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Yeah, I tell everyone to just buy a brother laser and leave it at that. They may cost a little bit more up front and they don't do photos (who really prints photos at home anyway). But they just work.. Which is saying a LOT for printers.. God I hate printers.

Archive (HN): https://archive.today/Edd2N Archive (linked post): https://archive.today/VuS4V Source of post: https://retro.social/@ifixcoinops/111480744130939877

From the post: "Watching a mutual ask for printer recs and receive a chorus of tired tech folk going "Just get a Brother, they're fine" and man"

Yeah, I tell everyone to just buy a brother laser and leave it at that. They may cost a little bit more up front and they don't do photos (who really prints photos at home anyway). But they just work.. Which is saying a LOT for printers.. God I hate printers. Archive (HN): https://archive.today/Edd2N Archive (linked post): https://archive.today/VuS4V Source of post: https://retro.social/@ifixcoinops/111480744130939877 From the post: "Watching a mutual ask for printer recs and receive a chorus of tired tech folk going "Just get a Brother, they're fine" and man"

(post is archived)

[–] • 4 pts

I use a Brother printer for work and it's so old its latest driver is from like 2013. It still works flawlessly. I'm dreading the day it ever dies.

[–] • 0 pt

Smart, all new printers embed an ID code into the paper so you csn be identified if you print and post It's OK to be White flyers around town

[–] • 0 pt

The one I have and use all of the time is ~6-7 years old so I don't know if the new ones are still good.. I would hope they are though. They are the only brand I buy or will suggest to anyone. The MFC's are fairly good and the scanner works well.

[–] • 3 pts

I bought a $400 brother laser printer MLC 9 something or other around 9 years ago. All I have ever had to do is replace the toner as needed and the drums once. It accepts 3rd party cheap toners, you just have to know how to open it, hold down the "*" key on the dial pad (built in fax machine and scanner), then go through the options to manually reset the ink level display.

[–] • 3 pts

Epson and HP were always the worst, using ID chips to prevent you from using 3rd party cartridges while telling you they were empty when in fact there was still 30% left in them. And that's when they weren't getting emptied in forced unecessary head cleanings/calibrations.

[–] [deleted] • 2 pts

What sad sack of a human devotes their career to writing such anti- human code?

[–] • 2 pts

The hand rubbing tribe.

[–] • 1 pt

The one thing I wish I could disable from ALL printers is the invisible code using yellow ink. Even if I'm printing in all black (high capacity cartridge) the yellow is going to run out first.

[–] • 1 pt

I don't even have to press * on my brother printer, I just swap them out and it just works. I upgraded from an hp laserjet before they had issues. Thing is ~15 years old now.

[–] • 3 pts

Last printer I allowed in the house was a Brother. Used it until the drum died, just wasn't worth my time or money to replace a drum in a $99 printer.

[–] [deleted] • 1 pt

How do you submit your surveillance reports now?

[–] • 1 pt

They are directly debited from the memory.

[–] • 1 pt

Yeah, you probably got enough use out of it that it paid for that $99 unless you got a dud. Then again, their "wifi" printers in ~2006-2008 were a massive PITA.

[–] • 1 pt

Yes. Got several years out of it. When I used it last, I hadn't printed anything useful for probably a year or more. Decided it wasn't worth the time to fix or even get a new one.

[–] • 2 pts

I have used brother ink key multi functions for the past 15 years. I buy third party color cartridges for like 3 bucks each.

[–] • 1 pt (edited )

I have 2 Brother printers and they work perfectly. I don't think I've ever had a paper jam and similar problems. The Nokia 3310s in the printer world.

[–] • 1 pt

Does the Brother laser printers have that secret code printed on every page? Asking for a friend...

[–] • 0 pt

All modern printers in the US (and the world) do. You cannot avoid it. You can buy a printer at a garage sale in cash though.. Just don't use it much.

Oh, and its the same for scanners too. They can be "profiled" and "Watermarked" too.

[–] • 1 pt

It's a printer. What is there to innovate?

[–] • 0 pt (edited )

Nothing reallly to innovate, it's just the industry is corrupt. They waste ink on purpose, force you to buy branded cartidges and embed device ID into the paper so the feds can track flyers. Some of them also force registration so they can further track and manipulate users. Always pay cash for a printer edit: print offline, preferably with an old dummy comp if you can

[–] • 0 pt

Profits. They want to make more money... All of the "modern" changes are just to screw you over more.

[–] • 1 pt

First off, fuck HP. Those fuckers build the most shitty products, and they design their printers to be an absolute scam.

As for bother, I'm sure they do R&D and look for ways to make products better, but they likely also understand the idiom "If it's not broke, don't fix it."

[–] • 0 pt

I have a MFC from at least ~7 years ago. It has only needed minor cleaning for the scanning bed and toner when I run out. I don't use it as much as some people do but it also works amazingly well on wireless... Which I have had a lot of problems with printers on wireless in the past. None with this one.. Oh and it auto-installs on all major OS's (Win, Mac, Linux) without issue.

[–] • 1 pt

I don't know off hand what model I have, but I've had it for 8 years now. I rarely print anything, but when I do click the print button or try to scan something.. it just works. It has yet to fail me once, and it never bothers me about needing updates or some bs.

The son of a bitch is just bullet proof for all I know..

[–] • 1 pt

I bought a refurb monochrome ~15 years ago. It’s basically part of the family.

[–] • 1 pt

I used to work in IT for a large financial firm, and about 15 years ago I was able to take home an older Brother laser since they were going to get rid of it. At that point it was probably 5-6 years old at least. It’s still working fine now, just got a new cartridge for it. After seeing this I’ll make sure to get another from them when I need one.