Washington Post: Americans waste $10 billion each year on name-brand ink. So we tested low-cost options including remanufactured cartridges, ink injection kits — and even making our own.
My advice: get a mono laser printer. Printing is handy but relatively infrequent for a lot of people these days. If that’s your use case, mono laser is the way to go. Toner does not dry out or go bad.
Print at work.
If you can’t, print at an office supply store.
Seriously, how much do you need to print?
You can also print at a library in the US
Printing on a printer that isn’t yours is a privacy risk.
Print. At. Your. Local. Library.
Not. Everyone. Has. Easy. Access. To. A. Local. Library.
😞
I have a Brother laser printer that works fine since undergrad. $100, almost 15 years ago. Good colors still, but it came with this thing where you have to block it at the firewall from the Internet so it doesn’t spy on you (something about reporting to Amazon servers?) and it will pretend that your toner is low on purpose, but you can cover up the sensor with electrical tape and it works fine. Prints with Linux, BSD.
I also have a Canon inkjet. I was on a trip and needed a printer and … $25 dollars out of pocket, I ended up with a device that has scanning and color printing and works with Linux. Five years later and it still works, although the aftermarket cartridges I use are $33, more than the printer itself cost. There’s no DRM making me buy just Canon ink. Works with Linux.
After reading that Epson was getting out of the laser printer business altogether for environmental reasons, I called BS on it. Likely a reason for them to sell nothing but DRM’d junk inkjets that are even more wasteful because they break every other year.
But the truth is somewhere in the middle.
Laser printers are also horrible for the environment. The fusers and toner cartridges cannot be recycled and the toner itself is nothing but microplastic that never breaks down.
I hope to never buy a printer again. Fuck that anymore, It’s the 21st century, I have a PDF editor and a tablet.
This is good to know. I had no idea toner is so bad for the environment. It’s yet another reason to use ink tank printers.
Maybe I’m naive, but what’s holding everyone back from living a paperless life or at least attempt to? Other than printing out the occasional return labels for Amazon stuff I return (they offer label free drop offs now), I can’t think of anything else I would use it for as most things have gone digital.
Kids in school was the primary reason for a printer, but the need has definitely decreased over the years. Our family is at about 5 prints per year at this point, which is exactly why a laser printer is so valuable. The same Brother printer ($150 in 2012) has worked for us for going on 11 years now with minimal expense on replacement toner. It just works when needed and never dries up or has issues.
But as much as you would like to be paperless, things come up. Some companies insist on wet signatures, other things need to be mailed in, etc. It’s certainly becoming less and less necessary year by year, though.
I’m not sure if I would replace this printer if it fails, but it sure is nice to have around when I need it, without the hassle of going out to print something at a shop.
Signatures, people not wanting to rely on phones, paper requires essentially only literacy while phones require more, more privacy with paper, honestly the list is pretty long.
Student here, journal articles are a lot easier to read on paper than on screen. After the first hour or so of screen reading my eyes get drier than the Sahara and I feel dizzy. I tried reading on my e-reader, but journals like to cram as much text on a page as possible, which doesn’t work well on a 6" reader.
It’s been a while since I’ve used an e-reader, but don’t they let you change the font size? It’s kind of like zooming in, but actually readjusts the words to fit the screen. Again, I might be making this up.
No, you’re right! But it’s only possible for epub/mobi and txt files.
Pdfs can be zoomed into, but then you need to scroll around the page and it starts feeling rather like you’re looking at the paper through a keyhole. I tried converting pdf to epub, but the formatting/page layout of the original matters and it doesn’t translate well.
I get wanting to go paper free, but I like to have paper copies of important docs in my file cabinet.
Also i have an eight year old, so its fun to be able to print out papercrafts, patterns, exercises etc … having a printer is a good thing to have for a kid.
We use it mainly to print coloring pages for our kids :)
I have been using laser for so long, while so many people use ink. I could always understand it if you needed to print photos on photo paper genuine photo quality, but laser - both monochrome and color, has always served me well. I could never understand why people went with ink, except maybe people so tech illiterate they just went to the store and bought what they were recommended (by a sales representative who knows they make a much higher markup in the long nrun by selling inkjets).
As a former tech associate at Staples; I can easily attest to how annoyed my bosses were that I always pushed people to buy laser printers.
Their reasoning was simple; the bosses hated the volume at which we sold toner; and literally nothing else…once I had paired all of their problem customers with drama-free laser printers that would stay in operation for at least 5 years.
Nobody who bothered to ask my professional opinion on printers and actually took it seriously bought anything but a Laser Printer. Many of the shitty DRM riddled Inkjets actually collected dust on those shelves unless they were sold by someone more clueless than I.
I use my HP printer infrequently enough that every time I booted up my inkjet, I had to put it through a printer head cleaning cycle. I’d be surprised if I got more than 20 sheets of paper for each cartridge do to the wasted ink, and the dang thing malfunctioned frequently even after cleaning (streaks, blots, complaining about missing colors when printing b/w, etc).
After switching to a Brother mono laser, I haven’t had to do any maintenance in 3 years and it’s still on the original toner cart which it came with.
This is the way.
Also using a Brother laserjet, it’s lasted ten times longer than any inkjet I’ve ever had, and still going strong. Although I rarely need to print, it hasn’t failed me yet when I do need it.
This is the way.
There are also lots of knock off cartridges for most laser printers too.
I have a brother laser printer copier - it works with budget cartridges that cost around $25.
IMHO, inkjet printers as a whole are a scam. That is, unless you buy a really high end one for professional photo printing.
In 2005 I bought an inexpensive black-and-white HP laser jet for $99. To this day it still prints flawlessly after sitting idle for months or years. The toner never “dries out” or goes bad. Nor have I ever once needed to print in color. If I ever do, I’ll go to a print shop.
I think I’m on my 3rd toner cartridge since 2005. Highly recommend.
Commercial printer here. I have 60" wide printers of pigment, latex and UV inks currently and can answer whatever questions you might have about this industry. I but 700ml cartridges for the aqueous and latex inks, and 1L bottles for UV pour over. Feel free to AMA. :)
Lasers are definitely a great option, but we got a printer with liquid ink and it’s been great. Much cheaper than proprietary cartridges and they don’t go stale if you don’t print anything for a few weeks.
I’ve got a Canon Pixima 5000 series. My family tends to print a good percentage in color (because thankfully I don’t have to print many documents in this day and age). It uses individual color cartridges (C, M, Y, K and a second large K), so if one goes out you just replace that color. I generally pick up the off brand refills on Amazon for fairly cheap. Last time I got a 5 pack of sets for $20. It’s lasted us 2 years at this point. The ink carts are literally JUST ink and a foam block. No electronics or drm like HP. Highly recommend.
If you have a small space and don’t print a lot, I love my thermal printer. It’s the size of a sturdy, old-fashioned 3-hole-punch. Portable and battery-operated. There is no ink. The special paper’s kind of expensive, but it doesn’t dry out or send you codes saying you can’t print when it obviously can. And they make BPA-free thermal paper now.
Absolutely, I got inkjet printers for years between ~1990 and ~2010, ink is expensive, dry, smear, etc. I bought a Samsung color laser wifi printer in 2012, more than 10 years ago, I changed toners a few times, it still work perfectly fine. I’ll never again go to inkjet.
I love my mono laser printer. It’s an older Canon I got from a retired lawyer, so it has probably printed a million pages already for all I know. Haven’t had to futz with it since I popped in a new toner cartridge that was ~$40. If I need to print color, I go to the local copy store, but that’s rare anyways. Been recommending the same for all my friends and family.
