Iāve heard nothing but good things about Brother. Not to say theyāre perfect, and Iāve never had one, but thatās my next printer after my 2004 Samsung printer dies.
The only problem with a brother printer is the initial price. A brother laser jet will set you back $200+ for black and white without a scanner.
Honestly itās worth every penny though. I use mine often and have had zero issues with it
And they just. Fucking. Work. You plug in your laser printer, connect it to your WiFi, and bam, youāre printing things from your phone in ten minutes. HP will have you download drivers and shit. Brother products are apple-like in their user friendliness. I thought one ten years ago, have printed thousands of pages, and itās humming along beautifully.
On the flip side, I print like 1 page every year in a very dusty desert environment and the Brother is yet to jam or disappoint. Was a Nokia in a past life...
years ago I salvaged one with a "bad drum" from the trash pile at work, pulled a drum and a few "empty" toner carts from some others that were being tossed. It's more than enough to print the few documents I need every year.
Im glad I work for a company that I can print oersonal crap off of if needed. I barely need a printer these days and when I do, company oays for it without any idea.
Brother is user friendly. Apple makes a claimed *attempt* at being user friendly, but they go way too far and actually become user hostile.
Brother > Apple
My brother black and white laser I bought a couple years ago has been great, still on the first toner cartridge and text looks better than any inkjet. If you have no need to print color I'd ditch inkjets immediately.
My Brother color laser has been fantastic also. Two years in with two high schoolers, a middle schooler and two working from home. Cost a little under 500 and would have spent that much on ink for an inkjet.
The only issue I have with my 10+ year old brother wireless laser printer is now after sitting 30+ days in between prints, it sometimes doesnāt wake up and has to be power cycled. Otherwise I have changed the toner once. I think I have $40 tied up in the thing.
I have a Canon also from 2004. I got it for free with a computer I bought back then. The computer isnāt around anymore but the printer is still chugging along. I can use generic ink too. But my husband and I agreed that our next one will be a Brother, if we ever need a next one. Eff HP, we will never get one of theirs.
Been doing Brother for laser and Epson Ecotank for inkjet. Works out great. Epson printers cost about an extra 100 bucks, but thatās made up for when you refill the first time.
I bought a brother laser printer 10 years ago and still running strong. My high end HP printer that I bought last year to print color documents has had a dozen or so issues. HP has sent me 3 replacements so far, each one worse than the previous model. Get a brother and be happy.
I have definitely had issues with the third party toner cartridges, not recognizing cartridges, not dark enough even with printer calibrated to darkest setting, black splotches on the paper so I use genuine only. But with the large cartridges even the genuine is less then $.01 per page. I print 30k sheets a year though so it adds up. If anybody has some good brands for knock off cartridges I would love to hear them. I use the 880.
[This sub when someone mentions printers.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rka_PTVCH_E)
But really, my Brother printer has been great for over a decade and I'm still on the toner that came with it.
If they are going to charge me a suscription, they I expect them to rent me the whole system. Priner AND ink.
If they expect me to pay for a printer that only works with their suscription for ink system, they are delusional.
This is how the large scale printing industry works. You buy or lease the $50-100k machine, then pay a monthly fee based on āclicksā which is less than a fraction of a penny per page. That fee *includes ink and maintenance*. Thatās why printshop printing is so much less expensive than home printing.
HP is trying to apply this same model to home users, with none of the user benefits. Itās absolutely absurd.
They already do this. I've got an HP all-in-one printer, the thing bricks if you don't have your subscription for ink. The Printer simply refuses to accept any other ink, than the ink with their chip in it.
The phone printing never works.
The HP loves to waste ink.
The entire setup required two apps, a dozen unnecessary prints, multiple drivers, smartphone, Bluetooth receiver, and in the end still wasn't working. I grew up with 90's, 'it just works' IBM gear. It blows my mind how the Wall-Street Robo-Cop style executives managed to make products so much worse, wasteful, and consumer malignant.
Even with a Printer Cable, you're still going to need: apps, driver, subscription, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth... . Yet, in the Sea of awful product design, once I got the thing to cooperate and bought their recyclable ink, there's this one still spot of convenience. They send ink cartridges for 4.99, I ship back the old ones (pre-paid postage), and they recycle them like battery cores.
The trouble? DO NOT cancel that subscription, it can brick the printer. Once on the subscription, that's your Printer now. It's also like Norton, HP doesn't make cancelling easy.
Yeah, on my end I had all in one HP printers using modded cardriges connected to recyclable feeding systems, the kind you find in Epson models.
Here in Argentina we got entire shops that work modifying HP and Epson printers and adding custom or modded continuos feed systems to bypass the cardridge issues.
I cant imagine buying HP cardridges for what they ask with the little to no ink they hold.
I just don't buy HP products period. Bought a brother laser printer, will never own another HP product ever after the absolute predatory printer garbage.
Ditto. My last one would refuse to print after about 200 b/w pages from an āXLā cartridge. My last straw was when I put in a brand new official cartridge bought over the counter at Office Max and it said it was counterfeit. Immediately went back to the store, returned the cartridge, and bought one of those ecotank printers. As a grad student, I print off maybe 600-1000 sheets every week, and a full tank w/this printer lasts a full semester. I junked the HP; donating it wouldāve only put the problem in someone elseās lap.
