So my mother recently bought an ET-2800, By HP we had an HP printer before and we got a new one because the old one would not work with my sister’s Windows 11 Laptop. So I had to set it up for my mother, the manual said you can use it without the app. But there was no way to physically do that. Anyway, I downloaded the app on my phone (android) and the app would not connect to the printer. So I used my mother’s iPhone and it would connect. The setup process was stupid proof. And after I got it all full of ink, it was very painless. However, this is where the H in HP should stand for HELL. Because a few months go by and my sister and my mother need some papers printed. No problem. I thought to myself, so my sister tried to print it wirelessly. Couldn’t find the printer, I said ok maybe it’s a dumb driver, USB didn’t work either. I asked my sister to send it to me, so I can print it on my w540 running rocky 9. Rocky picked up that I needed drivers and installed them. Wireless didn’t work but wired showed up, I thought sweet I can just print the paper and get back to what I was doing. However, when I clicked print, the printer would grab the paper and run it though but not put ink on the paper. My mother asks me to forward the email to her to try to print it on her phone. I send it, and it prints, and the paper come out how it should with ink and the paper is finally printed.
After this experience with this printer, it makes me rather aggravated at this purchase, and no longer want to buy from HP. I have looked at Brother printers and there are no Proprietary ink cartage, and or laser printers. I purely wanted to talk about my experience with HP printers and would like to know what others have for a printer for recommendations, for when eventually HP kills support and makes it a paper weight, I’ve read many negative experiences with HP printer, specially from Lois Ross man and their anti consumer products.
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Simple answer, ages ago there was a time when HP made okay printers. In the past decade or more, they have not. Stay away.
The bloatware and software stack is just abysmally bad.
I used to have an older HP LaserJet, which was really good. Their more recent printers just keep getting worse, and I feel like they’re coasting on their reputation. Brother laser printers are what I’ve found to be the best modern printers.
Seconding the Brother laser printers. I have a Brother HL-L2350DW, a monochrome laser printer, and it’s just awesome. Works with Linux and Android on Wi-Fi without any issues and the print quality is amazing (those writing documents in LaTeX will love it as they look just great when you print them). Also, 3rd-party toner works fine with it if you want to save some money (obviously the quality will vary, the official ones have the best quality so far).
+1 for Brother laser printers. I’ve owned exactly two, the first saw me through maybe 10-12y, then I bought a color model. Zero problems with either.
A year after we gave up our LJ4 - and just after its 20th birthday too! - we realized it was a mistake, and we bought a ln m404n.
The m404n is an Ethernet LaserJet monochrome printer.
It seems to work well so far, but I am concerned it’ll act up if I find some alt-sourced toner.
HP use to be good and reliable. Then it all went to hell for some reason. These days just buy that one Brother laser printer everyone has and you are good to go.
That is some glorious DGAF reporting by The Verge there
They ain’t wrong though.
I went through OP’s pain about 3.5 years ago. My old, old printer from college (an HP, ironically) that was absolute bare bones (I think I actually got it for free as part of a bundle somewhere along the line) but also somehow (or maybe because of that) also a workhorse that never let me down for like 10 years…well I lost the damn proprietary cable in a move.
So I started shopping for it’s replacement. But before I could, I still needed my printing to be done ASAP, so I went to my parents house. There, we tried printing but their old HP just wasn’t having it. So we bought new ink and tried that. No dice. I tried everything I knew to try and nothing was working.
So I went to my girlfriend’s parents who also had an HP and we couldn’t get that one to work direct either. Had to eventually email the stuff to them to open on their computer and then with it’s hardwired connection, it finally printed for me.
Later that week my parents bought a new printer to replace the old one, and inexplicably, went with another HP. For them it was more “this is what was on sale at Sam’s Club” and less the result of careful review reading. But anyway, my mom, with all the tech literacy of a jug of milk, botched the setup. Called me like she always does, to solve her tech issues with only her horrible verbal translation of what’s going on, we can’t do it over the phone, so a few days later I go there and while it is fucked up, IDK how much of that was HP being shitty and how much of that would’ve worked if it hadn’t been attempted by my mom. Regardless, we finally get printer powered up and talking to the computer and it STILL won’t actually print stuff we’re sending it. Until the next day when my mom says she tried it again and it worked, no issues.
By that point I was fed up with HP, but I still needed a printer, needed color, and was totally against going inkjet yet again.
Ended up with a Brother color laser printer and it’s been the printer of my dreams from day one.
In my cramped apartment, it sits in another room from the rest of my computer stuff, quietly waiting on standby for the handful of times each year that I need it, at which point it quietly comes to life, prints perfectly, the first time, every time, and never causes any issues at all.
Yup. And to be honest, I understand the sentiment.
HP haven’t always been this bad, but they are this bad now, and nobody should be giving them money.
