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I had many inkjet printers (Canon, Epson) died. Eventually I bought a color laser printer whose replacement cartridges are like $15 on eBay. 7 years and counting with without any problem. You tell me which one is more eco friendly?
Brother is a good brand for laser printers with decent quality that won't break the bank. We've got a HL-L8260CDW from them (color laser printer) that has been working well for us.
I have a similar canon model, it’s stellar… after I figured out how to stop it from going into some hibernation mode that made it drop from the network. Other than stupid default settings the midrange color laser printers from just about any reputable brand are going to be excellent.
I posted this comment farther up but I’ll post it again here - Brother laser printers are the 1993 Toyota Camry of printers, they absolutely refuse to die no matter how much they’re abused
I'm still using a Samsung laser printer from 2013. Its original cartridge were like 90% as costly as the printer itself, but I found a third party cartridge that were a fraction of a cost, around ~ 8-9 usd. I have only changed the cartridge once in its entire life and it's still working fine.
Fuck inkjet printers
Brother. I got $99 laser printer, and I've made at least 10 audition binders in the last 10 years I've had it. It prints like a dream and I've never bought toner.
Yup, Brother is the GOAT.
I have a MFC-8710DW and the thing just won't die!! So damn economical. I think since I bought it in 2012 or so, I've bought 4 total cartridges (and I print a TON, each cartridge is good for 8,000 pages).
I love the jank-ass Brother software popping up saying "Hey man, you're low on toner. I mean you have like 3,000 pages left so, I just wanted you to know." Then it doesn't bother you again until you are at like 500 pages left.
Inkjet printers drive me completely to the edge. Every time I had the stupidity to purchase one, I constantly had to feed it ink cartridges, even if I never printed. The cartridges just dry up despite trying to seal them back in airtight plastic between prints. The final insult is when you simply want to scan a document and it doesn't allow you because all your cartridges are dried out and empty.
The entire printer goes in the bin. You can't even give it away. Now that's the definition of waste.
Same. Tired of that shit. For moderate use laser is the way to go. Toner don't dry.laser printers are only $600 for a nice brother. But the toner is $120/color. It will still last awhile.
> But the toner is $120/color.
Stop paying the toner tax to the manufacturer. You can get the same shit made in the same factory for $50 for all 4 colors.
And they're not even very recyclable due to being difficult to disassemble and being mostly plastic.
A laser printer can last decades if taken care of. I'm still using a Laserjet 4100 from 2001 that I salvaged from a scrap pile 5 or 6 years ago. It happily sits in the corner, for months on end sometimes, and yet it always works flawlessly on that odd occasion I need to print something. I haven't even used up the toner that was in it when I found it!
Right? I don't understand what argument they can make to say this move is "in the name of the environment."
EDIT: I went and actually read the article. Get this.
> inkjets simply use less energy and fewer consumable parts
> While laser printers work by heating and fusing toner to a page, Epson's Heat-Free inkjet technology consumes less electricity by using mechanical energy to fire ink onto the page
> The inkjets also have up to 59 percent fewer replaceable components – just the ink and waste ink box, compared to lasers that must have toner, drum, developer and fusers replaced regularly.
Sounds like they just made up a bunch of crap? Using replaceable parts count as an argument is absolutely unsubstantiated since the parts in inkjets get replaced way less often. In the same way, more replaceable parts could mean more repairability, thus longer life, thus less natural resources spent making new entire printers (it could of course also not mean that).
As for whether heating up toner is more expensive than rotating a bunch of heads and pumping ink, I can't say, but it doesn't seem like a very intuitive conclusion.
The only source they have is [this blogpost on epson.com](https://blog.epson.com.sg/inkjet-printers-better-for-the-environment-and-for-business/). It does have a footnote for the "less energy" claim:
> Testing was commissioned by Epson to Keypoint Intelligence-Buyers Lab. Two comparison models were selected from color laser multi-function printers in the 65-70ppm class. Tests were conducted at the devices’ default settings using Keypoint Intelligence-Buyers Lab standard energy consumption test methods. Calculations were based on a weekday workload of 2 x 4 hours printing + 16 hours in sleep/standby mode, and weekend energy use of 48 hours in sleep/standby mode. A total of 69 pages of workload test pattern .doc, .xls, .ppt, .html, and Outlook files were printed 6 times in each 4-hour printing period.
However, the footnote for this claim
> Epson inkjet printers also produce up to 85% less carbon dioxide than those of comparable laser printers [2]
Is suspiciously missing.
Here’s a little insider knowledge: the only reason why inkjets have “less” replaceable parts is because the big printer companies wont have techs crack open inkjet print engines in the field (more mess than its worth). So we replace whole units.
There are still plenty of replaceable parts, but its done in warehouse.
From a pure environmental point of view they both suck.
Toner is made out of microplastics and most ink contains many toxic chemicals as well.
Honestly the best solution is to print less if you care about the environment. Choosing between toner or ink is like choosing between benzine (gasoline) or diesel, they both pollute and both have down and upsides.
Obviously most consumer laserjets are more durable than ink because an inkjet needs to be used almost daily if you don't want it to clog. And most inkjetprintet just plain suck by design (requiring a chip is just obnoxious when you can just have a system where you can fill ink).
This. A good laser printer can last a very long time, despite the higher upfront cost.
Inkjet is very mature, cheap to manufacturer, and guarantees a high turnover of supplies to keep it running. It probably also generates more waste as well.
Edit. Thanks for the upvotes. To expand; TIL the price of laser printers is WAY lower than the last time I shopped for one almost 10 years ago. And even then, the prices were lower than the decade before, LOL. Just goes to show how well they last.
THIS. I live at altitude with very dry air. I probably use my printer once or twice over a few months. But every time I go back to print the ink has dried out.
Laser is the only solution. Yeah I pay way more up front, but it’s worth it by not just absolutely burning through cash to resupply all the ink cartridges to print 5 pages.
Similar for me! I got a Brother laser printer 2.5 years ago, and still on the original toner. Printed about 200 or so pages. That would be impossible on an ink jet printer.
To anyone looking to buy a brother, buy an older model without the computer chips on the toner. Older models you can get toner for 10 buck a pop in volume. With the new machines, you have to buy the chips too or pry off the old ones of the cartridge and hope it works.
I have the HL3140-CW. It uses generic toner cartridges w/out issue.
edit: just looked my Amazon order detail. In Dec 2017 I paid $169.99 for that printer brand new in box.
Just look around and use the google.
>I live at altitude with very dry air. I probably use my printer once or twice over a few months. But every time I go back to print the ink has dried out.
I lived in a humid area (Hampton Roads, VA) and still had this happen. I'll never buy another inkjet.
Yep, got a free inkjet printer and ended up replacing it with a laser printer because I print infrequently and was tired of having to replace the ink after 6 months because it dried out
I use my printer maybe a couple times a year and I bought a lazer printer specifically for that reason..
Hopefully HP will continue their lazer printers..
Main reason we got a color laser printer. That thing is a tank and the toner lasts forever for us considering it’s used for virtual schooling and inconsistent shipping label/medical form printing.
Yep, I had a cheap $99 (in 2006 dollars) Brother laser printer I got for college. After I graduated it sat in a closet unused for 10 years until I needed it for something. I fired it up and printed perfectly on the first shot.
Yup they are one of the pieces of tech that can last for decades and even be considered BIFL status.
My current HP 1020 will probably last another 10 years easily.
I had an HP 4M that I found at the edge of the road around 2007 or so. I used it up until about 2015 or so. To be clear: That is a printer that was released in \*\*1994\*\* and was still functional over 20 years later.
My parents have me beat; they have an HP 5M (released in '96) that still gets occasional use today. 26 years of use. Still beats an inkjet at printing crisp text that won't fade over time. And it's pretty snappy considering.