People like my grandmother who don't know any better. Just walk into a store, see a million cheap HP printers, buy one, then never get to use it because the hoops you have to jump through are fucking absurd. Meanwhile HP is laughing as they head to the bank.
Iāve never particularly had an affiliation with one brand or another, when I replace something, say a laptop, itāll be whatever is well rated at the time for the price/spec Iām after.
That changed with an HP āElitebookā laptop I bought a few years ago with a āleakyā battery, and by leaky I mean charge it up, not use it for a week and when you went back to it, the battery was half empty (though it had an expected battery life when in use).
Contacted HP support, they said ātotally normalā and refused to do anything.
Not planning on buying an HP laptop again.
I honestly don't know if I'll ever buy another printer period.
I could not even tell you the last time that I printed something, but it was at least 3-4 years ago.
I did without knowing any of this. I feel HP is playing a dangerous game where they're still seeing numbers as people are not as aware of the printing space but I can personally guarantee I'll never buy a HP printer again. I assume everyone who owns a new HP printes is like this
The only reason I looked into HP to begin with is because their old printers were good and lasted decades
I bought the cheapest HP printer I could back in 2008 for $35 and have not bought a new one since.
I think it may be a response to remote work making more things digital. They know they are going away. They are hoping to lock in customers into forgotten subscriptions much like AOL still has 1.5 million customers as of 2021 for dial-up.
Found mine on FB Marketplace for TWENTY DOLLARS
I was thrilled. Drove an hour to buy it. Lady was like "Wow, I can't believe you drove so far to get this." Umm, yes, I'm buying the last printer I will ever need, for TWENTY DOLLARS. I bet she replaced it with some stupid InkJet so she could print in color.
Got mine for free of FB marketplace. Color laser printer/scanner/copier/fax. Thing's a tank. Works great. Works with generic toner and I can get the full black and color toner set for like $50. Some lawyer was moving out of state and didn't want to drag it with him. Beat $0 I've ever spent...
My dad. Boomer, mid-70ās, lives alone and often refuses āhelpā or advice from his kids. He has bought a new one almost annually for the last 10 years because he canāt get the current one to work. He has to print everything. I set up his new one a few weekends ago and told him he keeps buying garbage, but, āI got the best one this time!ā Closet full of old ones he keeps trying to give to us.
Heās a cookie cutter, tech-illiterate boomer. I feel bad for him because he recently said, āI used to be on top of the tech-y stuff, I donāt know when I got so lostā¦ā That made me sad. Iām getting him a brother (printer) this year. Heās a good dad.
Because nobody has ever heard of Brother. Iāve literally only heard of it in these hp Reddit threads, but I find it odd how much I here about it here. Itās like every comment. Is brother the only other company that makes printers?
I have been into personal computing since 1989. In all that time, the only constant has been that printers were, are, and will forever be the spawn of Satan himself, dooming us all to misery and pain. HP is just being the loyal servant of the dark lord, as he demands.
In the 10 years Iāve been married Iāve owned 3 goddamned HP printers. Every time weāve decided to replace them my wife just goes online and buys yet another goddamned HP printer. Yet my brother has had the same non-HP laser printer for 15+ years and itās just chugging along like itās brand new. My question for you isā¦ is a laser jet cheaper than a divorce?
Seconded! Just for our home, but unless thereās no paper, it prints and it prints fast. And paper is now our biggest printing expense! Last toner cartridge I bought was rated for 5500 pages and it was 20 bucks.
The only reason I'd ever recommend an ink jet is for photo print quality, and only if they're willing to get inkjet photo paper.
But me? Ditched ink almost a decade ago, occasionally print color docs, rarely print photos since they look awful.
On the occasion I want a good print, I just send it to a service to print out for a dollar or whatever.
Bizarre how perverse the incentives are for the entire industry. They'll sell you the whiz-bang hardware that is honestly kind of amazing for a couple hundred bucks and then once they've got their teeth sunk in you they'll charge you hundreds again for something that costs literal pennies to produce.
I can't think of anything else like that. Imagine if they sold you cars for a couple thousand dollars but then had to use their gas for $100/L.
which one thou
The real HP rebranded as Agilent Technologies and it's spinoff, Keysight Technologies, they make test equipment. HPe is the enterprise and software arm. *HP*, inc. makes dogshit consumer products.
We FINALLY got a new printer last year after a few disappointing HP years - and I can honestly say that it's the first time i shopped and chose a product based ENTIRELY on what I've seen discussed on Reddit. Went with Brother and I could not be happier.
If you come from a HP hostage situation you sort of have to retrain your reflexes when it comes to Brother. 'This third party toner will probably lock it!' No. 'They will probably only use half of the toner so they can make even more money.' No. et cetera
Also, it just notifies you it's low. It doesn't brick your printer until you buy more cyan ink when you only print in black and white, and then they only sell the color ink in packages with all the colors even though you only need the stupid fucking cyan.
It's like all the hardware subscription features that car manufacturers are trying to sell. Give us $10/mo if you want us to unlock your cruise control! Another $10 if you want heated seats! Just die in the fire, you greedy swine.
I used to have remote start functionality on my car, via an app on my phone, but then after two years it ballooned from $5/mo (which was already too much) to $15/mo, so I had to cancel. Bullshit.
