of copies. Then Windows or Mac is probably easier.
The best investment of my life was buying an Epson LQ500 back in… I don’t know… '95 perhaps? All this years, and even after months or even years without use it will happily awake from its slumber to once again scream and punch dots on to its never ending but ancient supply of fanfold paper
But where do you get new ribbons? Or can you re-ink them?
For one, they are still sold new for a surprising low amount of money (e.g.: https://www.bueromarkt-ag.de/farbband_kmp_0633_0501_fuer_epson,vt-farbbaender_und_-rollen,vh-epson,vg-lq_500,p-06330501.html) but re-inking them using just rubber stamp ink is also a possibility.
