WIFi printers

[Packard]

It turns out, that if you only use your inkjet printer once every 6 months, the cartridges require maintenance with each use. The nozzles get clogged.

So I bought a laser printer. But this came with a WiFi connection. After about 1-1/2 hours of fiddling with the IPad and the printer, I finally got it to work.

How is the preferable to plugging in a cord? And being in business in 5 minutes?

My one hope is that it will not forget the WiFi code.

In any case, if you are retired, like I am, and rarely need a printer, get a laser printer. They won’t clog up like the inkjet printers.

 

[cpw]

I am very happy with my Brother laser printer, every one I've had has been durable and they don't play shenanigans with ink/toner like some of the other brands.

I do need a printer fairly often; and it also has a built-in scanner with automatic page feeding. I sometimes wish I sprung for the duplex scanner; but duplex printing is helpful.

Wifi printing is great. I don't need to connect it to any of the 4 computers in the house; it just works from all of them after installing the driver. It is automatically discovered from my iPhone, which makes printing things from the phone super simple. For me this is much simpler than having to plug it into a PC then share it to other devices.

 

[peter halle]

I have had a Brother laser (black & white) for years that is fairly quick, scans both sides, copies both sides, prints both sides. Real workhorse. Have had to replace the drum (consumable) once. Also have a HP Color Laser Print on both sides. I learned my lesson on using rebuilt toner cartridges and only use OEM now. I hated the waste of ink and lack of waterproof prints. Will never go back to an inkjet unless I need a large format printer.

All of mine connect to my iPhones and iPads.

I keep my WEP key in my contacts app so that I can look it up and copy and paste as needed in case of a electronic brain fart.

Peter

 

[mwolczko]

I am very happy with my Brother laser printer, every one I've had has been durable and they don't play shenanigans with ink/toner like some of the other brands.

I’m not so sure. I’ve had a Brother color laser for ~5y and noticed that it would say the toners are empty when the prints were just fine. Also the toner levels for the 4 cartridges would always be the same which is dubious, since we print a lot of b&w. On the web I found the secret method for resetting the levels to full and since then I’ve found I can do that TWICE when levels get low before the prints actually start to suffer.

 

[luvmytoolz]

I’m not so sure. I’ve had a Brother color laser for ~5y and noticed that it would say the toners are empty when the prints were just fine. Also the toner levels for the 4 cartridges would always be the same which is dubious, since we print a lot of b&w. On the web I found the secret method for resetting the levels to full and since then I’ve found I can do that TWICE when levels get low before the prints actually start to suffer.

Gotta love printer hacks to save money and ink!

I recall the drama years back when Epson started putting IC's into the cartridges to lock you into their refills! There was at least one class action and/or anti-competitive rulings.

 

[kevinculle]

We have a Brother B&W Laser printer that is 12 years old and sits patiently in the basement for the few prints a month I run. It has been totally reliable, needing only a few cartridges and paper over the years. I got tired of dealing with clogged inkjets.

 

[mino]

It turns out, that if you only use your inkjet printer once every 6 months, the cartridges require maintenance with each use. The nozzles get clogged.

So I bought a laser printer. But this came with a WiFi connection. After about 1-1/2 hours of fiddling with the IPad and the printer, I finally got it to work.

How is the preferable to plugging in a cord? And being in business in 5 minutes?

My one hope is that it will not forget the WiFi code.

In any case, if you are retired, like I am, and rarely need a printer, get a laser printer. They won’t clog up like the inkjet printers.

That is strange. Most printers include a USB cable option, even if Wifi-only on the network side.

It is not preferable, but it is cheaper as the market expects it ... many homes and offices do not have wired networks these days.

Wired network is a luxury these days. Most are not willing to pay /both money and inconvenience/ for the security and reliability it inherently provides so skip it .. nothing more to it.

 

[Michael Kellough]

I have two Brother b&w laser printers. One is very old and still works fine, even with generic cartridges/drums.

I only bought the second one for the convenience of WiFi (or Air Print or whatever). It’s great to be able to print something from wherever I and my iPad happen to be.

 

[Packard]

I have a laptop that I rarely use and an IPad that I use daily. The last time I used my printer was to print out my tax documents last year. They used to mail me copies, but not they only email me attachments. When I tried to print them out, the screen said to clean cartridges. I fussed with it for a while and then gave up because I would have the same issue when I used it again months from now.

I bought a Brother laser printer. After the initial (and tedious) setup it seems to work fine. But given the use cycle, it is likely that it will forget the WiFi password, which was the tedious part of the setup.

I any case, I was able to mail off my tax documents to my accountant yesterday, so I won’t have to think about this for a while. The cable option seems easier. But most of the printers at Best Buy were all WiFi.

 

[onocoffee]

I've never been a fan of inkjet printers. Mainly because the ink runs if wet, the cartridges dry and they're expensive. Since my switch from dot matrix, I've mainly had laser printers - and everytime I've added an inkjet, I've hated it.

 

[Vtshopdog]

Plus one for Brother.
I purchased dozens of printers at my business over the decades and two stand out:
1 - Cheapo $150 Brother lasers that were bomb proof and super easy to set up
2 - HP multi function (HP quickly came to stand for "Hellish Product) that was so fussy, unreliable and hated by everyone that when we took it out of the network we "decommissioned" it by taking turns with various means of destruction, hammers, saws whatever felt like vengeance to each of us. (might have been a couple beers involved....)

 

[DashZero]

Been recommending brother to my clients and family and friends for years everyone is happy.