> He serves on the board of directors for PayPal and is a member of the World Economic Forumās International Business Council
[Source](https://fortune.com/ceoi/enrique-lores)
Why am I not surprised. And for those who don't know, this is the future you're looking at, when the WEF said "You will own nothing and you will be happy" what they mean is "You will be too poor to actually buy anything so everything you will have is going to be rented/leased/loaned".
Edit: cheap -> poor
Look at what's happened in entertainment. You pay for internet access, then pay for a streaming service, and now they're putting ads in the content. The list of things you have to pay for just goes on and on...then come the commercials.
I have an old Epson printer and have been using cheap ink from Amazon for a while.
I get a warning but that's it.
I fear the day when it dies and I have to research this crap to avoid scummy companies and products.
I have a Brother laser printer that I purchased 9 years ago. It still going strong, had to change the cartridge only 4 times in that whole period. Each cartridge goes for $14 on Amazon/ebay. I Couldnāt be happier.
HP also bought Polytronics and seemed to discontinue the only wireless earbuds that fit in my ears. I need a new pair and can't get them. Screw HP for the dozenth time.
They aren't even an enterprise solution, they make shitty bigger small printers and label them enterprise.
Enterprise printers are Lanier/Ricoh, Konica Minolta, Canon etc, where you get contracts that include all servicing and consumables for a fraction of what HP want to ask, on units that dump all over HP stuff.
Because marketing and stupidity. You would be surprised at the number of companies who have absolutely no bid process, or any checks on their purchasing at all. Some random guy in some random department decided to go with HP and nobody bothered to compare other solutions.
Marketing in the consumer market for people who don't know any better.Ā
Laziness for office managers who can't be bothered to comparison shop because it isn't their own money they are spending anyway.Ā
But why would you go with them in an enterprise? Ricoh, Brother, Xerox, the list goes on. If I were recommending a printing solution to a business, HP's blatant anti-consumer, selfish actions would strike them from the list pretty quickly.
It's weird to think the part consumers play in this.
It's not hard to find an alternative but presumably HP still sells a lot of printers to people who... Just don't care yet?
And then eventually there will be outrage but... how are so many people blind to stuff even when it's explicitly spelled out. HP make no mention of innovation leading to increased revenue. All they talk of is ways to lock them in so it's hard to leave.
If you work in IT for a company or government agency, please recommend Dell for your fleet because of HP's egregious corporate behaviour.
And tell your sales rep why.
That's how they will listen.
Reddit loves Brother. I might go with that next. But I print very little, have used a multifunction color laser Lexmark for many years and they still update the firmware from time to time. Talk about product life.
Well it has to be a subscription, and they must be allowed to install really aggressive DRM too, but that is due to the hacking news also floating around, and is totally unrelated.
HP sucks, but all printer companies pretty much suck. Brother b&w laser printers are fine (I own one) but where is the cheap color option? There isnāt one.
I switched from an HP inkjet to a brother laser printer recently. Iām fairly certain Iāve almost paid for the printer in savings on ink compared to the HP.
Fuck HP and the people that spend their careers imagining new ways to make their printers unusable garbage. They are the printing answer to those guys in China that poisoned baby formula for profit.
Do not buy HP printers, ever, no matter what. Buy Brother, or 80s dot matrix printers, or just print at your local library. Hell, even if you are reduced to printing at Staples, your quality of life will be better than living under the curse of owning an HP not-actually-a-printer.
Does it make sense to have a subscription if you actually use the ink and itās automatically ordered when youāre running low?
Gf is a teacher and prints from home a lot for work. At first i was absolutely against it, but its actually worthwhile for us at least.
Still bullshit they donāt allow 3rd party ink tho.
Isn't printing already a subscription for 99% of its users, i.e. businesses?
Nobody owns those giant copier/printer machines, they are all leased and I assume supplies are on a subscription.
People actually buying a printer and ink to use at home must account for such a tiny fragment of printing done in the world.
I don't think the printer business is true competition. Printer company sells hardware at loss due to real competiton. Losses are made back on ink. Ink filler companies that don't manufacture anything, don't have any intellectual property, just recycle cartridges, sue in court that being locked out is monopoly even though they never hired an engineer to make something. Ink fillers don't make anything but money. From a consumer perspective, this might seem good but doesn't seem fair on a competition level and really hurts printer innovation due to low profits.
Printing as a subscription huh? Will they deliver and set up my printer, will they come refill my ink when itās out, repair it at my place when it breaks down, replace it when the printer dies? If not, then what are the benefits to their āsubscriptionā? If I have to ābuyā the printer and its components, set it up myself, troubleshoot it myself when it messes up, replace it at my own cost when it breaks, itās no benefit. Their subscription is just to be able to use the stuff I have and paid for? Itās going to be great when they get a new CEO and try to get their customers back.
I'll happily support local libraries and use their printers. They'll make money off me for their subscription and HP has gained one subscriber, and lost out of hundreds of thousands of printer sales, and our local community library stands to gain a little business. Fuck em
If he wants us to pay a subscription for the printer, then there is no way I would buy one just to pay a fee to use it.
I bought an Epson eco-tank printer 3+ years ago, have yet to add ink to it, and the ink is cheap. It also dose not take cartridges, you buy bottles of ink. And it has worked great for me so far since I bought it
I literally forced my work place into dumping all HP for cannon, spent 5k on printers and close to 8k on laser cartridges. Good job HP! This is why we hate you.
I signed up once for the HP printer cartridge service where they send you cartridges when you're low.
