A good decision; Brother Compact Monochrome Laser Printer, HL-L2350DW,

[transmaster]

Finally, I had reached my limit with HP Deskjet printers. The cartridges were designed with a “use it or discard it” approach. Their lifespan was limited to several months if not utilized, as they would dehydrate and require replacement. Since I am an infrequent printer, I was compelled to replace the cartridges whenever I desired to use them. This was not the customary experience with HP printers in the 1990s. Eventually, I had reached my breaking point. With the guidance of individuals who operated home offices and utilized printers similar to mine, I was advised to acquire a Brother mono laserjet. Today, for the first time since July 14, 2023, I made the decision to print something to ascertain the printer’s functionality. Upon connecting it, the Mac Studio seamlessly paired with it, and it successfully printed several pages without encountering any issues.

 

[Mactagonist]

Absolutely right. No reason for most people to have a money suck like an inkjet around for occasional color pics.

Brother laser + pay per print for color prints at a local place.

 

[splifingate]

Yes: the transition to Laser from Ink-Jet is absolutely phenomenal.

Next to the M2 Studio, my HP MFP477fdw has probably been my most significantly-successful tech purchase in the past ten years.

It does everything I ask of it; all the time.

 

[transmaster]

One of the things I did was to finally update my Airport Extreme to an EERO 6E Pro router. It was the EERO that paired with the Brother, not the Mac Studio. At one time, I was hoping that Apple would get back into the router business, with Mesh routers like the EERO I don't care anymore.

 

[NoBoMac]

Ditto everyone else here.

Have the same model, bought in 2018 (old printer, MacOS refused to recognize after a while, plus no AirPrint) and going strong. Put a new 3rd party toner cartridge in there 4.25 years ago and still prints and at 80% toner left.

Had a 3-in-1 Brother laser before that, so looking at nearing 20 years of dumping ink printers.

 

[avro707]

I have a colour Brother laser which does double sided printing and scanning - it wasn't very costly and it just works.

I'm using the wireless connection and all the Macs here (even the older Mac Pro 5,1 and 6,1) all connected immediately without fuss.

I don't print that often but it does the job.

 

[Analog Kid]

Finally, I had reached my limit with HP Deskjet printers. The cartridges were designed with a “use it or discard it” approach. Their lifespan was limited to several months if not utilized, as they would dehydrate and require replacement. Since I am an infrequent printer, I was compelled to replace the cartridges whenever I desired to use them. This was not the customary experience with HP printers in the 1990s. Eventually, I had reached my breaking point. With the guidance of individuals who operated home offices and utilized printers similar to mine, I was advised to acquire a Brother mono laserjet. Today, for the first time since July 14, 2023, I made the decision to print something to ascertain the printer’s functionality. Upon connecting it, the Mac Studio seamlessly paired with it, and it successfully printed several pages without encountering any issues.

Thanks for the pointer. Sadly that particular model is marked "discontinued", but still good to hear the positive feedback on Brother. I've got an old Samsung M2020 that I keep around for the infrequent print jobs. It's old enough that it requires me to either downgrade the encryption on my WiFi to connect, or run a USB cable to it. I was thinking to replace it at some point, but it appears Samsung sold their printer business to HP, and I've always avoided HP printers. I'll look to Brother when the time comes.

 

[jz0309]

I got a HL-L2370DW (don't know what the difference is) like 2-3 years ago, swapped the cartridge for an aftermarket from Amazon ... haven't looked back at inkjets ...

 

[transmaster]

Thanks for the pointer. Sadly that particular model is marked "discontinued", but still good to hear the positive feedback on Brother. I've got an old Samsung M2020 that I keep around for the infrequent print jobs. It's old enough that it requires me to either downgrade the encryption on my WiFi to connect, or run a USB cable to it. I was thinking to replace it at some point, but it appears Samsung sold their printer business to HP, and I've always avoided HP printers. I'll look to Brother when the time comes.

My printer was replaced by the Brother Wireless HL-L2460DW Compact Monochrome Laser Printer.

​

 

[HiVolt]

I ditched Inkjets in the late 90's. Laser was expensive, but it lasted. My current printer is exactly 20 years old Samsung ML-3051ND, and it's on the ORIGINAL toner. That's how little I print, but when I need it, it's always there.

 

[NeonNights]

We used Brother BW laser printers at my wife's dental practice for over 10 years and never had an issue. They were workhorses and the toner was very economical that you don't even want to bother with generic/compatible toner.

Now, our Canon color laser is a different story. A set of color toner cartridges runs $400 -- the same cost as the printer itself. I think a BW laser makes a lot of sense for home or office, but I prefer the mega tank ink jets for color printing. The ink jet color quality is better, especially for photos and cards, and the large ink tank capacity has lasted me two years without drying out. Ink comes in bottles instead of wasteful, expensive cartridges.

 

[Allen_Wentz]

Finally, I had reached my limit with HP Deskjet printers. The cartridges were designed with a “use it or discard it” approach. Their lifespan was limited to several months if not utilized, as they would dehydrate and require replacement. Since I am an infrequent printer, I was compelled to replace the cartridges whenever I desired to use them. This was not the customary experience with HP printers in the 1990s. Eventually, I had reached my breaking point. With the guidance of individuals who operated home offices and utilized printers similar to mine, I was advised to acquire a Brother mono laserjet. Today, for the first time since July 14, 2023, I made the decision to print something to ascertain the printer’s functionality. Upon connecting it, the Mac Studio seamlessly paired with it, and it successfully printed several pages without encountering any issues.

You are literally decades late. I am surprised that it took you until 2025 to figure out that laser jet printing is a far better approach for all but those folks doing high quality 4-color printing every day (used to be me). Also FYI HP laser printers work fine.