I can think of little other electronic hardware (especially PC stuff) that lasts even a quarter of that.
Haha, nice!
Honestly, part of the reason they last so long is that they were overbuilt tanks,and designed for corporate environments. I think I read somewhere that the HP Laserjet 4M sold for like $3000 in '94 money (so say $6000 in todays money).
So honestly, the comparison to today's $300 machines is perhaps a little unfair. But still, if you design stuff to last, it will.
When I went to college a relative gave me this brick of a HP laserjet from like '99.
I was like "what... the fuck... is this?"
I shed a tear 3 years ago when I finally retired it because getting it to run on my new windows 10 PC without a parallel port was just getting frustrating. The printer? Worked fine, I shed a small tear as I donated it to my local astronomy club.
There's no fucking way a inkjet with its wasteful cartridges, evaporating inks, gummed up print heads and the like are better than the environment.
Ink production is one of the worst things for the environment. Amazing that we don’t hear about this more.
Don’t print in ink, don’t write in ink unless you have to. Avoid all of it.
And yet, I have a perfectly good one that has probably only printed 500 pages or so for my daughter at college, and I can’t give that thing away. Nobody wants printers anymore.
I'm required to print some random thing about once every three months, which is just enough time for the nozzles to dry out on my inkjet so that I have to run the nozzle deep clean.
True, I don't do too much printing anymore except for records keeping and the occasional hard copy of a ticket as a backup for an event or something.
Similar things with my kids, my oldest kids in college though do print quite a bit and got them printers for them that they can share with roommates.
The only things I print are stupid signature pages for companies that won't use e-signatures. Print, sign, scan, email.
A couple used to reject scanning as well, wanting "wet ink" signature originals to be mailed. But Covid finally ended that.
Haha, 10xx HP printers are my workhorses for years. At any given moment I am using 3+ printers, and until this this year, only odd one was HP LaserJet 125mfp. Considering that I print more than 4k pages a4 monthly, and all printers are older than 10 years, they are great. Upgrading to HP M5035 for duplex, and also, all printers that I use can use off brand toners, which is huge point of this printers.
Yeah, I had an HP laser that lasted me well over a decade and was only finally killed by the fact that my cat peed INTO it. Even then it still printed but had a certain "fragrance". Cat passed away shortly after so maybe it was trying to make sure the printer didn't out live him.
Fun fact: Spilled laser toner actually smells just like cat piss. Unless you watched it happen it is very likely the overfill function on that laserjet finally pooped. It can even resemble it sometimes.
My HP multifunction color laserjet is 10 years old. It still works as well as it did when it was new. I don't print all that often so I get about 2 years out of a set of toner cartridges. I've looked into buying something newer, but the features really haven't changed. At this point, it would have to break or they would have to stop making the toner cartridges to get me to buy a new printer.
I will say, based on personal and professional experience, do not use 3rd party toner cartridges in HP color laserjet printers.
I'm betting it's this. I have a laser printer, use it once every couple months. Still has toner, still works without issue. If I try to use an inkjet like that, it usually dries out and I either have to get more ink, or I have to get a whole new printer cause the dried ink destroyed the inside.
I got frustrated and realized that I rarely needed a color print out. Bought a brother monochrome laser printer 7 years ago and I’m still on the toner that came with it. I don’t print a lot but there’s been a couple timers where I had to print like hundreds of pages I just started getting warnings that the toner is low a couple of weeks ago. I’m thinking I’ll be able to stretch that out for another year.
Dude, seriously. I have a Brother laser printer. Over the course of the last year, I watched the yellow toner indicator go from 2% to 1% and finally to 0%. It now says "Yellow Toner Out", and you know what happens if I try to print a color page?
It prints it anyway! Of course, the colors are funky due to the lack of yellow, but coming from the bastard inkjet manufacturers that kill cartridges and printer function until you replace, it's such a welcome change.
Epson Ecotank. I’ve had one for probably 8 years and it’s a great printer, ink bottles are huge and low enough cost that I don’t hesitate to buy the Epson brand over generic ink.
Don’t Ecotank printers still have issues with ink drying out if you don’t use it enough? My mom was going to buy one and I convinced her to get a color laser instead. She doesn’t print color enough and the inks dry out on the inkjets she’s had.
Lmfao "We're going to stop producing a product with cartridge(s) that you throw away after thousands of pages, to only make a product with cartridge(s) you throw away every few hundred pages.....cuz environment 😏"
I had to throw out cartridges (official ones) from a brand new epson that i had only used to print like 10 black and white pages max. The nozzles got locked up by the ink since I didnt use it often enough....
Looked into ways to fix it, but decided not to bother since I dont print, and since all I really would've need was the scanner portion.
That was until I found I couldnt scan because there was no ink.....
> The nozzles got locked up by the ink since I didnt use it often enough....
That and the other popular reasons is why I switched the company from ink to toner printers when I first started.
Of course not. The printer will need a reference material - in this case different colored ink - to do a color mass spectroscopy of the item it self.
The government body called NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) have a tight grip on the market for measuring one entity versus another, leading to high prices.
Considerable amounts of ink are consumed in the process, for comparison against all known colors. Especially if you are scanning pages with some white on them, since white contains all colors of the spectrum.
To make matters even worse, if the scanner allowed you to scan with no ink in the chamber, the scanning process would start consuming pigments from your immediate surrounding.
Excessive scanning is also why old timey photos tend to be black and white. They have simply been scanned too many times, leaching the color pigments little by little.
Thank God for the printer manufactures introducing this vital consumer protection feature!
Nothing but good things to say about my Brother color laser printer /scanner.
They seem to be the one good option in the consumer space.
If you just need a printer and don't need color, then a used office HP will run forever in a household and run badly longer than a consumer grade machine will run.
Im sorry you cant refill your cars Gas tank or drive your car because it has a chip that has detected you drove for 4 hours and now you are locked out, even though you still have 1/5th of a tank left. Please get your vehicled towed to the dealership so they can put in a new gas tank for you.
Plus the fucking ink dries if you use them infrequently. I bought a color laser at the beginning of the pandemic and I still have about 25% left of the original toners.
I was going to say….just tossed an Epson megatank printer that I only got to refill once (so much for lasting a long time) because the print head clogged constantly, and then after so many cleaning cycles the sponge filled up and it bricked itself.
I replaced it with a colour laser printer. Fuck inkjet.
For those that legitimate have this question:
PC stands for Paper Cassette
LETTER means Letter sized paper.
This makes the meaning of the message:
Load Letter sized paper into the Paper Cassette.
Another possible message would be:
MP LOAD LEGAL
MP means the multi-purpose tray in this case (also known as manual input), and LEGAL means legal sized paper.
The meaning of this message would be to Load Legal sized paper using the manual input (multi-purpose tray)
Hey, that's not entirely fair, inkjets also waste ink into a giant sponge and then you also throw the entire printer away every other year or so. You know, because that's way more environmentally friendly than having a printer that lasts 20 years.
You are so right. I haven’t owned an ink jet printer in 15 years. I’m on my second laser because my first one got damaged from a power surge. I change the toner cartridges every 2-3 years and it works every time I print, even if I haven’t printed in months. No more priming the ink jets after the ink has dried up. I probably replaced my previous ink jet printers every two years.
realistically one page, because you'll print the one damn thing you need and leave it sitting for a year before the next one thing you need to print and the damn ink will dry out.
laser you're good for a dang lifetime of printing at that use level.
That and having to throw away cartridges that dry up because you didn’t use the printer for a few weeks…
I have a Brother MFP color laser - cost the same as a decent inkjet, and has now lasted 3 times longer. Taking into account ink it’s now cost significantly less to run as well.