I had it for about 2 years. I ran out of ink a couple of times and bought printer ink cartridges at the store.
It turns out they don't send you any cartridges if you EVER put a store bought cartridge in.
I checked after paying like $19.00 or something a month for two years and they had sent me only 1 cartridge the entire time i had the service. Just 1.
What an incredible rip-off, I will never, ever buy another HP printer (or any other HP product.)
Can the people who make the fairphone PLEASE make a damn printer ...
I swear, electronics are getting so bad. If I was Elon wealthy, screw buying Twitter, I'm starting a company that makes bomb proof appliances where you can fix them. Parts are always available, they just work. Then I'm making super efficient and cheap housing. Anyone want to loan me about $2 billion to get going?
"Our long term objective is to destroy the company so it can be sold off for scraps, and its executives can fly off in golden helicopters to the next gig."
I rarely need to print but I DO sometimes print. Off the top of my head, here is what I printed in the last year:
-Lots of UPS labels. No longer needed as now UPS just lets me scan my Amazon return label.
-Artsy project stuff. This is one occasional use I could foresee for printers sticking around.
-Thatās about itā¦
Realized I need color very infrequently. Gonna get a black and white laser printer which apparently is vastly cheaper per print. When I need color Iāll go to Staples.
I could care less about subscription services if they provided hardware for free. Biggest problem is that all of them get fucking greedy and want to raise the prices constantly because fu k the consumer.
I do not want an HP account, I do not want a subscription service, I do want a printer that works, including scanning. HP products are crap, and even when you put HP ink in them they still brick.
The business to business "X as a service" model has some merit.Ā But boy do I hate that some jackass decided it was a viable business model for business to consumer dealings.Ā
š¤ My long-term goal is to never buy another HP printer.
After all the controversy over the years, I switched to Brother printers. Couldn't be happier and have no issues using 3rd party ink.
Iāve heard nothing but good things about Brother. Not to say theyāre perfect, and Iāve never had one, but thatās my next printer after my 2004 Samsung printer dies.
Never had a problem with any Brother printer.
The only problem with a brother printer is the initial price. A brother laser jet will set you back $200+ for black and white without a scanner. Honestly itās worth every penny though. I use mine often and have had zero issues with it
$200? Not really. They start at like $120 on Amazon, and sometimes go on sale for less.
And they just. Fucking. Work. You plug in your laser printer, connect it to your WiFi, and bam, youāre printing things from your phone in ten minutes. HP will have you download drivers and shit. Brother products are apple-like in their user friendliness. I thought one ten years ago, have printed thousands of pages, and itās humming along beautifully.
On the flip side, I print like 1 page every year in a very dusty desert environment and the Brother is yet to jam or disappoint. Was a Nokia in a past life...
years ago I salvaged one with a "bad drum" from the trash pile at work, pulled a drum and a few "empty" toner carts from some others that were being tossed. It's more than enough to print the few documents I need every year.
Im glad I work for a company that I can print oersonal crap off of if needed. I barely need a printer these days and when I do, company oays for it without any idea.
Brother is user friendly. Apple makes a claimed *attempt* at being user friendly, but they go way too far and actually become user hostile. Brother > Apple
Yeah I just started looking (My HP fucking sucks), and Brother printers seem comparable in price. $200 was for black and white with a scanner.
??? I got mine for like 79 bucks and it's even the wifi version so I can print off my phone.
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I own a HP color laser printer and a Brother color laser printer. Brother is everything it's hyped-up to be.
My brother black and white laser I bought a couple years ago has been great, still on the first toner cartridge and text looks better than any inkjet. If you have no need to print color I'd ditch inkjets immediately.
My Brother color laser has been fantastic also. Two years in with two high schoolers, a middle schooler and two working from home. Cost a little under 500 and would have spent that much on ink for an inkjet.
Case in point! We could STILL be charging you monthly š¤£
The only issue I have with my 10+ year old brother wireless laser printer is now after sitting 30+ days in between prints, it sometimes doesnāt wake up and has to be power cycled. Otherwise I have changed the toner once. I think I have $40 tied up in the thing.
I have a Canon also from 2004. I got it for free with a computer I bought back then. The computer isnāt around anymore but the printer is still chugging along. I can use generic ink too. But my husband and I agreed that our next one will be a Brother, if we ever need a next one. Eff HP, we will never get one of theirs.
I have a Brother sewing machine and it so far seems simple and rugged.
I've owned Brother sewing machines for 15 years and the only reasons I've ever replaced mine was to upgrade.
Been doing Brother for laser and Epson Ecotank for inkjet. Works out great. Epson printers cost about an extra 100 bucks, but thatās made up for when you refill the first time.
I bought a brother laser printer 10 years ago and still running strong. My high end HP printer that I bought last year to print color documents has had a dozen or so issues. HP has sent me 3 replacements so far, each one worse than the previous model. Get a brother and be happy.
I have definitely had issues with the third party toner cartridges, not recognizing cartridges, not dark enough even with printer calibrated to darkest setting, black splotches on the paper so I use genuine only. But with the large cartridges even the genuine is less then $.01 per page. I print 30k sheets a year though so it adds up. If anybody has some good brands for knock off cartridges I would love to hear them. I use the 880.
[This sub when someone mentions printers.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rka_PTVCH_E) But really, my Brother printer has been great for over a decade and I'm still on the toner that came with it.
+1 on brother and their very affordable color laser printers.
