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Postscript laser printer - good idea?

H

honcho

macrumors regular
Original poster
Apr 19, 2011
101
40
I am in the market for a new mono laser printer. I need AirPrint in my life. I have narrowed my options down to two prInter: a Xerox B210 or a Brother L2350DW. The Xerox has Postscript whereas the Brother has GDI. From what I can tell, Xerox’s Mac support is patchy. Brother is apparently quite diligent about driver support.

My concern is that, at some point, my printer would be unsupported and unusable. Does Postscript future proof in terms of abandoned drivers? Could the same be said of AirPrint? I only print occasionally. I also infrequently print Illustrator documents, but PS support is not a dealbreaker.

Which printer should I go for? Any advice or suggestion would be greatly appreciated :)
 
You can run an AirPrint proxy to make any printer on your network AirPrint compatible. I have an ancient Dell from long before the first iPhone and it's now got AirPrint capabilities via an instance of chuckcharlie/cups-avahi-airprint running in a Docker container on my Synology NAS
 
robbieduncan said:
You can run an AirPrint proxy to make any printer on your network AirPrint compatible. I have an ancient Dell from long before the first iPhone and it's now got AirPrint capabilities via an instance of chuckcharlie/cups-avahi-airprint running in a Docker container on my Synology NAS
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That’s good to know. I have a Synology NAS, but unfortunately, my current laser is on its last legs :(
 
Hello honcho,



I'm a big fan of Brother laser printers, in general.

I have always used Brother laser printers and they have been rock-solid. Also (as you mentioned), they have excellent driver support for their printers.

I would recommend that you purchase the Brother printer.

Good luck!


richmlow



honcho said:
I am in the market for a new mono laser printer. I need AirPrint in my life. I have narrowed my options down to two prInter: a Xerox B210 or a Brother L2350DW. The Xerox has Postscript whereas the Brother has GDI. From what I can tell, Xerox’s Mac support is patchy. Brother is apparently quite diligent about driver support.

My concern is that, at some point, my printer would be unsupported and unusable. Does Postscript future proof in terms of abandoned drivers? Could the same be said of AirPrint? I only print occasionally. I also infrequently print Illustrator documents, but PS support is not a dealbreaker.

Which printer should I go for? Any advice or suggestion would be greatly appreciated :)
Click to expand...
 
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richmlow said:
Hello honcho,



I'm a big fan of Brother laser printers, in general.

I have always used Brother laser printers and they have been rock-solid. Also (as you mentioned), they have excellent driver support for their printers.

I would recommend that you purchase the Brother printer.

Good luck!


richmlow
Click to expand...
Thanks for the advice. Really useful to have an owner’s viewpoint. I will go for the Brother printer :)
 
No trouble printing from my iPhone/iPad via AirPrint to my Brother color laser printer.
Haven’t heard anyone talk about PostScript since the old MacOS 7/8/9 days.
 
Postscript... now there's a word I haven't heard in a while...

Feels like I'm browsing the pages of Macworld magazine as a kid in high school in the 90's

:p

But seriously... myself and a bunch of my friends use Brother lasers and they're great. Drivers shouldn't be a problem. I would imagine most printers today will be supported for a long time.
 
xraydoc said:
No trouble printing from my iPhone/iPad via AirPrint to my Brother color laser printer.
Haven’t heard anyone talk about PostScript since the old MacOS 7/8/9 days.
Click to expand...
Michael Scrip said:
Postscript... now there's a word I haven't heard in a while...

Feels like I'm browsing the pages of Macworld magazine as a kid in high school in the 90's

:p

But seriously... myself and a bunch of my friends use Brother lasers and they're great. Drivers shouldn't be a problem. I would imagine most printers today will be supported for a long time.
Click to expand...

I’m 51. Postscript was a thing back in the ’80s. Leave me alone. I’m still wearing flares. Lol.

I ordered the Brother printer last night. You all dragged me kicking and screaming into the 21st Century.
 
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honcho said:
I’m 51. Postscript was a thing back in the ’80s. Leave me alone. I’m still wearing flares. Lol.

I ordered the Brother printer last night. You all dragged me kicking and screaming into the 21st Century.
Click to expand...

If it makes you feel better I learnt PostScript at Uni in 1996. When I say I learnt it I mean we handcrafted PostScript as a computer language to create output. It's still a think: your Mac will talk PostScript to any compatible printer if you tell it to.
 
honcho said:
I’m 51. Postscript was a thing back in the ’80s. Leave me alone. I’m still wearing flares. Lol.

