Considering a new B&W Laser Printer

[jonh229]

jonh wrote in reply 17
"If I can find a laser printer w/ ethernet & airprint (and maybe color?) that does not have a manufacturer’s block on the toner cartridge"

Brother recommends that you set it up with AirPrint. I found this out when I tried to hunt down an ethernet driver for my Brother all-in-one. It DOES have an ethernet port, so I'll guess there's an ethernet driver for it, somewhere (but I couldn't find one in a modestly short search).

There seems to be no "block" on toner. I'm using a 3rd-party cartridge with it right now. It works.

Thanks. I bought a 3780 today. Much more capability than I need but I paid for the 'future use'. I set up ethernet static IP and then set up wireless for airprint. It immediately disabled the ethernet connection. I'm going to look into this but it appears that it's one or the other.

 

[jonh229]

My new MacBook Pro saw my Brother MFC-L3780CDW on the network instantly and has never lost its connection.

Thanks for mentioning this printer. It's way more feature rich than I need but looking through the entire line it ticked enough boxes that I swallowed the hook, line, & sinker. So far I have not found a way to define printing in "black only" but there is a lot of stuff to read yet.

 

[MacMorrison]

I had good experiences with a small Brother printer at my office (low-volume color laser printer).

We stuck with Brother toner, but it's good to hear that 3rd-party stuff works too.

 

[BotchQue]

Quite a "Brotherhood" here (sorry, I'll see myself out).
I have a monochrome Brother printer I bought with my 2007 iMac, and both still work. Have a color Brother that I used with my 2015 iMac, and now my Studio. It finally ran out of ink; I rarely print in color so I replaced the Black cartridge, then just removed and "shook" the three color ones and reinstalled. That was about a year ago and she's still chugging.
It does drop off WIFI on occasion, but oddly does not have an ethernet port (sad, my router is 4' away).

 

[jonh229]

It does drop off WIFI on occasion, but oddly does not have an ethernet port

The 3780 I just bought has wifi & ethernet port. But I can use only one or the other (unlike my mac mini which connects to both interfaces simultaneously). I had planned to use both connections but cannot. Since airprint functionality was main consideration I’m connected via wifi, leaving an ancient computer (that does not have wifi) on my home network w/o printer capability. I can live without but my expectation to use both interfaces was incorrect. Just another gotcha if someone is researching a new printer.

 

[xraydoc]

Would you share the name of the 3rd party color toner you like for your Brother printer?

I'll see if I can find it in my Amazon history. I've been on the same cartridges for several years now and still have over 50% left.

Edit: So the brand I bought in March of 2021 is "IKONG". They're still going strong in my printer but doesn't look like they exist on Amazon anymore. I don't print all that much (a few pages per week at most) and this is what I've got left on these nearly 5 year old carts:

 

[FreakinEurekan]

Would you share the name of the 3rd party color toner you like for your Brother printer?

I normally just check reviews... I have a Brother HL-L8260CDW and my current toners are these purchased in 2023. Prior I used these purchased in 2020. Never have had any issues with 3rd party toners.

 

[FatLouie]

There was some scuttlebutt last year that Brothers was issuing a firmware update that was blocking non-Brothers printer cartridges. People were complaining that after updating, their non-Brothers ink cartridges were not working.

Louis Rossmann went after Brothers, and Brothers has denied they were blocking non-Brothers ink cartridges. I don't know the truth of it, to be honest as I am still on the original FW and and have no need to update the FW.

Louis Rossmann - Brothers