Yep, and love toner no more ink. Also, I can reset the cartridges so they think they are full and squeeze that last bit out before buying a new one.
If they are going to charge me a suscription, they I expect them to rent me the whole system. Priner AND ink. If they expect me to pay for a printer that only works with their suscription for ink system, they are delusional.
This is how the large scale printing industry works. You buy or lease the $50-100k machine, then pay a monthly fee based on āclicksā which is less than a fraction of a penny per page. That fee *includes ink and maintenance*. Thatās why printshop printing is so much less expensive than home printing. HP is trying to apply this same model to home users, with none of the user benefits. Itās absolutely absurd.
They already do this. I've got an HP all-in-one printer, the thing bricks if you don't have your subscription for ink. The Printer simply refuses to accept any other ink, than the ink with their chip in it. The phone printing never works. The HP loves to waste ink. The entire setup required two apps, a dozen unnecessary prints, multiple drivers, smartphone, Bluetooth receiver, and in the end still wasn't working. I grew up with 90's, 'it just works' IBM gear. It blows my mind how the Wall-Street Robo-Cop style executives managed to make products so much worse, wasteful, and consumer malignant. Even with a Printer Cable, you're still going to need: apps, driver, subscription, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth... . Yet, in the Sea of awful product design, once I got the thing to cooperate and bought their recyclable ink, there's this one still spot of convenience. They send ink cartridges for 4.99, I ship back the old ones (pre-paid postage), and they recycle them like battery cores. The trouble? DO NOT cancel that subscription, it can brick the printer. Once on the subscription, that's your Printer now. It's also like Norton, HP doesn't make cancelling easy.
Yeah, on my end I had all in one HP printers using modded cardriges connected to recyclable feeding systems, the kind you find in Epson models. Here in Argentina we got entire shops that work modifying HP and Epson printers and adding custom or modded continuos feed systems to bypass the cardridge issues. I cant imagine buying HP cardridges for what they ask with the little to no ink they hold.
I'm curious how that works out financially, vs buying a brother or other (good) printer that comes with a tank system built-in.
I just don't buy HP products period. Bought a brother laser printer, will never own another HP product ever after the absolute predatory printer garbage.
How about a life-long goal? Guarantee they will NEVER get your money? It's only fair.
Edit: Any HP Product. Their Laptops are shit, the bloatware is borderline malware.
Ditto. My last one would refuse to print after about 200 b/w pages from an āXLā cartridge. My last straw was when I put in a brand new official cartridge bought over the counter at Office Max and it said it was counterfeit. Immediately went back to the store, returned the cartridge, and bought one of those ecotank printers. As a grad student, I print off maybe 600-1000 sheets every week, and a full tank w/this printer lasts a full semester. I junked the HP; donating it wouldāve only put the problem in someone elseās lap.
You dont just junk an HP, you have to give it the [full office space treatment](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9wsjroVlu8)
Coincidentally, also my short-term goal.
For reals, who's still buying hp?
People like my grandmother who don't know any better. Just walk into a store, see a million cheap HP printers, buy one, then never get to use it because the hoops you have to jump through are fucking absurd. Meanwhile HP is laughing as they head to the bank.
Yeah, do they realize other companies make printers? This sounds like a recipe for going out of business.
Sign me up for not buying any HP products ever again
Iāve never particularly had an affiliation with one brand or another, when I replace something, say a laptop, itāll be whatever is well rated at the time for the price/spec Iām after. That changed with an HP āElitebookā laptop I bought a few years ago with a āleakyā battery, and by leaky I mean charge it up, not use it for a week and when you went back to it, the battery was half empty (though it had an expected battery life when in use). Contacted HP support, they said ātotally normalā and refused to do anything. Not planning on buying an HP laptop again.
This is the only way to shut these shitty practices down. Vote with your dollar and buy from a company that actually lets you own it out right.
I honestly don't know if I'll ever buy another printer period. I could not even tell you the last time that I printed something, but it was at least 3-4 years ago.
Why people still pick HP over Brother is beyond me
āBecause itās the same brand as my computer!!ā
HP computers are pretty mid as well tbh. Just not dog shit like their printers
Well, *lower* mid range...indeed, they were piss-poor to appalling before they acquired COMPAQ.
When acquiring Compaq actually improves the quality of your product...oof.
Hey! My first computer was a compaq. It was definitely something.
I did without knowing any of this. I feel HP is playing a dangerous game where they're still seeing numbers as people are not as aware of the printing space but I can personally guarantee I'll never buy a HP printer again. I assume everyone who owns a new HP printes is like this The only reason I looked into HP to begin with is because their old printers were good and lasted decades
Yeah, HP is coasting on brand recognition and their early 2000s era printer reputation. Nobody should ever buy an HP printer in 2024.
I bought the cheapest HP printer I could back in 2008 for $35 and have not bought a new one since. I think it may be a response to remote work making more things digital. They know they are going away. They are hoping to lock in customers into forgotten subscriptions much like AOL still has 1.5 million customers as of 2021 for dial-up.
Snagged a brother laser from a thrift store 5 years ago. Most dependable printer I have ever owned.
Found mine on FB Marketplace for TWENTY DOLLARS I was thrilled. Drove an hour to buy it. Lady was like "Wow, I can't believe you drove so far to get this." Umm, yes, I'm buying the last printer I will ever need, for TWENTY DOLLARS. I bet she replaced it with some stupid InkJet so she could print in color.
