BTW, I’ve had my Brother laser MFP for 11 years and still on the original toner.
Interestingly a Lemmy user in another thread has a very negative view of Brother because he only uses Brother cutting machines (for craft projects) and it’s filled with DRM and HP style lock in.
I do love my Brother:
And miss the ~2020 pricing! (But it should last a long time)
R.I.P. to my real brother though. Forever 29 because heroin.
As of this post, still happily using the initial starter toner ✅
Brother gets recommended a lot by virtue of being the least shitty option in the hellish wasteland of consumer/office printers. They aren’t perfect, but Brother printers have been the only option in the entire office to reliably print from a Linux computer over the network. Honestly, any day I don’t have to interact with a printer is a good day.
My father had a Brother laser printer. It outlived him. (…Anyway. Have you ever had to do Windows tech support for family? Not always nice. Ever had to do Windows printer tech support? Hoo boy. Ever had to do Windows printer tech support when the printer is hooked through a Centronics-to-USB adapter? Uggh. …though I was kind of surprised that Windows 10 still had built in drivers for the damn thing.)
Me, I bought a Canon laser which technically has Linux drivers but damn me if I ever got it to print more than the CUPS test page. …actually I’d rather not talk about CUPS. I have too many bad memories about it. (You can’t escape the Printer Madness just by using Linux, oh no.)
I’m a big proponent of buying government surplus office printers. I have this huge print center collater thing that came with more toner than I’ll ever use in my life. $55
Oh gods yes. Government surplus equipment is amazing when you can find it.
My state used to send all their decommissioned IT equipment to a warehouse where the public could buy it. It was a wonderland. My first few laptops all came from there (was poor and that was the only way I could afford one).
About 5 years ago, though, they stopped that and only send old furniture there. Anything electronic now goes to some 3rd party e-waste service where it probably ends up in a landfill in some poor country.
Brother printers are great. Probably the only decent printer brand for home usage. My university has free printing, and those are Canon printers. They seem to work fine, so I guess the commercial market is a little different.
Weirdly, my parents have this Samsung M2020W printer, and I gotta say, it’s pretty neat. Takes any off-brand toner cartridge. They only need a cartridge every year or so. It’s been 3+ years, but no problem so far. That might be an exceptional case, though.
I used to have a Samsung laser for quite a few years. Went through maybe three toner cartridges. Eventually it started slipping and I didn’t bother finding out if there’s a repair available and bought a brother laser instead. Worked pretty great otherwise.
Haven’t tried toner transfer on this, but regular printouts are fine and it’s much faster.
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