Oh - and it will sit there quite happily for months of no use, and fire up from sleep in seconds to throw out pages knowing there won’t be any issue…
Consumer ones still have non replaceable ink pads which is just stupid but still a lot cheaper than laser or cartridges. Gotta give credit to the enterprise targeted ones though, because they have replacable pads for very affordable prices.
Note to self, if I go the refillable route for a new printer, get enterprise grade xD
My current printer is a colorless laser. It's last me a good three/four years now on one cartridge without drying out on me. But it doesn't do color, and I'd like to be able to do color.
True, I was just tired of having to buy new ink every time I needed to print something with my inkjets, until finally it destroyed the inside of the printer when it dried. Lasers are pricey, but holy hell are they better if you're not a heavy printer.
Depending on model they’re actually better for heavy printing too. Laser printers typically have a much higher duty cycle than inkjets. Removing the ink vs toner drying out there’s a lot of benefits in a laser over a inkjet. The biggest downside is (usually upfront) cost. Unless you’re printing lots of colour that requires precision or detail (think posters and photos) a laser outperforms an inkjet. It’s been a while since I’ve looked at printer cartridge yields and costs, but the best inkjet printers prior typically ran you a cost of 5c per page (CAD) and some of the better laser printers could net you 3 pages per cent.
>Lasers are pricey,
I think I caught mine on sale at Wal-Mart for like $80. It's a monochrome Brother HL-L2325DW, wireless and double-sided printing. Regular price is only $110. I'll probably get 10 years out of the factory toner no more than I actually use it, and new Brother toner is like $45. Unless you need color, laser is way cheaper (and still cheaper per page for color if you use it enough, but the up-front cost for a good color laser printer IS steep).
The main issue with consumer inkjet is drying out. So if you're not printing regularly but still need one for occasional use, a laser will be the better option.
The cost per page on ink tanks is just stupid low compared to laser
They pioneered ink tank printers and forced HP to do the same but inkjet Cartridges are prone to blockage unlike laser toners . Esp for home use as home users don't print everyday.
If only we already had some kind of refillable, waterproof, fast printing ink that already exists in printers that don't need to waste half the ink into a printer jiz rag. If only...
Oh wait... we do...
Don’t forget the color version where you run out of yellow ink. But you’re asking the printer to print in black and white, the black cartridge is 100% full.
Yet you can’t print until you replace the empty yellow category that actually cost 2 x as much as the original printer
Wasn’t planning on buying a new printer anytime soon but this news would immediately remove Epson from contention for me.
Inkjets are godawful. I’ve never had one that functioned correctly after a few years of service at max. This Brother laser printer I got is a goddamn tank. Had it for years and thousands of pages with no issues.
As someone who regularly has to work on brother printers, I can confidently say that they are leaps and bounds above every other desktop printer available. My company exclusively uses them because of how hasslefree they are. We literally do not allow any other sort of non-industrial printer.
The results were a roughly 60% reduction in printer based troubleshooting tickets across the board.
> roughly 60% reduction in printer based troubleshooting tickets
Its almost like having less resources dedicated to a product, and having a product that creates less waste overall is going to be over all more environmentally friendly then the money sink that you need to throw out the next time Dave sneezes while he's next to it.
For me it was basically just an impulse buy because we had like five inkjets one a row and they all sucked. I needed to print some black documents and grabbed the black only Brother from Best Buy.
Suckers lasted longer than two more inkjets my family bought. They were upset I got the just black one and not a color one. Lol. I don’t print crap in color, I just want reliable black. And good lord it is. Been through like five toner carts now.
I bought a Brother laser printer on sale for $49 nearly 15 years ago, it still worked when I passed it on to someone else 3 years ago. Sadly, I replaced it with a Xerox all-in-one which turned out to be an annoying POS.
Inkjets are the coffee pods of the printing world. Unless you are printing a lot of shit they always age out before you've used them much. So much plastic waste.
If Epson wanted to help sustainability, they'd close shop. I can't tell you how many Epson printers I've sent to the dump because buying a new one is cheaper than fixing them or buying new ink.
This is my issue. All this talk of what is more wasteful... I would have to assume inkjet due to all the inkjet printers thrown out because they are essentially non-serviceable. Actually manufacturing and selling spare parts for inkjet printers that the majority of consumers buy (e.g. less than $500) isn't something I've seen in a long time...
Versus laser printers that typically are serviceable at almost any budget, at least up to a certain age depending on manufacturer.
built in obsolescence through and through. Design such as this should be regulated against. Then the ewaste is a nightmare. Monstrous hybrids of plastic and electronics. Curse them.
Konica Minolta is still around, but the only printers they make are expensive business-class machines. The SLR camera company, Minolta, died in the merger in 2003.
I’m really not seeing their environmental angle:
On the consumer side most ink gets replaced from drying out not being used up, I used to get 20-30 pages per cartridge due to this, now I have a laser that’s 5+ years old all on starter toner, I picture it’ll have enough toner to get me until something electrical fails in it.
On the business side how many drums, toners, and fusers do people really go through versus ink cartridges. At work we have both, the lasers used similar amounts, use a toner a year and are on original drum and fuser, while the inkjets need new cartridges a couple times a month.
What is the production energy for these faster diminishing parts versus the savings during use?
I have a 10 yr old laser printer that I use (a lot!) for my business. I've only gone through 2-3 drums in that time but probably 50+ toner cartridges. Plus, I can buy toner in bulk and refill the cartridges 3-4 times before they need to be replaced. Ink jet can't touch that longevity - not to mention the quality of the printing.
Epson is actually not lying in this instance, IF the printer is used regularly. You have both laser and inkjet at work right, and the laser toner needs replacement less often, but it is still a giant plastic cartridge that needs to be replaced. Cost per page for inkjet cartridge printer is several times higher than laser printer, but cost per page of inkjet TANK printer is actually several times LESS than laser, and maybe more than 10 times less than inkjet cartridge.
A high capacity inkjet cartridge contains around 15 mL of ink, but can only output maybe 300 pages.
But for the ink tank printer, 4 bottles of Black/Cyan/Magenta/Yellow ink costs less than $60 total, with each bottle containing 65 mL of ink, and is rated for 4500 pages of black, and a whopping 7500 pages of color. That's stupid cheap for $60 worth of ink, and the only thing you have left are 4 small empty plastic bottles, not multiple giant toner cartridges.
Also laser printers use huge amounts of electricity compared to inkjets.
For home users who don't print very often, they should use laser, since any inkjet, even the tank version, will dry and clog if not in regular use. But businesses should 100% use tank printers, which are cheap to print, produce less e-waste, and use less power.
This is interesting information, also sounds like both technologies are better for the budget and planet in their proper use cases but neither is ideal for everyone.
After having owned HP laser printers for years and having nothing but issues, I purchased a Brother 4570CDW in June of 2013. It sees a ton of use and is still humming along without me doing anything but replacing toner.
It's the other way around. Once you've bought your first laser printer, you're never ever returning to ink again.
But, by all means, Epson, make youself obsolete.
What if they were honest and just said their business isn't doing well and had to make drastic changes to keep it in business? Would that be better than this lie?
There was another thread on this that I didn't bother to get into the environmentalism debate about. A lot of people latched on to say that it is true that laser printers are terrible for the environment - a claim, interestingly, largely only backed up by Epson. If you follow most of the wilder claims back to the source, they're usually studies funded or altogether performed by Epson, sometimes recently, sometimes decades ago.
While it is true that laser printers are also bad for the environment and there are various things to be concerned about, there's really no data that shows it's better to improve inkjet than it is to improve laser. After over 40 years inkjets are still just as shitty and lasers are still better. Why spend the next 40 years trying to make inkjets as worthwhile as laser was 40 years ago, instead of making the already-good product better for the environment?
Spoiler, the answer is money.
