
This is why your printer never works.  - transburgh
http://brandonsmind.com/post/31522690
======
SwellJoe
Inkjets work very well at what they were designed to do: Extract fifty bucks
for ink from customers every couple of months for the short life of the $80
printer. The problem is that people think they were designed to print things,
which is, in fact, only an afterthought in their design.

Laser printers, shockingly, work every time and run out of toner about once
every two years for the average home user. I went through four or five color
inkjets before finally learning...my color laser has been working fine for
three years now, and has only needed the black toner cartridge replaced once
(color toner cartridges are still at about 30% full and have probably another
year of service in them). Sure, it cost $800 (it's a networked model, and
they've come down since then), but I had already spent more than that on
inkjets and ink cartridges over the years. I expect I'll get another several
years out of it, and I never have to wonder if my printer will crap out when I
really need it to work (which happened numerous times with inkjets).

Not that I'm bitter.

~~~
mechanical_fish
My cheap-ass laser printer (a Brother) is the greatest --it cost like $300,
it's two years old, and it's going great. My color inkjet has been sitting
around for six months, waiting for me to admit that I will never fix its
clogged cartridges again, because everything I print works just as well in
greyscale.

I suppose I could use an inkjet to print color photos. But is there ever any
actual reason to print a color photo at home, besides just being so old that
you can't accept Flickr? I suppose if I were a print magazine designer who
liked to show off proofs... but then I'd probably get serious and buy a color
laser.

~~~
maximilian
I just bought a brother from Fry's for $60 (after rebate). I'm pretty excited
as I can't print stuff from home now. We should have another 1000 pages of
printing left, so I'm worried that by the time we run out of toner, it will no
longer be made. I'm thinking about buying one now, but I don't want to be
stuck with a $50 toner if my cheap laser breaks.

~~~
SwellJoe
I bought a cheapo Samsung laser for my dad about five years ago for Christmas
soon after I made the switch from inkjet to laser (I was feeling the
excitement of a new convert), and I've bought him a new toner cartridge for it
every couple of years since then. So far, they have not discontinued the
printer or the toner and it has continued to serve him well. The model is
still available from several sources (maybe an updated version, I dunno), and
the toner is still widely available, though the price has gone up $10 from $70
to $80 for the 6000 page rated version. I guess that means I can recommend
cheap Samsung laser printers.

A year or two later, I bought my mom a pretty high end standalone inkjet photo
printer, the kind that requires no computer to operate--just hook up the
camera and press the print button. I bought it because she never used the
digital camera I'd given her the year before (without the printed photos it
just wasn't a camera, as far as she was concerned). I don't think that photo
printer works any more (last time I saw her taking photos she was back to the
film camera). I suspect she used it a half dozen times, whenever my 4 year old
nephew was around to work it for her. Obviously, that did nothing to instill
me with new confidence in modern inkjet technology.

------
samography
Since it's not attributed on the page, the actual writer of this is Streeter
Seidell from College Humor: <http://www.collegehumor.com/article:1752773>

------
rms
I got one of these recently.
[http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16828118...](http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16828118493)

Color laser for $300 flat. It does what it is supposed to do.

------
axod
Debugging printer issues is just way to hard. Some manufacturers just don't
see the importance of an error message. Why have useful information about why
something isn't working, when you can just have a red light!

------
dhimes
Dang. I wish this thread came up a few months ago. I have an Epson R280 that's
still working well, but won't talk to Linux.

~~~
suboptimal
Yeah, it's sort of convincing, isn't it? I have a Canon MP730 that was great,
but doesn't talk to Linux or Mac. Faxing's no good since I got rid of the land
line a long time ago. Still makes copies. Meh.

Anyway, plastic kills the planet.