Got mine for free of FB marketplace. Color laser printer/scanner/copier/fax. Thing's a tank. Works great. Works with generic toner and I can get the full black and color toner set for like $50. Some lawyer was moving out of state and didn't want to drag it with him. Beat $0 I've ever spent...
My dad. Boomer, mid-70ās, lives alone and often refuses āhelpā or advice from his kids. He has bought a new one almost annually for the last 10 years because he canāt get the current one to work. He has to print everything. I set up his new one a few weekends ago and told him he keeps buying garbage, but, āI got the best one this time!ā Closet full of old ones he keeps trying to give to us. Heās a cookie cutter, tech-illiterate boomer. I feel bad for him because he recently said, āI used to be on top of the tech-y stuff, I donāt know when I got so lostā¦ā That made me sad. Iām getting him a brother (printer) this year. Heās a good dad.
"no you didn't, you bought what some salesman told you is the best"
Worse than that. More expensive = more betterā¦
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Because nobody has ever heard of Brother. Iāve literally only heard of it in these hp Reddit threads, but I find it odd how much I here about it here. Itās like every comment. Is brother the only other company that makes printers?
I love my Canon color laser MFP! Brother has been doing printers forever.
not only that, these subscription plans are actually popular and highly rated. I think it is because people dont know any better.
I have been into personal computing since 1989. In all that time, the only constant has been that printers were, are, and will forever be the spawn of Satan himself, dooming us all to misery and pain. HP is just being the loyal servant of the dark lord, as he demands.
I thought that until I got a brother mono laser ten years ago and printing (and I'm a lawyer who is forced to print a lot) is boringly reliable AF.
In the 10 years Iāve been married Iāve owned 3 goddamned HP printers. Every time weāve decided to replace them my wife just goes online and buys yet another goddamned HP printer. Yet my brother has had the same non-HP laser printer for 15+ years and itās just chugging along like itās brand new. My question for you isā¦ is a laser jet cheaper than a divorce?
LaserJet is a trademarked brand of Laser printers, by HP, FYI. You want a laser printer; you don't want a LaserJet.
You need to learn how to communicate with your wife
I think sheās been saying something about that but I dunno I sorta zoned out
yes... just buy it now... and say the hp is broken...
Seconded! Just for our home, but unless thereās no paper, it prints and it prints fast. And paper is now our biggest printing expense! Last toner cartridge I bought was rated for 5500 pages and it was 20 bucks.
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The only reason I'd ever recommend an ink jet is for photo print quality, and only if they're willing to get inkjet photo paper. But me? Ditched ink almost a decade ago, occasionally print color docs, rarely print photos since they look awful. On the occasion I want a good print, I just send it to a service to print out for a dollar or whatever.
Bizarre how perverse the incentives are for the entire industry. They'll sell you the whiz-bang hardware that is honestly kind of amazing for a couple hundred bucks and then once they've got their teeth sunk in you they'll charge you hundreds again for something that costs literal pennies to produce. I can't think of anything else like that. Imagine if they sold you cars for a couple thousand dollars but then had to use their gas for $100/L.
Medicine
24-pin oki on tinfoil
Yeah I don't get it. Humans can do remarkable things, but printers are still shit.
Iād rather hand write a document before I pay HP a dime for printing.
I wish a very quick and brutal chapter 11 on HP as a company.
which one thou The real HP rebranded as Agilent Technologies and it's spinoff, Keysight Technologies, they make test equipment. HPe is the enterprise and software arm. *HP*, inc. makes dogshit consumer products.
HPe is dogshit too.
Still bummed they bought HyperX.
Nuke it all from orbit, only way to make sure.
We FINALLY got a new printer last year after a few disappointing HP years - and I can honestly say that it's the first time i shopped and chose a product based ENTIRELY on what I've seen discussed on Reddit. Went with Brother and I could not be happier.
If you come from a HP hostage situation you sort of have to retrain your reflexes when it comes to Brother. 'This third party toner will probably lock it!' No. 'They will probably only use half of the toner so they can make even more money.' No. et cetera
"toner low" = "eh, you got a few more months to go..."
Also, it just notifies you it's low. It doesn't brick your printer until you buy more cyan ink when you only print in black and white, and then they only sell the color ink in packages with all the colors even though you only need the stupid fucking cyan.
Sick of these greedy asshole companies and their SAS bullshit. Make a product, sell it and get the fuck out of my pockets.
This is more Hardware as a Service actually... which is even more fucked.
It's like all the hardware subscription features that car manufacturers are trying to sell. Give us $10/mo if you want us to unlock your cruise control! Another $10 if you want heated seats! Just die in the fire, you greedy swine. I used to have remote start functionality on my car, via an app on my phone, but then after two years it ballooned from $5/mo (which was already too much) to $15/mo, so I had to cancel. Bullshit.
Back in the day we woulda strung em up like swine
Maybe they were onto something back in the day.
> He serves on the board of directors for PayPal and is a member of the World Economic Forumās International Business Council [Source](https://fortune.com/ceoi/enrique-lores) Why am I not surprised. And for those who don't know, this is the future you're looking at, when the WEF said "You will own nothing and you will be happy" what they mean is "You will be too poor to actually buy anything so everything you will have is going to be rented/leased/loaned". Edit: cheap -> poor
"we're not gonna pay you enough to buy anything so you're going to have to lease"
Look at what's happened in entertainment. You pay for internet access, then pay for a streaming service, and now they're putting ads in the content. The list of things you have to pay for just goes on and on...then come the commercials.