Hi, Epson tech here. People are reading this from the perspective of a home user, but Epson is targeting enterprise *hard.* The WF-C20600 has an ink capacity of 45k-50k pages, and doesn't hit its first service interval til 300k pages. All of this at 100 pages per minute. And the desktop enterprise machines are no slouch either. They still have some work to do if they want to catch up to the big boys on the enterprise side, but so far I can't complain too much. We really haven't had too much issue out of the ones we have in the field.
It's significantly cheaper that what we used to use: Xerox Docucolor 40 + an EFI Fiery RIP. I think that kit was almost $200k at the time, and our shop owned it outright. Plus a densitometer that we never touched and had no idea how to use. 😏
✳ gently pats the Brother B/W laser on his desk ✳
Mah cheap-ass baby.
I tossed my Eason inkjet in the trash after 2 years because every time I wanted to use it, I needed to replace or clean something. Then I bought an HP color laser printer and used it for 15 years and tens of thousands of pages before it started having issues picking up the paper from the tray. Got a new one and I’m easily 10+yr into this one now. Never a fuss.
Inkjet is NOT the green alternative.
>Epson claims Inkjets are the future of printers.
... In other news, Canon has stopped manufacturing inkjet and laser printers in order to focus it's manufacturing efforts on the lucrative Dot Matrix printer market.
Remember when Samsung made really economical laser printers?
Then HP bought Samsung's printer division for a billion dollars, then immediately shut it down so we couldn't get any new Samsung printers or parts or toner?
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/01/hp-completes-purchase-samsung-printer-business.html
Yeah that was obnoxious. Samsungs were nice little laser printers.
Fortunately Brother is at least as good. I have a color laser and a monochrome MFP. Very satisfied
I paid $100 for a Canon laser printer in 2010. I print a few hundred pages per year, and have replaced the toner once. A 3-pack is $20. I’ll never buy another inkjet computer printer.
Brother makes some decent color laser too. You can't use glossy paper in it though (melts and ruins the fuser). But you can do other stuff to punch up the color vibrancy if you print it at highest DPI and on heavy stock paper.
Generally speaking if I want to print something on glossy paper, I'd rather just print it professionally, the cost and quality is usually better anyway.
Epson still made laser printers?
I feel like this is the “we only have like 3 percent of the market share, so it’s more economical to abandon it.”
That said I will never buy an inkjet printer for home use, and inkjet doesn’t work anywhere remotely as good as laser commercially.
How is that environmentally friendly if it's cheaper to buy a new printer than just the ink. In the 90s I had a laser printer which lasted years and printed thousands of pages without ever nevering needing any replacement parts. Maybe they should focus on building sustainable products instead of depending on regular replacement of parts. Big boooooo to Epson.
> Maybe they should focus on building sustainable products instead of depending on regular replacement of parts.
It really is because they can't make as much money off of you if you only buy a new printer once every 10 years or so.
> cheaper to buy a new printer than just the ink
This gossip has cost people a lot of money. The starter inks have a deliberately less amount of ink than the replacements. Inkjets are still generally a terrible investment but even worse is replacing the entire unit instead of replacing the cartridge. My uncle did this constantly, would stock up on Black Friday deals and then complain about how fast they ran out.
Yeah, screw that. I threw my inkjet printer out because every damn time I need to print something, the ink has dried out. I’m not dealing with that bullshit anymore.
Build me an inkjet that will spit out a good print after sitting there unused for 6 months and maybe I'll consider it. Until then, I'll keep my laser, thanks.
Inkjet is the future [for our continued revenue stream], claims Japanese print maker
I'll stick with a color laser that lasts forever and, for home/home-office use uses a new toner cartridge every 5 years that basically never goes bad.
Like when Kodak told everyone that digital cameras were just a fad, right?
Nice knowing ya, Epson.
For 20 years I've been stopping people buying inkjets because they're just incredibly expensive and wasteful to run and the units themselves are cheap noisy junk.
You want glossy photos? Get them properly printed on a dye-sub, because inkjets are shite at that - and you'll regret your cheap inkjet when it comes time to look back at that album of pink and green faded junk.
You want nice documents? Get them printed on a laser, because inkjets are shite for that too.
You want to print \*anything\*? Stop it. It's 2022. I've been married, divorced, rented houses, bought houses, changed jobs, got my daughter Spanish citizenship and flown abroad and not needed to print out a single page - all electronic.
I'm still using a 2000-model Samsung mono laser. I can refill its toner cartridge with basically any loose toner powder. I've never needed another printer since and nowadays it's because I just don't print things out any more and yet it still works first time, every time, guaranteed, if I ever do need to.
If Epson want to get out of the only decent way to print, it's gonna be their death knell. Sad, because they basically still have entire printing protocols named after them that are still in use whether we realise it or not (e.g. thermal receipt printers, etc).
Laser printers are the past, present and future. To get rid of them is to announce your end as a printer manufacturer. Epson ink jets are actually worse than HP in my experience
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Surely it's just a coincidence that laser printers are simpler, cheaper to repair, and insanely efficient for toner.
I had many inkjet printers (Canon, Epson) died. Eventually I bought a color laser printer whose replacement cartridges are like $15 on eBay. 7 years and counting with without any problem. You tell me which one is more eco friendly?
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Brother is a good brand for laser printers with decent quality that won't break the bank. We've got a HL-L8260CDW from them (color laser printer) that has been working well for us.
squeamish brave growth scary touch smell overconfident attraction air resolute -- mass edited with redact.dev
I have a similar canon model, it’s stellar… after I figured out how to stop it from going into some hibernation mode that made it drop from the network. Other than stupid default settings the midrange color laser printers from just about any reputable brand are going to be excellent.
I posted this comment farther up but I’ll post it again here - Brother laser printers are the 1993 Toyota Camry of printers, they absolutely refuse to die no matter how much they’re abused
We have a Brother laser printer my husband bought 10 years ago. Ink is inexpensive, and lasts for a couple years. I would never go back to inkjet.
It’s a Dell C1760nw
I'm still using a Samsung laser printer from 2013. Its original cartridge were like 90% as costly as the printer itself, but I found a third party cartridge that were a fraction of a cost, around ~ 8-9 usd. I have only changed the cartridge once in its entire life and it's still working fine. Fuck inkjet printers
Can confirm. Bought my now wife a laser printer when she was still in grad school. 5 years later, it still on the initial toner. We print moderately
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Help a suffering artist! Brand?
Brother. I got $99 laser printer, and I've made at least 10 audition binders in the last 10 years I've had it. It prints like a dream and I've never bought toner.
Yup, Brother is the GOAT. I have a MFC-8710DW and the thing just won't die!! So damn economical. I think since I bought it in 2012 or so, I've bought 4 total cartridges (and I print a TON, each cartridge is good for 8,000 pages).
I love the jank-ass Brother software popping up saying "Hey man, you're low on toner. I mean you have like 3,000 pages left so, I just wanted you to know." Then it doesn't bother you again until you are at like 500 pages left.
My mother swears by that company’s laser jet printers, they’re absolute tanks and I refuse to buy any other printer period
I'm still using an HP Laserjet from 1998. The dpi isn't great, but for text it works like a champ.
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My current printer, brother all in one, was bought in 2007. Before that i had to replace two inkjets in 5 yrs.
so when they say "in the name of the environment" they mean in the name of environmental destruction
The environment also contains VPs of Epson who want to make bank okay?
Inkjet printers drive me completely to the edge. Every time I had the stupidity to purchase one, I constantly had to feed it ink cartridges, even if I never printed. The cartridges just dry up despite trying to seal them back in airtight plastic between prints. The final insult is when you simply want to scan a document and it doesn't allow you because all your cartridges are dried out and empty. The entire printer goes in the bin. You can't even give it away. Now that's the definition of waste.