HP was the gold standard back in the day. Money says you can still buy kits and toner for IIIs, IVs, and Vs.
Work gave me a tiny HP laser when we did a refresh, and it’s a damned beast. Probably 12-yo, thousands and thousands of pages, never a glitch or jam. Toner cartridges are $18 and last forever.
I had to stop using my LaserJet 5si. Not because it broke, but because Windows stopped shipping drivers. Could have hacked around it, but I figured that new toner cartridges would be harder to come by if it doesn’t easily work on Windows anymore, so time to move on.
Carly Fiorina destroyed HP. She tanked product quality by using cheap plastic parts instead of metal and she can’t manage people. She’s a terrible leader and on a personal level she’s just not right in the head, as she embraces trumpism, is racist, elitist, etc.
She’s also the only person to lose in the same presidential primary twice!
She lost as a candidate, and then after she conceded, lost again as Ted Cruz’s VP candidate.
I can’t believe the GOP actually pushed her as having “business experience” in her Senate run. She’s often cited as one of the worst CEOs ever. She made HP into another race to the bottom shit company, and it has yet to recover.
Well, I mean, when you look at their other example of “business experience”…
Hp printers were shit well before her.
I beg to differ.
The old LaserJet 4s, 5s, the IIs and IIIs, the 8000 series, all those were great, well built printers with metal frames and heavy duty parts. They were made to last.
We still have a LaserJet 5M that prints reports hooked up to an airgapped Linux server. The printer never breaks down or needs anything more than toner. Yes, it’s slow. Amusingly slow. The page count is over 250k. The fuser is starting to ghost but it’s easily replaced. We just don’t care enough to do it right now. The printer doesn’t care.
Try this with any printer built after the Fiorina era and you’d be hard pressed to.
I’m all ears if you have a specific model in mind that was shit before Carly. Because, before her, HP was an industry leader. Now it’s cheap plastic junk, and it’s squarely on her failure as CEO that led to the company’s demise.
I take it back. My recall of that CEO had her more recently (like 2015 or so). Must’ve confused with a different company and incompetent CEO.
Mark Hurd, another former ceo, sexually harassed anything moved.
HP’s ceo hires have been…interesting. They’ve all been pretty bad.
Yeah, HP are terrible now.
They weren’t always this bad, I had a laserjet 4000 that was made around the turn of the century and it “just worked”.
HP pretty much pioneered enshittification
weren’t a
Average Cory Doctorow enjoy-er
Very Based–edit i accidentally quoted “weren’t a” i enjoy his books, i now realize it looked like i was mocking him. that was not my intent :P
Wut
Their inkjets were always trash fire.
I still have a LaserJet 2200 and it will be pried from my cold dead hands. The plastic has gone brittle on some spots of it, and the front manual feed cover has long broken but it still dutifully works.
When I worked in IT, there was a LaserJet 4 at one office. That thing was almost 2 decades old when i changed careers. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s still there.
HP’s inkjets have always been cantankerous, but the business printers they made in the late 90s were tanks.
I had a Deskjet 2500 some years ago. It lasted less than 2 years.
Catridges were expensive af and lasted about 20 pages. Maybe less.
In less than 2 years it started to print blank pages or pages with little ink on it. I didn’t find a way to fix it, not even with new catridges. So I threw it away and promised to myself to never buy HP again.
I will never buy a home printer at this point, especially not from HP. It’s significantly cheaper and more convenient for me to go to a printing center next-door and get everything done for pennies.
If somehow I had to start printing things in mass quantities, the only option I would consider is something like the Epson EcoTank. You can clearly see how much ink is left, and you can refill it yourself too. They can’t randomly just tell you that your cartridges are faulty, brick your device, or ship you a cartridge that has less than 5ml of liquid inside, but one that costs upwards of 50$ a piece
EcoTank printers don’t seem to give a shit what ink you put in them as long as its liquid and preferably the right colour
Epson uses piezoelectric printer heads, which can print whatever flows. They’re popular for direct-to-garment conversion for that reason.
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Well yeah, I mean not always but for probably 20 years their laser printers have been terrible, and their inkjets have been not consumer friendly for even longer than that.
For instance, I once had an HP color laser printer that was designed in a way that toner dust would build up on the prism and mirror, causing streaks and splotches to be printed on the page. The official recommendation was to buy a new printer, and the local repair shop said is it even though it’s a known issue and they’re capable of fixing it, getting it apart and putting all the pieces back together is such a time consuming hassle that it would be just as cheap to buy a new one. A $300 color laser printer. If I did it successfully, I would need to do it again in a year or two anyway. I now have a Brother; it’s black and white only but has been rock solid.
I did see on The Other Site a discussion from a year or two ago that Brother isn’t so great anymore, but the consensus seemed to be that they’re still better than anything other than maybe those Epson printers with the ink reservoirs.