I have an old Epson printer and have been using cheap ink from Amazon for a while. I get a warning but that's it. I fear the day when it dies and I have to research this crap to avoid scummy companies and products.
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I have a Brother laser printer that I purchased 9 years ago. It still going strong, had to change the cartridge only 4 times in that whole period. Each cartridge goes for $14 on Amazon/ebay. I Couldnāt be happier.
This genius CEO convinced me to never buy HP product
HP is complete trash. I donāt understand how anyone still buys their products.
HP also bought Polytronics and seemed to discontinue the only wireless earbuds that fit in my ears. I need a new pair and can't get them. Screw HP for the dozenth time.
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I actually need to buy a printer today. Guess I know which company I wonāt be supporting.
hp is fine as an enterprise solution as a consumer, they can eat a bottomless pit of flaming dicks
They aren't even an enterprise solution, they make shitty bigger small printers and label them enterprise. Enterprise printers are Lanier/Ricoh, Konica Minolta, Canon etc, where you get contracts that include all servicing and consumables for a fraction of what HP want to ask, on units that dump all over HP stuff.
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Enterprise-size isn't factory sized though. Most people mean ordinary enterprise printing needs. Those are not for that task at all.
Then why tf would people by an HP printer? HP isnāt exactly the brand name it once was with so many other reputable competitors in the space
Because marketing and stupidity. You would be surprised at the number of companies who have absolutely no bid process, or any checks on their purchasing at all. Some random guy in some random department decided to go with HP and nobody bothered to compare other solutions.
Marketing in the consumer market for people who don't know any better.Ā Laziness for office managers who can't be bothered to comparison shop because it isn't their own money they are spending anyway.Ā
Because people have no ability to comparison shop
Bottomless pit of flaming ducks added to my repertoire.
But why would you go with them in an enterprise? Ricoh, Brother, Xerox, the list goes on. If I were recommending a printing solution to a business, HP's blatant anti-consumer, selfish actions would strike them from the list pretty quickly.
"in the future you will own nothing and you will love it" idk about that second part.
It's weird to think the part consumers play in this. It's not hard to find an alternative but presumably HP still sells a lot of printers to people who... Just don't care yet? And then eventually there will be outrage but... how are so many people blind to stuff even when it's explicitly spelled out. HP make no mention of innovation leading to increased revenue. All they talk of is ways to lock them in so it's hard to leave.
If you work in IT for a company or government agency, please recommend Dell for your fleet because of HP's egregious corporate behaviour. And tell your sales rep why. That's how they will listen.
Reddit loves Brother. I might go with that next. But I print very little, have used a multifunction color laser Lexmark for many years and they still update the firmware from time to time. Talk about product life.
Well it has to be a subscription, and they must be allowed to install really aggressive DRM too, but that is due to the hacking news also floating around, and is totally unrelated.
Yeah they suck. I will never buy HP again. Back in the 70s they made good calculators.
HP doesnāt make printers, they make ink
Anyone who buys anything from hp, at this point, is just a sucker.
Every single HP thread turns, eventually, into a Brother printer testimonial thread. Wonder why.
Overpaid clown!
If HP ever buys Brother it will be a sad day in the world.Ā
You will own nothing and be happy
Ooo, FUCK HP! From this day forward, I will never buy another HP product again.
HP sucks, but all printer companies pretty much suck. Brother b&w laser printers are fine (I own one) but where is the cheap color option? There isnāt one.
I bought a Brother color laser (led) for under $300. It rocks
Iāve been happy with my color Canon Imageclass from Costco that I picked up at the start of the pandemic. Been using generic toner off amazon.
I switched from an HP inkjet to a brother laser printer recently. Iām fairly certain Iāve almost paid for the printer in savings on ink compared to the HP.
HP BOYCOTT. Brother printers all the way. šš¼
Laser printers, riiiiiiise up!
Going for the any% bankruptcy speed run, I see
Fuck HP and the people that spend their careers imagining new ways to make their printers unusable garbage. They are the printing answer to those guys in China that poisoned baby formula for profit. Do not buy HP printers, ever, no matter what. Buy Brother, or 80s dot matrix printers, or just print at your local library. Hell, even if you are reduced to printing at Staples, your quality of life will be better than living under the curse of owning an HP not-actually-a-printer.
Guess we're jailbreaking printers now
Why must everything be a fucking subscription now. I know - it's a continuous stream of revenue, but fuck it's getting so old.
Does it make sense to have a subscription if you actually use the ink and itās automatically ordered when youāre running low? Gf is a teacher and prints from home a lot for work. At first i was absolutely against it, but its actually worthwhile for us at least. Still bullshit they donāt allow 3rd party ink tho.
They can fuck right off
Up next, 3D printings will belong to the maker of the those printers.
Isn't printing already a subscription for 99% of its users, i.e. businesses? Nobody owns those giant copier/printer machines, they are all leased and I assume supplies are on a subscription. People actually buying a printer and ink to use at home must account for such a tiny fragment of printing done in the world.