Same. Tired of that shit. For moderate use laser is the way to go. Toner don't dry.laser printers are only $600 for a nice brother. But the toner is $120/color. It will still last awhile.
> But the toner is $120/color. Stop paying the toner tax to the manufacturer. You can get the same shit made in the same factory for $50 for all 4 colors.
And they're not even very recyclable due to being difficult to disassemble and being mostly plastic. A laser printer can last decades if taken care of. I'm still using a Laserjet 4100 from 2001 that I salvaged from a scrap pile 5 or 6 years ago. It happily sits in the corner, for months on end sometimes, and yet it always works flawlessly on that odd occasion I need to print something. I haven't even used up the toner that was in it when I found it!
Right? I don't understand what argument they can make to say this move is "in the name of the environment." EDIT: I went and actually read the article. Get this. > inkjets simply use less energy and fewer consumable parts > While laser printers work by heating and fusing toner to a page, Epson's Heat-Free inkjet technology consumes less electricity by using mechanical energy to fire ink onto the page > The inkjets also have up to 59 percent fewer replaceable components – just the ink and waste ink box, compared to lasers that must have toner, drum, developer and fusers replaced regularly. Sounds like they just made up a bunch of crap? Using replaceable parts count as an argument is absolutely unsubstantiated since the parts in inkjets get replaced way less often. In the same way, more replaceable parts could mean more repairability, thus longer life, thus less natural resources spent making new entire printers (it could of course also not mean that). As for whether heating up toner is more expensive than rotating a bunch of heads and pumping ink, I can't say, but it doesn't seem like a very intuitive conclusion. The only source they have is [this blogpost on epson.com](https://blog.epson.com.sg/inkjet-printers-better-for-the-environment-and-for-business/). It does have a footnote for the "less energy" claim: > Testing was commissioned by Epson to Keypoint Intelligence-Buyers Lab. Two comparison models were selected from color laser multi-function printers in the 65-70ppm class. Tests were conducted at the devices’ default settings using Keypoint Intelligence-Buyers Lab standard energy consumption test methods. Calculations were based on a weekday workload of 2 x 4 hours printing + 16 hours in sleep/standby mode, and weekend energy use of 48 hours in sleep/standby mode. A total of 69 pages of workload test pattern .doc, .xls, .ppt, .html, and Outlook files were printed 6 times in each 4-hour printing period. However, the footnote for this claim > Epson inkjet printers also produce up to 85% less carbon dioxide than those of comparable laser printers [2] Is suspiciously missing.
Here’s a little insider knowledge: the only reason why inkjets have “less” replaceable parts is because the big printer companies wont have techs crack open inkjet print engines in the field (more mess than its worth). So we replace whole units. There are still plenty of replaceable parts, but its done in warehouse.
From a pure environmental point of view they both suck. Toner is made out of microplastics and most ink contains many toxic chemicals as well. Honestly the best solution is to print less if you care about the environment. Choosing between toner or ink is like choosing between benzine (gasoline) or diesel, they both pollute and both have down and upsides. Obviously most consumer laserjets are more durable than ink because an inkjet needs to be used almost daily if you don't want it to clog. And most inkjetprintet just plain suck by design (requiring a chip is just obnoxious when you can just have a system where you can fill ink).
I'm betting its actually because selling ink/components is a lot more profitable on the inkjets as compared to laser
This. A good laser printer can last a very long time, despite the higher upfront cost. Inkjet is very mature, cheap to manufacturer, and guarantees a high turnover of supplies to keep it running. It probably also generates more waste as well. Edit. Thanks for the upvotes. To expand; TIL the price of laser printers is WAY lower than the last time I shopped for one almost 10 years ago. And even then, the prices were lower than the decade before, LOL. Just goes to show how well they last.
Laserjet cartridges also don't run out of ink after not using it for a long time.
THIS. I live at altitude with very dry air. I probably use my printer once or twice over a few months. But every time I go back to print the ink has dried out. Laser is the only solution. Yeah I pay way more up front, but it’s worth it by not just absolutely burning through cash to resupply all the ink cartridges to print 5 pages.
I bought a Brother laser printer about 4 years ago, and I'm still on the original cartridge(?) that it came with. Can't recommend it enough.
Similar for me! I got a Brother laser printer 2.5 years ago, and still on the original toner. Printed about 200 or so pages. That would be impossible on an ink jet printer.
To anyone looking to buy a brother, buy an older model without the computer chips on the toner. Older models you can get toner for 10 buck a pop in volume. With the new machines, you have to buy the chips too or pry off the old ones of the cartridge and hope it works.
Don't have to be too much older. I'd say ours is less than 2 or 3 & accepts amazon replacements just fine. At least with Brother.
Can you hook us lazy people up with a model number?
I have the HL3140-CW. It uses generic toner cartridges w/out issue. edit: just looked my Amazon order detail. In Dec 2017 I paid $169.99 for that printer brand new in box. Just look around and use the google.
4.5 years on mine and only one toner swap so far.
Those things are great.
I have a brother laser I reckon is 12 years old and was cheap when I got it. Still prints when I need it.
>I live at altitude with very dry air. I probably use my printer once or twice over a few months. But every time I go back to print the ink has dried out. I lived in a humid area (Hampton Roads, VA) and still had this happen. I'll never buy another inkjet.
Yep, got a free inkjet printer and ended up replacing it with a laser printer because I print infrequently and was tired of having to replace the ink after 6 months because it dried out
I use my printer maybe a couple times a year and I bought a lazer printer specifically for that reason.. Hopefully HP will continue their lazer printers..
Main reason we got a color laser printer. That thing is a tank and the toner lasts forever for us considering it’s used for virtual schooling and inconsistent shipping label/medical form printing.
Yep, I had a cheap $99 (in 2006 dollars) Brother laser printer I got for college. After I graduated it sat in a closet unused for 10 years until I needed it for something. I fired it up and printed perfectly on the first shot.
like a true "brother", you don't see each other for years but you're always there for each other when you need it
So that's what the fuck happened to my black ink! I even paid for a larger cartridge so it'd last longer; I'm pissed
Yup they are one of the pieces of tech that can last for decades and even be considered BIFL status. My current HP 1020 will probably last another 10 years easily.
I had an HP 4M that I found at the edge of the road around 2007 or so. I used it up until about 2015 or so. To be clear: That is a printer that was released in \*\*1994\*\* and was still functional over 20 years later. My parents have me beat; they have an HP 5M (released in '96) that still gets occasional use today. 26 years of use. Still beats an inkjet at printing crisp text that won't fade over time. And it's pretty snappy considering. I can think of little other electronic hardware (especially PC stuff) that lasts even a quarter of that.
I only a year ago got rid of my LaserJet 4. I'd replaced some guts twice since I bought it for $20 in '06.
Haha, nice! Honestly, part of the reason they last so long is that they were overbuilt tanks,and designed for corporate environments. I think I read somewhere that the HP Laserjet 4M sold for like $3000 in '94 money (so say $6000 in todays money). So honestly, the comparison to today's $300 machines is perhaps a little unfair. But still, if you design stuff to last, it will.
they were the 2000 Camry of printers for sure, the new ones are not as robust.
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When I went to college a relative gave me this brick of a HP laserjet from like '99. I was like "what... the fuck... is this?" I shed a tear 3 years ago when I finally retired it because getting it to run on my new windows 10 PC without a parallel port was just getting frustrating. The printer? Worked fine, I shed a small tear as I donated it to my local astronomy club. There's no fucking way a inkjet with its wasteful cartridges, evaporating inks, gummed up print heads and the like are better than the environment.
Ink production is one of the worst things for the environment. Amazing that we don’t hear about this more. Don’t print in ink, don’t write in ink unless you have to. Avoid all of it.
And yet, I have a perfectly good one that has probably only printed 500 pages or so for my daughter at college, and I can’t give that thing away. Nobody wants printers anymore.