I ordered the Brother printer last night. You all dragged me kicking and screaming into the 21st Century.
Click to expand...
Hey, I’m same age, so you just lost your excuse, lol.
In all seriousness, you’ll probably like your Brother printer very much.
 
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I’m the same age, but remember having to manually tweak the headers in postscript output files from QuarkXpress so that it didn’t crash our Canon CLC printer.
 
honcho said:
I was under the impression that even without drivers, you can still print to a Postscript printer.
Click to expand...

Yes, in theory at the least.

Even back when PS printers were more common, a generic driver could be used, with an appropriate PPD file, to send print data to the printer, where all the rasterization occurs.

With a "dumb(er)" printer, where the driver performs that function, that is not an option.

GDI is a Windows thing, and doesn't apply to the Mac. It just means that the printer will understand those types of instructions, just as PCL or PS emulation allows for those standards.

I think you'll find the Brother to be fine, and well-supported, relatively speaking, into the future. Their main area of weakness is mediocre print graphics quality.
 
In my experience, I have found black/white printing to be excellent on Brother laser printers. As for color printing, I do not know.

I do not recommend inkjet printers (from any company).


richmlow




TheIntruder said:
Yes, in theory at the least.

Even back when PS printers were more common, a generic driver could be used, with an appropriate PPD file, to send print data to the printer, where all the rasterization occurs.

With a "dumb(er)" printer, where the driver performs that function, that is not an option.

GDI is a Windows thing, and doesn't apply to the Mac. It just means that the printer will understand those types of instructions, just as PCL or PS emulation allows for those standards.

I think you'll find the Brother to be fine, and well-supported, relatively speaking, into the future. Their main area of weakness is mediocre print graphics quality.
Click to expand...
 
richmlow said:
In my experience, I have found black/white printing to be excellent on Brother laser printers. As for color printing, I do not know.

I do not recommend inkjet printers (from any company).
Click to expand...

In isolation, Brothers' print quality isn't bad, but it's not great either, and that becomes apparent when comparing the output from other printers side by side, like I've done with an HP I have. It is particularly acute when printing images.

That was also borne out in the days when product reviews were actual reviews with comparative testing, not just a simple regurgitation of a product's features and brief impressions like most reviews are now. Brothers were well-rounded, which helped their overall ratings, but didn't win the print quality portion of the face offs.

It should also be noted that the smaller print engine found in most of their consumer-targeted models, with the asymmetric 2400x600 resolution, doesn't produce as nice output as the more business-oriented models with the 1200x1200 print engine.

That said, it's fine for most users as a general purpose printer, and mine has been in service for more than a decade.
 
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"Pretty much all of them. Do you even know what Postscript is?"

Yes, since the days of the first Mac SE I had, along with a LaserwriterII that I helped a friend set up. I remember it came in "2 pieces" (computer and board), and I had to put the logic board in and secure it. Then I had to figure out how to connect it, since I'd never used AppleTalk before. Through experimentation, I found a simple ImagewriterII cable would work, so long as you turned AppleTalk on, creating a 2-device network. Later I started using PhoneNet connectors.

What was YOUR first Mac?
 
Fishrrman said:
What was YOUR first Mac?
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The original Mac. But I don't see what relevance that has to the discussion of what apps use Postscript.

TheIntruder said:
That was also borne out in the days when product reviews were actual reviews with comparative testing, not just a simple regurgitation of a product's features and brief impressions like most reviews are now.
Click to expand...
We could start an entire thread on that subject! The state of "reporting and reviews" on almost all Mac sites is, by any definition, a complete joke. And the latest craze of re-puking the vendor's press release in video format is just as bad.

I used to write for Macworld (and a few other pubs) back when you had weeks (sometimes over a month) to write a review. Within a few years, it went down to "we need a 250-300 word review of "X app" by tomorrow - for which you will be paid $125." Today, most sites are paying closer to the $25 per article range—though their definition of an article differs from mine, they're more interested in volume than quality.
 
MacGizmo said:
We could start an entire thread on that subject! The state of "reporting and reviews" on almost all Mac sites is, by any definition, a complete joke. And the latest craze of re-puking the vendor's press release in video format is just as bad.

I used to write for Macworld (and a few other pubs) back when you had weeks (sometimes over a month) to write a review. Within a few years, it went down to "we need a 250-300 word review of "X app" by tomorrow - for which you will be paid $125." Today, most sites are paying closer to the $25 per article range—though their definition of an article differs from mine, they're more interested in volume than quality.
Click to expand...

Sadly, that is true, and people don't demand better.
 
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