 

[Guenter]

I still use my dc7030 and it wotks fine. From time to time i use it for photocopy and sometimes for printing. It is supported by the latest system software for printing and scanning. The advantage of the laser is that it is no problem when you dont use it for some weeks, no ink dry out. As long as you use it rarely and dont need color it is a good idear. Otherwise the inktank printers are cost effective, the ink catrige printers are useful only under specific conditions. The printer is nearly 20 years old.

 

[AlixSPQR]

I bought a Brother DCP-7030 monochrome laser printer in 2009, still use it. New drivers are absent since Catalina, but the old ones work anyways, in Sonoma, at least. Inkjet printers are a scam.

 

[smirking]

Finally, I had reached my limit with HP Deskjet printers. The cartridges were designed with a “use it or discard it” approach.

I'm not sure if I'd necessarily blame HP for that limitation. I've always had Epson inkjets and they suffered from the same issues.

Somewhere in the user's manual it tells you that you need to print at least once a week to keep the ink heads working or turn it on so it can perform a self-clean cycle. Inkjets should actually work fine if you print regularly.

That's not most of us though. It's not me either. I switched to a laser printer a over a decade ago and never looked back. I do not miss setting money and time on fire every time I needed something in hard copy.

My only issue with laser printers is that consumer level color lasers aren't great and color toner is too expensive for such mediocre quality. I hung onto my color inkjet for a few years because of this. Now, I just send my color print jobs to a local print shop. Their color laser printers are far better and the cost is very reasonable these days.

 

[TokyoKiller]

Brother makes great home-office grade laser printers. Toner is also not super insane cost wise.

I have a Brother MFC-L2750DW

 

[Scepticalscribe]

I have a black and white Brother laser printer, which has never given me any trouble, and is utterly reliable, a sold workhorse for when I need something printed, and had abandoned inkjet printers well over a decade ago for exactly the reasons the OP - @transmaster - has already described.

 

[IJustWannaTalk]

Congrats. We bought a mono laser Brother a few years ago and have never worried about our printers since. It's been a tank, the toner is readily available, and goes a while between refills with no issues not using it for weeks.

 

[transmaster]

You are literally decades late. I am surprised that it took you until 2025 to figure out that laser jet printing is a far better approach for all but those folks doing high quality 4-color printing every day (used to be me). Also FYI HP laser printers work fine.

The only reason I hung on as long as I did is that I hardly ever used it. Back in the day, an HP color OfficeJet was the pinnacle of quality. They had storage cases for the ink cartridges. If your office HP was not going to be used for a while, you pulled the cartridges and placed them in an HP-supplied sealed case, like a Pelican Case, to keep them in good shape. I put my carts in a sealed kitchen container with a damp piece of kitchen towel to keep the carts from drying out. HP thought of that, and when I reinstalled them, the electronics said the cartridge was empty.

 

[transmaster]

This is the real clincher is this. $85 USD for 3,000 pages in a printer that can sit for years between uses.

 

[ignatius345]

Finally, I had reached my limit with HP Deskjet printers. The cartridges were designed with a “use it or discard it” approach. Their lifespan was limited to several months if not utilized, as they would dehydrate and require replacement. Since I am an infrequent printer, I was compelled to replace the cartridges whenever I desired to use them. This was not the customary experience with HP printers in the 1990s. Eventually, I had reached my breaking point. With the guidance of individuals who operated home offices and utilized printers similar to mine, I was advised to acquire a Brother mono laserjet. Today, for the first time since July 14, 2023, I made the decision to print something to ascertain the printer’s functionality. Upon connecting it, the Mac Studio seamlessly paired with it, and it successfully printed several pages without encountering any issues.

These Brother lasers are just beasts. I get something like a religious fervor about them when people complain about inkjets.

- 2-3¢ per page printing cost, factoring in toner, drum life and paper.
- Over 15K pages, my print log showed ~10 paper jams, with most of those being my feeding envelopes into the manual feed wrong
- I attached it to my wifi network once, never thought about it again and never had an issue

This was on a printer that, mind you, cost me about $120.

I used to run it on cheap aftermarket toner, but I found them pretty uneven and just started using the OEM ones, which are much better and still pretty cheap per page.

 

[thejadedmonkey]

I have something like that version - wifi and duplex printing - and it's fantastic. In the 6 years I've owned it I've only ever had a paper jam once, and aside from spotty wifi issues due to its (lack of) proximity to my router it's never given me any issues.

The other, surprise, we have, is a Canon G600 series printer. It takes individual bottles of ink, and hasn't given us any trouble yet. It's only like a year old though, so we'll see how long it lasts.

 

[IJustWannaTalk]

This is the real clincher is this. $85 USD for 3,000 pages in a printer that can sit for years between uses.

View attachment 2508167

We have a home office, have been using the printer for two years, print regularly, and have needed exactly one refill.

Absolutely at no other time have we had to think about the printer besides walking up to it to grab prints from it.

It's just so much easier.

We have had to print color materials three times, but the quality was worth the money from our local print shop.

 

[TechnoMonk]

Brother laser jet printers lately been having quality issues. My Brother Laser jet died after 2.5 years. Luckily I was able to return it at Costco and get HP.

 

[AppleofyourI]

I have a colour Brother laser which does double sided printing and scanning - it wasn't very costly and it just works.

I'm using the wireless connection and all the Macs here (even the older Mac Pro 5,1 and 6,1) all connected immediately without fuss.

I don't print that often but it does the job.

Yeah, we got an HP color laser printer for maybe $350? After a year, we are still on the original "starter" cartridges and they work great. Replacement cartridges for all 4 colors was maybe $300. They will literally last 5 years. Print quality a great. It just works.