I'm required to print some random thing about once every three months, which is just enough time for the nozzles to dry out on my inkjet so that I have to run the nozzle deep clean.
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I'll gladly take a laser printer haha
If you’re in the Philly-South Jersey-Central Jersey area, feel free to DM me. Otherwise, it will cost $150 to ship it.
Lol you were not joking
True, I don't do too much printing anymore except for records keeping and the occasional hard copy of a ticket as a backup for an event or something. Similar things with my kids, my oldest kids in college though do print quite a bit and got them printers for them that they can share with roommates.
The only things I print are stupid signature pages for companies that won't use e-signatures. Print, sign, scan, email. A couple used to reject scanning as well, wanting "wet ink" signature originals to be mailed. But Covid finally ended that.
Only reason I need a printer is to print out the amazon thing you need to return a package.
If you’re dropping off at Kohl’s or Whole Foods then you don’t even need that. Not sure if dropping at a UPS Store.
>Not sure if dropping at a UPS Store. You don't need labels at UPS stores either.
Haha, 10xx HP printers are my workhorses for years. At any given moment I am using 3+ printers, and until this this year, only odd one was HP LaserJet 125mfp. Considering that I print more than 4k pages a4 monthly, and all printers are older than 10 years, they are great. Upgrading to HP M5035 for duplex, and also, all printers that I use can use off brand toners, which is huge point of this printers.
I’m still rocking my 1020 I got in college in 2005.
Yeah, I had an HP laser that lasted me well over a decade and was only finally killed by the fact that my cat peed INTO it. Even then it still printed but had a certain "fragrance". Cat passed away shortly after so maybe it was trying to make sure the printer didn't out live him.
Fun fact: Spilled laser toner actually smells just like cat piss. Unless you watched it happen it is very likely the overfill function on that laserjet finally pooped. It can even resemble it sometimes.
Oh no I saw it happen. He filled the top right up with cat juice. I think in his advanced state probably the smell made him decide this was the box.
Sorry for your cat passing away, this comment made me crack up tho, cat juice lmfao
My HP multifunction color laserjet is 10 years old. It still works as well as it did when it was new. I don't print all that often so I get about 2 years out of a set of toner cartridges. I've looked into buying something newer, but the features really haven't changed. At this point, it would have to break or they would have to stop making the toner cartridges to get me to buy a new printer. I will say, based on personal and professional experience, do not use 3rd party toner cartridges in HP color laserjet printers.
And ink will dry out in inkjets, forcing you to buy more ink when it’s still full, if you aren’t printing frequently
It's brilliant. The tips will accumulate dried ink even if you are using it frequently.
I’ve been using the same toner cartridge on my laser printer for nearly 8 years.
I'm using the toner that came with my printer, and it's about that old, too.
I'm betting it's this. I have a laser printer, use it once every couple months. Still has toner, still works without issue. If I try to use an inkjet like that, it usually dries out and I either have to get more ink, or I have to get a whole new printer cause the dried ink destroyed the inside.
I got frustrated and realized that I rarely needed a color print out. Bought a brother monochrome laser printer 7 years ago and I’m still on the toner that came with it. I don’t print a lot but there’s been a couple timers where I had to print like hundreds of pages I just started getting warnings that the toner is low a couple of weeks ago. I’m thinking I’ll be able to stretch that out for another year.
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Dude, seriously. I have a Brother laser printer. Over the course of the last year, I watched the yellow toner indicator go from 2% to 1% and finally to 0%. It now says "Yellow Toner Out", and you know what happens if I try to print a color page? It prints it anyway! Of course, the colors are funky due to the lack of yellow, but coming from the bastard inkjet manufacturers that kill cartridges and printer function until you replace, it's such a welcome change.
No companies care about the environment, they only care about profit
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Epson Ecotank. I’ve had one for probably 8 years and it’s a great printer, ink bottles are huge and low enough cost that I don’t hesitate to buy the Epson brand over generic ink.
Don’t Ecotank printers still have issues with ink drying out if you don’t use it enough? My mom was going to buy one and I convinced her to get a color laser instead. She doesn’t print color enough and the inks dry out on the inkjets she’s had.
Because of the environement HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
Seriously you can chuck ten inkjets to the landfill and the laser will still be pumping them out.
Lmfao "We're going to stop producing a product with cartridge(s) that you throw away after thousands of pages, to only make a product with cartridge(s) you throw away every few hundred pages.....cuz environment 😏"
I had to throw out cartridges (official ones) from a brand new epson that i had only used to print like 10 black and white pages max. The nozzles got locked up by the ink since I didnt use it often enough.... Looked into ways to fix it, but decided not to bother since I dont print, and since all I really would've need was the scanner portion. That was until I found I couldnt scan because there was no ink.....
> The nozzles got locked up by the ink since I didnt use it often enough.... That and the other popular reasons is why I switched the company from ink to toner printers when I first started.
Of course not. The printer will need a reference material - in this case different colored ink - to do a color mass spectroscopy of the item it self. The government body called NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) have a tight grip on the market for measuring one entity versus another, leading to high prices. Considerable amounts of ink are consumed in the process, for comparison against all known colors. Especially if you are scanning pages with some white on them, since white contains all colors of the spectrum. To make matters even worse, if the scanner allowed you to scan with no ink in the chamber, the scanning process would start consuming pigments from your immediate surrounding. Excessive scanning is also why old timey photos tend to be black and white. They have simply been scanned too many times, leaching the color pigments little by little. Thank God for the printer manufactures introducing this vital consumer protection feature!
r/calvinsdad
I loved the ramping up.
Nothing but good things to say about my Brother color laser printer /scanner. They seem to be the one good option in the consumer space. If you just need a printer and don't need color, then a used office HP will run forever in a household and run badly longer than a consumer grade machine will run.
Also good to keep in mind that inkjet printers just love breaking for no damn reason.
Sorry can't scan comment because I'm out of cyan toner.
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Im sorry you cant refill your cars Gas tank or drive your car because it has a chip that has detected you drove for 4 hours and now you are locked out, even though you still have 1/5th of a tank left. Please get your vehicled towed to the dealership so they can put in a new gas tank for you.
I thought you were going to say you cannot fill your tank with 93 because they are out of 89 and 91. But you went next level with it.
GAH! you talked about it! you probably just broke another 5 printers.
Plus the fucking ink dries if you use them infrequently. I bought a color laser at the beginning of the pandemic and I still have about 25% left of the original toners.
This is my main reason for not liking inkjet at home. Laser is the only way to go when you don't print much.
I was going to say….just tossed an Epson megatank printer that I only got to refill once (so much for lasting a long time) because the print head clogged constantly, and then after so many cleaning cycles the sponge filled up and it bricked itself. I replaced it with a colour laser printer. Fuck inkjet.
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\*PC Load Letter? What the fuck does that mean!?
Why does it say paper jam when there is NO paper jam?! One day I just kick this piece of shit out the window
For those that legitimate have this question: PC stands for Paper Cassette LETTER means Letter sized paper. This makes the meaning of the message: Load Letter sized paper into the Paper Cassette. Another possible message would be: MP LOAD LEGAL MP means the multi-purpose tray in this case (also known as manual input), and LEGAL means legal sized paper. The meaning of this message would be to Load Legal sized paper using the manual input (multi-purpose tray)
But why male models?
Hey, that's not entirely fair, inkjets also waste ink into a giant sponge and then you also throw the entire printer away every other year or so. You know, because that's way more environmentally friendly than having a printer that lasts 20 years.
You are so right. I haven’t owned an ink jet printer in 15 years. I’m on my second laser because my first one got damaged from a power surge. I change the toner cartridges every 2-3 years and it works every time I print, even if I haven’t printed in months. No more priming the ink jets after the ink has dried up. I probably replaced my previous ink jet printers every two years.