I remember that my high school, college, and first couple of jobs had amazing HP laser printers, but sadly those days are gone and the company is a shell of what it used to be. I would not buy an HP printer at this point.
Sorry for your suffering but welcome to the club.
That’s super awful that their play was “just buy a new one”
It’s pretty much always been this way with the HP ones. Years ago when wireless printers were not the standard, we used to connect a printer to the family Windows PC and then share it on the network. We got a new one set it up, and the printer refused to be shared. Turns out HP had explicitly blocked network sharing in their Windows software driver for that printer. Never purchased another one since. Brother isn’t perfect, but I have multiple 8+ year old Brother laser printers still in service right now and they “Just Work.”
I have been flipping back and forth between Brother and Epson over the years. My wife does high volume printing at times (teacher). I figure 2-3 boxes of paper per year.
The Epson ecotank has worked well for the past 3 years we’ve had it. Probably 9-10 boxes of paper through it already.
I have never had any software issues with it, even use it with Linux.
Anyone have printer brand recommendations?
I have a Brother and like it but, is that he only decent option?
I have an Epson ecotank… you pay upfront for the printer and on the flipside the ink is about $15AUD per bottle…but that will get you 5000 sheets.
I have also one of those… But since it’s standing for couple weeks or a month between each printing session, I always got to start with cleaning nozzle and flushing the ink or the print quality goes shit. Kinda annoying since wife has a habit of “just gonna print this important paper 5min before leaving house”
Also I haven’t managed to get it working on Linux
yes
Brother Laser here. Never fucking going back.
Also in brother laser club. It won’t quit
I just love how my printer has become an appliance. Like, shit, I need to print something. I just press print. No print head cleaning, no alignment, no driver download and crapware games, no color cartridge wack-a-mole to print black and white. It just… Prints. Every time.
It’s become as exciting as using my toaster, and I love it for that.
Same with mine. I only use it a few times a year, but when I need it I can just use it. If it ever actually runs out of toner I can just fill the cartridge.
I have an Epson EcoTank printer. It’s a colour inkjet printer but it came with these ginormous bottles of ink that you pour into a tank. I’ve printed thousands of pages for three years and I still have around a quarter of the included ink left.
I didn’t need to install any drivers on Linux or Windows, just adding the printer was enough. It connects to your WiFi network and works as expected. My only complaint is that after not using it for a few weeks, you’ll need to run the “clean print head” utility on the printer and might need to realign the print heads. But other than that, it’s great. Photo quality is pretty meh though.
I have two EcoTank printers, one is set up with normal ink and the other one gets used by my partner for sublimation printing for her crafting projects, they’re absolutely the next best thing to a laser printer.
Just got my second Brother, the only way I’d switch to a different brand is if they also turn to shit.
I only bought a second Brother printer because after a decade+ I decided I wanted color printing and a scanner. Zero problems since 2009.
Yeah, our second one was to get color printing as well.
I have an rosin that’s not the worst, but I can’t recommend it. Ink isn’t as locked down, you can buy generic I think.
I hear good things about Brother from these other people
Samsung’s line of laser printers are great. They just work and don’t impose any bizarre restrictions. I’ve had mine for at least 5 years now, but it obviously doesn’t do colored pages if those are important to you.
Same, have 3 Samsung b/w printers between me and family and they have all been extremely reliable for years whether they are used regularly or not. Plus the ink isn’t expensive.
Samsungs printer biz got bought by HP IIRC. I have a 3405w and drivers are only from HP now
HP bouth Samsung’s printer division some years ago.
That makes sense. My Samsung laser gets less supported every os update and it’s fucking ridiculous. I thought less of Samsung until I read that and then it was like, “Ooooohhhhhhh . . . !”
Oh. I wasn’t aware… Buy an older model then I guess.
It happened in 2017, so the timeline tracks.
Yes.
Back when they were Hewlett-Packard, maybe not, but HP have basically always been shit.
No, but they worked hard for it.
There’s always a post where someone’s asking if HP printers are really as bad as they seem.
Yes. Yes they are. Spread the word. Friends don’t let friends buy an HP printer.
Brother has always been my go-to. I’ve owned exactly two. One I bought in 2009 and one I bought 3-4y ago. They’re basically zero hassle.
Yes! Mine’s from 2008! Zero issues with it.
How’s the Linux and Mac support?
Linux: fine. The mac’s in my house don’t get to print. Windows: painless.
Should be fine, ours supports standard IPP over wireless. My old 2008 printer needed CUPS on a Pi with QEMU and binfmt-misc to support the old brother i386 unix driver but worked flawlessly with that setup in a docker container.
When you ask a Linux head what kind of printer to use, they answer “get a Brother laser printer”. Linux YouTube is what sold me on Brother.
Linux ppl tend to be the biggest shills when it comes to products that respect the consumer.