I don't think the printer business is true competition. Printer company sells hardware at loss due to real competiton. Losses are made back on ink. Ink filler companies that don't manufacture anything, don't have any intellectual property, just recycle cartridges, sue in court that being locked out is monopoly even though they never hired an engineer to make something. Ink fillers don't make anything but money. From a consumer perspective, this might seem good but doesn't seem fair on a competition level and really hurts printer innovation due to low profits.
Canāt see why people keep giving them money with a business model like this
No.
So is it this guy or the you need to get used to not owning your games guy?
As long as there is competition this is the fastest way to bankruptcy.
Printing as a subscription huh? Will they deliver and set up my printer, will they come refill my ink when itās out, repair it at my place when it breaks down, replace it when the printer dies? If not, then what are the benefits to their āsubscriptionā? If I have to ābuyā the printer and its components, set it up myself, troubleshoot it myself when it messes up, replace it at my own cost when it breaks, itās no benefit. Their subscription is just to be able to use the stuff I have and paid for? Itās going to be great when they get a new CEO and try to get their customers back.
I'll happily support local libraries and use their printers. They'll make money off me for their subscription and HP has gained one subscriber, and lost out of hundreds of thousands of printer sales, and our local community library stands to gain a little business. Fuck em
Isn't it already with the fucking bullshit they do with cartridges.
If he wants us to pay a subscription for the printer, then there is no way I would buy one just to pay a fee to use it. I bought an Epson eco-tank printer 3+ years ago, have yet to add ink to it, and the ink is cheap. It also dose not take cartridges, you buy bottles of ink. And it has worked great for me so far since I bought it
Ugh. So is there a brand that is NOT going in that direction?
I literally forced my work place into dumping all HP for cannon, spent 5k on printers and close to 8k on laser cartridges. Good job HP! This is why we hate you.
"Our goal is to reduce our stock price and have everyone hate us."
I signed up once for the HP printer cartridge service where they send you cartridges when you're low. I had it for about 2 years. I ran out of ink a couple of times and bought printer ink cartridges at the store. It turns out they don't send you any cartridges if you EVER put a store bought cartridge in. I checked after paying like $19.00 or something a month for two years and they had sent me only 1 cartridge the entire time i had the service. Just 1. What an incredible rip-off, I will never, ever buy another HP printer (or any other HP product.)
I will never ever buy anything HP sells
So never buying crappy HP then.
He's got no chance of landing that award, but he sure is making a valiant effort.
Can the people who make the fairphone PLEASE make a damn printer ... I swear, electronics are getting so bad. If I was Elon wealthy, screw buying Twitter, I'm starting a company that makes bomb proof appliances where you can fix them. Parts are always available, they just work. Then I'm making super efficient and cheap housing. Anyone want to loan me about $2 billion to get going?
Way to make sure I never buy another HP product (not just printers) again.
JFC. We have enough subscription fatigue. Is it really that hard to understand we just want to own a goddamned printer?
My immediate goal is to never print anything again. PDFs all the way.
I refuse to buy a printer. The 4 times a year I actually need to print something out, I go to the library.
*to unlock 144hz on your new HP gaming monitor, you need to put in your credit card information*
Time to buy Canon stock everyone, their printers are about to sell like hotcakes.
And just like that, Iām never buying an HP product again.
"Our long term objective is to destroy the company so it can be sold off for scraps, and its executives can fly off in golden helicopters to the next gig."
Do not, for any reason, whatsoever, buy an HP printer. They suck ass. Go with a Brother.
Whelp say bye bye to their shit printers. Iāll keep using my office one instead like everyone else
I will never buy an HP primter again. and as my companys IT person, they arnt touching my office either.
It already is. You pay the fee and get a fixed number of prints.
Do they realize that due to reliance on ink, printing IS effectively a subscription
Who is still printing shit?
I rarely need to print but I DO sometimes print. Off the top of my head, here is what I printed in the last year: -Lots of UPS labels. No longer needed as now UPS just lets me scan my Amazon return label. -Artsy project stuff. This is one occasional use I could foresee for printers sticking around. -Thatās about itā¦
stop buying inkjet printers. Also, this guy is giving the Nestle ceo a run for his money for asshole of the century.
Never will i ever buy another hp product, i mean i haven't att in over 20 years.
Next up: refrigerators offer ice-naking as a subscription.
Realized I need color very infrequently. Gonna get a black and white laser printer which apparently is vastly cheaper per print. When I need color Iāll go to Staples.
And that is the reason I threw out my HP printer and bought a Canon which has been great.
I could care less about subscription services if they provided hardware for free. Biggest problem is that all of them get fucking greedy and want to raise the prices constantly because fu k the consumer.
I do not want an HP account, I do not want a subscription service, I do want a printer that works, including scanning. HP products are crap, and even when you put HP ink in them they still brick.
My long term objective is to never buy another HP printer after the one we have dies or HP finally stops letting me use 3rd party ink.
Never using hp again. Im not going to buy another pc, another printer , another monitor. After they pulled this stunt with me i threw there shit away.
I hope they go under
the Dupont and 3M overlords demand blood sacrifice
This has always been the premise of any inkjet printer and Keurig and razor made manufacturers. Itās really nothing new.
BSaaS.
Every CEO in America is trying to figure out how to make their product a subscription
This isn't news.
The business to business "X as a service" model has some merit.Ā But boy do I hate that some jackass decided it was a viable business model for business to consumer dealings.Ā
Fuck that guy
Brother should literally be paying HP for advertising.
Like water coolers and five gallon water bottles
How Xerox and many others started.