 

[Sparktrician]

Another fan of Brother printers here. Several years ago, I bought a HP all-in-one that had a really neat feature, the ability to print graph paper, and the prints were dimensionally perfect. That said, I scanned one of these accurate sheets and got an ungodly mess. That was sent back immediately and another ordered. After three of these crappy printers bought and returned, I bought the Brother that I currently have, and it's been absolutely trouble-free. No, it won't print graph paper, but so what? No more HP printers for me.

 

[Packard]

When I worked in an office, we had a commercial grade laser printer that was heavily used. Once the light came on that we needed to replace the cartridge, we would remove the cartridge and gently agitate it by rotating the cartridge in various directions. We would then put the cartridge back in. We could do that process several times adding anywhere from one to three months usage.

They did buy re-filled cartridges and the quality was very uneven. We had a very accurate gram scale and no two re-filled cartridges weighed the same. So, uneven fills. Not an indicator of good quality control.

 

[Chainring]

Since I work in IT and have to deal with printers on a regular basis, I have some strong opinions.

HP: Stay away from any model that tries to push the garbage "HP Smart" app for the install. Oh, you think you can download a regular ole driver, install it and that'll keep working. No. HP Smart will be back and it always inserts itself. That app is the most infuriating piece of junk I've ever seen. Then there's HPs lockout of third party toners.

Brother: Even though there was a kerfuffle over them "requiring" genuine toners, that was a bit misleading. They encourage genuine toners due to color consistency. Basically, a situation of, "We can't guarantee anything." The printer, if it has later firmware, will warn of non-genuine cartridges though it will still print.

Lexmark: Love em. It's very rare that I sell and install a Lexmark then have problems. Great drivers. Excellent web management interface. Workhorse of a printer.

I stay away from inkjet as much as possible.

 

[mino]

Since I work in IT and have to deal with printers on a regular basis, I have some strong opinions.

HP: Stay away from any model that tries to push the garbage "HP Smart" app for the install. Oh, you think you can download a regular ole driver, install it and that'll keep working. No. HP Smart will be back and it always inserts itself. That app is the most infuriating piece of junk I've ever seen. Then there's HPs lockout of third party toners.

Brother: Even though there was a kerfuffle over them "requiring" genuine toners, that was a bit misleading. They encourage genuine toners due to color consistency. Basically, a situation of, "We can't guarantee anything." The printer, if it has later firmware, will warn of non-genuine cartridges though it will still print.

Lexmark: Love em. It's very rare that I sell and install a Lexmark then have problems. Great drivers. Excellent web management interface. Workhorse of a printer.

I stay away from inkjet as much as possible.

How the times change ..

My LaserJet 4 MV still chugging along in the mean time.

 

[Vtshopdog]

Since I work in IT and have to deal with printers on a regular basis, I have some strong opinions.

HP: Stay away from any model that tries to push the garbage "HP Smart" app for the install. Oh, you think you can download a regular ole driver, install it and that'll keep working. No. HP Smart will be back and it always inserts itself. That app is the most infuriating piece of junk I've ever seen. Then there's HPs lockout of third party toners.

Brother: Even though there was a kerfuffle over them "requiring" genuine toners, that was a bit misleading. They encourage genuine toners due to color consistency. Basically, a situation of, "We can't guarantee anything." The printer, if it has later firmware, will warn of non-genuine cartridges though it will still print.

Lexmark: Love em. It's very rare that I sell and install a Lexmark then have problems. Great drivers. Excellent web management interface. Workhorse of a printer.

I stay away from inkjet as much as possible.

We had Lexmark all in one color laser that was really good. Never any issues, but it was on the higher end of price to feature ratio at the time. (buy once, cry once??) Pretty sure it replaced the hated HP but can't remember for sure.

Retired now and in need of color I took a risk and bought an Epson "Ink Tank" all in one model about 2 years ago. Ink cartridges are easily and cheaply refilled from their propriety bottles. It's had some small clogged nozzle issues and firmware versions that were problematic, but all in all for my 50-70 pages a month it works great. Would buy it again for home use but likely not robust enough for higher volume.

 

[Chainring]

How the times change ..

My LaserJet 4 MV still chugging along in the mean time.

Those old LaserJet 4s were tanks. They're like the Toyota Camry of the printer world.

 

[Chainring]

We had Lexmark all in one color laser that was really good. Never any issues, but it was on the higher end of price to feature ratio at the time. (buy once, cry once??) Pretty sure it replaced the hated HP but can't remember for sure.

Retired now and in need of color I took a risk and bought an Epson "Ink Tank" all in one model about 2 years ago. Ink cartridges are easily and cheaply refilled from their propriety bottles. It's had some small clogged nozzle issues and firmware versions that were problematic, but all in all for my 50-70 pages a month it works great. Would buy it again for home use but likely not robust enough for higher volume.

Lexmark can definitely be a bit pricey in comparison to lots of the cheapie throwaway models from other manufacturers. The thing that turned me onto Lexmark was back in 2003 I was working for a pharmacy software company. We supplied all the hardware and software. If the customer/pharmacy had a maintenance plan, we'd take care of everything, including printers. Some of those Lexmark printers were chugging out 600+ scripts with labels, per day. Labels are a pain because if they get too hot, the label slides right off the carrier sheet and the adhesive gums up rollers. Lexmark printers took it like a champ.

Epson EcoTank are probably the only inkjet I'd consider, though I haven't used any nor sold any.

 

[luvmytoolz]

How the times change ..

My LaserJet 4 MV still chugging along in the mean time.

I'm still using my HP 4100 with the duplexer module, never had an issue in nearly 30 years!