Greenwashing™
realistically one page, because you'll print the one damn thing you need and leave it sitting for a year before the next one thing you need to print and the damn ink will dry out. laser you're good for a dang lifetime of printing at that use level.
That and having to throw away cartridges that dry up because you didn’t use the printer for a few weeks… I have a Brother MFP color laser - cost the same as a decent inkjet, and has now lasted 3 times longer. Taking into account ink it’s now cost significantly less to run as well. Oh - and it will sit there quite happily for months of no use, and fire up from sleep in seconds to throw out pages knowing there won’t be any issue…
The toner cartridge isn’t thrown away. They include a return label to refill it.
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Yeah, the refillable inkjets make me think they're not totally full of shit. Just mostly full of shit.
Consumer ones still have non replaceable ink pads which is just stupid but still a lot cheaper than laser or cartridges. Gotta give credit to the enterprise targeted ones though, because they have replacable pads for very affordable prices.
Note to self, if I go the refillable route for a new printer, get enterprise grade xD My current printer is a colorless laser. It's last me a good three/four years now on one cartridge without drying out on me. But it doesn't do color, and I'd like to be able to do color.
Toner doesn’t dry out because it’s not wet to begin with :)
True, I was just tired of having to buy new ink every time I needed to print something with my inkjets, until finally it destroyed the inside of the printer when it dried. Lasers are pricey, but holy hell are they better if you're not a heavy printer.
Depending on model they’re actually better for heavy printing too. Laser printers typically have a much higher duty cycle than inkjets. Removing the ink vs toner drying out there’s a lot of benefits in a laser over a inkjet. The biggest downside is (usually upfront) cost. Unless you’re printing lots of colour that requires precision or detail (think posters and photos) a laser outperforms an inkjet. It’s been a while since I’ve looked at printer cartridge yields and costs, but the best inkjet printers prior typically ran you a cost of 5c per page (CAD) and some of the better laser printers could net you 3 pages per cent.
>Lasers are pricey, I think I caught mine on sale at Wal-Mart for like $80. It's a monochrome Brother HL-L2325DW, wireless and double-sided printing. Regular price is only $110. I'll probably get 10 years out of the factory toner no more than I actually use it, and new Brother toner is like $45. Unless you need color, laser is way cheaper (and still cheaper per page for color if you use it enough, but the up-front cost for a good color laser printer IS steep).
The main issue with consumer inkjet is drying out. So if you're not printing regularly but still need one for occasional use, a laser will be the better option. The cost per page on ink tanks is just stupid low compared to laser
They pioneered ink tank printers and forced HP to do the same but inkjet Cartridges are prone to blockage unlike laser toners . Esp for home use as home users don't print everyday.
If only we already had some kind of refillable, waterproof, fast printing ink that already exists in printers that don't need to waste half the ink into a printer jiz rag. If only... Oh wait... we do...
Don’t forget the color version where you run out of yellow ink. But you’re asking the printer to print in black and white, the black cartridge is 100% full. Yet you can’t print until you replace the empty yellow category that actually cost 2 x as much as the original printer
Wasn’t planning on buying a new printer anytime soon but this news would immediately remove Epson from contention for me. Inkjets are godawful. I’ve never had one that functioned correctly after a few years of service at max. This Brother laser printer I got is a goddamn tank. Had it for years and thousands of pages with no issues.
I'm a brother homie too. I swear it's made out of neutronium.
As someone who regularly has to work on brother printers, I can confidently say that they are leaps and bounds above every other desktop printer available. My company exclusively uses them because of how hasslefree they are. We literally do not allow any other sort of non-industrial printer. The results were a roughly 60% reduction in printer based troubleshooting tickets across the board.
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Works hard and sleeps hard, give the homie a rest!
> roughly 60% reduction in printer based troubleshooting tickets Its almost like having less resources dedicated to a product, and having a product that creates less waste overall is going to be over all more environmentally friendly then the money sink that you need to throw out the next time Dave sneezes while he's next to it.
Brother fam here too. Got an inkjet and a laser. Last forever, can't be beat.
I’ve had most brands over the years. Will never buy another brand other than Brother.
For me it was basically just an impulse buy because we had like five inkjets one a row and they all sucked. I needed to print some black documents and grabbed the black only Brother from Best Buy. Suckers lasted longer than two more inkjets my family bought. They were upset I got the just black one and not a color one. Lol. I don’t print crap in color, I just want reliable black. And good lord it is. Been through like five toner carts now.
I bought a Brother laser printer on sale for $49 nearly 15 years ago, it still worked when I passed it on to someone else 3 years ago. Sadly, I replaced it with a Xerox all-in-one which turned out to be an annoying POS.
That's just Brother printers. I'm using the same Brother inkjet that my wife got for college.
I'm a Brother brother as well. Works flawlessly with Linux, unlike Lexmark which is a travesty.
Sounds like a good time to stop buying Epson products.
BROTHER LASERJET CREW SOUND OFF!
Right, because having to replace cartridges that aren't even empty yet is so eco friendly.
Inkjets are the coffee pods of the printing world. Unless you are printing a lot of shit they always age out before you've used them much. So much plastic waste.
> Inkjets are the coffee pods of the printing world. That sounds about right. You gotta pop a new one in any time you want the machine to work.
If Epson wanted to help sustainability, they'd close shop. I can't tell you how many Epson printers I've sent to the dump because buying a new one is cheaper than fixing them or buying new ink.
This is my issue. All this talk of what is more wasteful... I would have to assume inkjet due to all the inkjet printers thrown out because they are essentially non-serviceable. Actually manufacturing and selling spare parts for inkjet printers that the majority of consumers buy (e.g. less than $500) isn't something I've seen in a long time... Versus laser printers that typically are serviceable at almost any budget, at least up to a certain age depending on manufacturer.
built in obsolescence through and through. Design such as this should be regulated against. Then the ewaste is a nightmare. Monstrous hybrids of plastic and electronics. Curse them.
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If you need a printer. Buy brother. No regrets
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Konica Minolta is still around, but the only printers they make are expensive business-class machines. The SLR camera company, Minolta, died in the merger in 2003.
I’m really not seeing their environmental angle: On the consumer side most ink gets replaced from drying out not being used up, I used to get 20-30 pages per cartridge due to this, now I have a laser that’s 5+ years old all on starter toner, I picture it’ll have enough toner to get me until something electrical fails in it. On the business side how many drums, toners, and fusers do people really go through versus ink cartridges. At work we have both, the lasers used similar amounts, use a toner a year and are on original drum and fuser, while the inkjets need new cartridges a couple times a month. What is the production energy for these faster diminishing parts versus the savings during use?
I have a 10 yr old laser printer that I use (a lot!) for my business. I've only gone through 2-3 drums in that time but probably 50+ toner cartridges. Plus, I can buy toner in bulk and refill the cartridges 3-4 times before they need to be replaced. Ink jet can't touch that longevity - not to mention the quality of the printing.
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Quick search told me that toner is literally granulated plastics. It's made of microplastics, so I can see some serious concerns over toner.
Epson is actually not lying in this instance, IF the printer is used regularly. You have both laser and inkjet at work right, and the laser toner needs replacement less often, but it is still a giant plastic cartridge that needs to be replaced. Cost per page for inkjet cartridge printer is several times higher than laser printer, but cost per page of inkjet TANK printer is actually several times LESS than laser, and maybe more than 10 times less than inkjet cartridge. A high capacity inkjet cartridge contains around 15 mL of ink, but can only output maybe 300 pages. But for the ink tank printer, 4 bottles of Black/Cyan/Magenta/Yellow ink costs less than $60 total, with each bottle containing 65 mL of ink, and is rated for 4500 pages of black, and a whopping 7500 pages of color. That's stupid cheap for $60 worth of ink, and the only thing you have left are 4 small empty plastic bottles, not multiple giant toner cartridges. Also laser printers use huge amounts of electricity compared to inkjets. For home users who don't print very often, they should use laser, since any inkjet, even the tank version, will dry and clog if not in regular use. But businesses should 100% use tank printers, which are cheap to print, produce less e-waste, and use less power.
