Ask HN: What home printer do you use/recommend?

20 points by niyazpk 9 days ago | 24 comments

I am in the market for a new printer, and thought I'd check with the HN crowd for some recommendations.

I hate my HP inkjet printer with a passion. Feels like the ink lasts less than 100 pages of light printing. And the ink is expensive.

I was under the impression that Brother was a good brand, but it seems they are also following the HP playbook.

What printer do you actually use? Would you recommend it for regular home printing (mostly b/w, occasional color printing. Scanning, copying, etc. would be ideal)?

panny 9 days ago |

Like any good linux user, I have the "brother whatever-it-is"

https://www.theverge.com/23642073/best-printer-2023-brother-...

kevinherron 8 days ago |

Brother MFC-L3750CDW

No issues. I'm not sure the brand/model is super important - what's important is that you cough up for a laser printer and get the hell away from inkjet.

helterskelter 9 days ago |

Can't say I've had an issue with my Brother. Works great with Linux and ink is available at the office supply store.

vpfaiz 9 days ago | |

I used to have one Brother mode, sold it for $50 after long battle with ink drains. It will sneakily drain the ink cleaning the print head at midnight. I had to keep it off. Then they have chips inside the cartridge to prove authenticity of cartridge!! When the printer itself is cheaper than the cartridge, its almost always is a scam in my personal experience.

Get an EPSON tank printer, or a laser..

helterskelter 9 days ago | | |

Yeah I've got a Brother laser printer, never had an issue. Maybe it's just the inkjets?

theandrewbailey 9 days ago |

Color laser printer. I've had a Canon image class model since the pandemic, and its worked great every time I've had to use it (about 10 pages per year). The ink can't dry out because it's already dried out: it's supposed to be dry.

Most people are in for a bad time with inkjet printers. Can't say I've ever had a positive experience with one long term.

Now that my day job is e-waste recycling, I sometimes list color laser printers on Facebook Marketplace. Maybe check there. Decent ones with a few hundred estimated pages worth of toner left should go for about $100, maybe more with a scanner.

Dracophoenix 5 days ago | |

What model number? How color accurate is your printer for photos?

aprdm 9 days ago |

Staples. I have a broken Canon now and before had a broken HP. Both were dirty cheap. I imagine how much the environment suffers from broken printers alone.

I am not buying a new one. Only going to stores to print.

dhruvkar 9 days ago |

Brother black and white laser printer

brother-usa.com/products/hll2460dw

I have one personally and installed it in many a home and business

al_borland 9 days ago |

I have a small HP laser printer (the M15w).

I don’t do much printing, so I wanted a laser to avoid the issues I’d have from infrequent inkjet use.

I mainly chose it for the small size, I don’t think I’d actually recommend it. The setup process was not good. I tried to set it up using my computer and after several hours I didn’t get anywhere. I was about to return it, but as a last ditch effort I installed HP’s app on my phone, and was setup in 5 minutes. Needing a phone to setup a printer, because their desktop methods didn’t work, was very frustrating. I get that a lot of things are “mobile first” now, but for a printer that feels extremely wrong.

For occasional scanning, I just use my phone these days.

kevinsync 8 days ago |

Also a Brother laser user here (HL-L2340D) -- it's single-function, so not gonna do color, scanning, copying, etc, but it's been a beast for workhorse black and white printing. Unsure about other models, but also worth mentioning that this hunk of junk is more than happy to use generic TN660 toner cartridges from Amazon with no problems, as well as a generic DR630 replacement drum.

elevation 8 days ago |

I have exclusively printed from Ubuntu, I currently use a Dell C1765 color laser.

I also use a Brother HL-2170W, but I was unable to enable network printing on this device without first attaching it to a windows machine via USB and running the brother utility.

I print infrequently enough that inkjets would essentially be one-time-use, as the nozzles would completely dry up before I could use it again. So Laser is the best option.

khurs 8 days ago |

I have a Canon laser printer. The shop wanted to sell me another brand as was cheaper to run, but I explained I wanted that one as it had a fast 'time to first print'. As like you I only print occasionally so want to turn on the printer and get it out asap.

A lot of printing in the e-commerce days are postage labels. So if you print a lot of them, also get a cheap label printer.

sergiotapia 9 days ago |

brother laser printer. never "dries" and prints many many pages. last time we bought a refill was about 2 years ago with 3 school age kids.

fdgwhite 8 days ago |

The cheap indestructible monochrome Brother laser printer. I only print a few pages per month these days

cpach 7 days ago |

Brother HL-L2350DW (monochrome). Those things are very reliable.

jotux 2 days ago | |

I've had a Brother HL-L2340DW for 10 years now.

memcg 8 days ago |

I have an HP LaserJet 6P that I purchased new in 1996 and it has a page count of 53740. For color, I have FedX Kinkos and Staples nearby.

atmanactive 9 days ago |

Brother.

karakoram 9 days ago |

Not exactly sure of brand/model but can't go wrong with any decent Ink Tank Printer.

leros 8 days ago | |

They dry up in unrepairable ways if you don't use them often enough.

qsera 9 days ago |

EPSON L3211 Multifunction Ink Tank, works well in Linux

farseer 8 days ago |

An old HP P2055dn with Chinese toner

saluki 6 days ago |

Brother Laser B&W