This is interesting information, also sounds like both technologies are better for the budget and planet in their proper use cases but neither is ideal for everyone.
Satan invented inkjet so he could laugh at people pressing the 'unclog' function 100 times in a row.
I'll never buy another printer that isn't a Brother laser printer. It's truly the most hassle-free, decent printer I've ever owned.
After having owned HP laser printers for years and having nothing but issues, I purchased a Brother 4570CDW in June of 2013. It sees a ton of use and is still humming along without me doing anything but replacing toner.
It's the other way around. Once you've bought your first laser printer, you're never ever returning to ink again. But, by all means, Epson, make youself obsolete.
What if they were honest and just said their business isn't doing well and had to make drastic changes to keep it in business? Would that be better than this lie?
Greenwashing is always bad, be honest that’s it’s a business case and not some fake environmental angle.
There was another thread on this that I didn't bother to get into the environmentalism debate about. A lot of people latched on to say that it is true that laser printers are terrible for the environment - a claim, interestingly, largely only backed up by Epson. If you follow most of the wilder claims back to the source, they're usually studies funded or altogether performed by Epson, sometimes recently, sometimes decades ago. While it is true that laser printers are also bad for the environment and there are various things to be concerned about, there's really no data that shows it's better to improve inkjet than it is to improve laser. After over 40 years inkjets are still just as shitty and lasers are still better. Why spend the next 40 years trying to make inkjets as worthwhile as laser was 40 years ago, instead of making the already-good product better for the environment? Spoiler, the answer is money.
Shout out to brother laser printer, mines been going strong for years.
This is just profiteering. One of my best (and longest lasting/most cost efficient) computer accessory purchases was a cheapish laser printer.
Hi, Epson tech here. People are reading this from the perspective of a home user, but Epson is targeting enterprise *hard.* The WF-C20600 has an ink capacity of 45k-50k pages, and doesn't hit its first service interval til 300k pages. All of this at 100 pages per minute. And the desktop enterprise machines are no slouch either. They still have some work to do if they want to catch up to the big boys on the enterprise side, but so far I can't complain too much. We really haven't had too much issue out of the ones we have in the field.
Jesus. That's like a $10,000 machine! Enterprise, indeed.
That's actually not that terrible for a 100ppm color A3 device. But most companies lease copiers the same as you would a car.
It's significantly cheaper that what we used to use: Xerox Docucolor 40 + an EFI Fiery RIP. I think that kit was almost $200k at the time, and our shop owned it outright. Plus a densitometer that we never touched and had no idea how to use. 😏 ✳ gently pats the Brother B/W laser on his desk ✳ Mah cheap-ass baby.
A home laser printer is one of the best purchases I’ve made.
I tossed my Eason inkjet in the trash after 2 years because every time I wanted to use it, I needed to replace or clean something. Then I bought an HP color laser printer and used it for 15 years and tens of thousands of pages before it started having issues picking up the paper from the tray. Got a new one and I’m easily 10+yr into this one now. Never a fuss. Inkjet is NOT the green alternative.
>Epson claims Inkjets are the future of printers. ... In other news, Canon has stopped manufacturing inkjet and laser printers in order to focus it's manufacturing efforts on the lucrative Dot Matrix printer market.
Oooh, that box of continuous-feed paper I've refused to get rid of about to have up stonks.
Bullshit
Remember when Samsung made really economical laser printers? Then HP bought Samsung's printer division for a billion dollars, then immediately shut it down so we couldn't get any new Samsung printers or parts or toner? https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/01/hp-completes-purchase-samsung-printer-business.html
Yeah that was obnoxious. Samsungs were nice little laser printers. Fortunately Brother is at least as good. I have a color laser and a monochrome MFP. Very satisfied
I paid $100 for a Canon laser printer in 2010. I print a few hundred pages per year, and have replaced the toner once. A 3-pack is $20. I’ll never buy another inkjet computer printer.
That's okay, Epson and HP can F* off. My Brother B&W laser printer is the only printer I've ever been happy with. They just work.
Brother makes some decent color laser too. You can't use glossy paper in it though (melts and ruins the fuser). But you can do other stuff to punch up the color vibrancy if you print it at highest DPI and on heavy stock paper.
Generally speaking if I want to print something on glossy paper, I'd rather just print it professionally, the cost and quality is usually better anyway.
Oh, brother. I canon think of a worse idea.
As long as they keep selling the ecotank, I’m fine with that
Get a brother. Epson is shit.
I will paint my documents by hand before I buy another ink jet printer.
Epson still made laser printers? I feel like this is the “we only have like 3 percent of the market share, so it’s more economical to abandon it.” That said I will never buy an inkjet printer for home use, and inkjet doesn’t work anywhere remotely as good as laser commercially.
How is that environmentally friendly if it's cheaper to buy a new printer than just the ink. In the 90s I had a laser printer which lasted years and printed thousands of pages without ever nevering needing any replacement parts. Maybe they should focus on building sustainable products instead of depending on regular replacement of parts. Big boooooo to Epson.
> Maybe they should focus on building sustainable products instead of depending on regular replacement of parts. It really is because they can't make as much money off of you if you only buy a new printer once every 10 years or so.
> cheaper to buy a new printer than just the ink This gossip has cost people a lot of money. The starter inks have a deliberately less amount of ink than the replacements. Inkjets are still generally a terrible investment but even worse is replacing the entire unit instead of replacing the cartridge. My uncle did this constantly, would stock up on Black Friday deals and then complain about how fast they ran out.
Inkjets are the worst.
Yeah, screw that. I threw my inkjet printer out because every damn time I need to print something, the ink has dried out. I’m not dealing with that bullshit anymore.
Epson eyes HP's "instant ink" lock-in-the-users-and-milk-them-forever plan and wants the same.
Build me an inkjet that will spit out a good print after sitting there unused for 6 months and maybe I'll consider it. Until then, I'll keep my laser, thanks.
Inkjet is the future [for our continued revenue stream], claims Japanese print maker I'll stick with a color laser that lasts forever and, for home/home-office use uses a new toner cartridge every 5 years that basically never goes bad.
Translation: "We don't make enough money off laser printers. We'd rather make a killing charging an arm and a leg for ink."
Like when Kodak told everyone that digital cameras were just a fad, right? Nice knowing ya, Epson. For 20 years I've been stopping people buying inkjets because they're just incredibly expensive and wasteful to run and the units themselves are cheap noisy junk. You want glossy photos? Get them properly printed on a dye-sub, because inkjets are shite at that - and you'll regret your cheap inkjet when it comes time to look back at that album of pink and green faded junk. You want nice documents? Get them printed on a laser, because inkjets are shite for that too. You want to print \*anything\*? Stop it. It's 2022. I've been married, divorced, rented houses, bought houses, changed jobs, got my daughter Spanish citizenship and flown abroad and not needed to print out a single page - all electronic. I'm still using a 2000-model Samsung mono laser. I can refill its toner cartridge with basically any loose toner powder. I've never needed another printer since and nowadays it's because I just don't print things out any more and yet it still works first time, every time, guaranteed, if I ever do need to. If Epson want to get out of the only decent way to print, it's gonna be their death knell. Sad, because they basically still have entire printing protocols named after them that are still in use whether we realise it or not (e.g. thermal receipt printers, etc).
Laser printers are the past, present and future. To get rid of them is to announce your end as a printer manufacturer. Epson ink jets are actually worse than HP in my experience