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Printer recommendations

lasloduncan

lasloduncan

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Mar 2, 2015
552
32
the key is easy to set up...usb and wireless is what I had in the past--but canon's lack of software and the huge hassle it is has killed me .....no more canon anything for me.....so would like a very light duty printer recommnedation/s --30 pages or so every 6 months....previous had canon mg2922 worked great when it worked but the drivers and software are horrilbly hosed-for my mac anyway. thank you.100 dollars plug and play--thank you
 
I'd just get a Brother Laser printer. The linked printer plugs in via USB. If you want network printing. It'll cost more. Unlike inkjets, you won't have to worry about toner drying out and clogging. Unfortunately, the days of the sub $100 laser are over. This is the cheapest they have now.

Brother HLL2300D | Compact Monochrome Laser Printer

This compact machine prints up to 27 pages per minute with automatic duplex printing and comes with a 250-sheet capacity paper tray. Learn more.
www.brother-usa.com www.brother-usa.com
 
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Since you print infrequently I would stay away from most ink jets, as you run the risk of the heads drying out. After messing around with 'cheap' HP and Canon printers for years I recently bought a Brother MFC-J4535DW laser and it's been great. If you don't need color or an MFC there are smaller and cheaper Brother options.
 
I've been lucky although not without puzzling occasional issues with the Canon MF8380cdw office-type printer I got many years ago. Still working in Monterey.

We did have a Brother black & white laser that was excellent until we wore it out.
 
I say get Brother cheap laser and the get color printer of your choice! Just ro find on color printers!
laser inserts laksa us for abomember printer black ink is Sally super hard about once every two years!
 
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I have had great service from an HP Office jet 8600 for a decade. After using "cheap" seemingly disposable printers with poor longevity and ink issues prior. The 8600 has great frequently updated software, no issues with cartridges clogging or drying out using HP ink. The Office Jet seems to be better built and supported. I would recommend increasing your budget a bit. This would be the current equivalent model: https://www.hp.com/us-en/shop/pdp/hp-officejet-pro-8025e-all-in-one-printer
 
If you just need B&W printing, my recommendation is... "Brother" laser.

I have no experience with their color printers, can't recommend pro or con.

The last inkjet printer I owned that was any good was an HP "Deskwriter", but that was almost 30 years ago.

I would STAY AWAY from anything with an "Epson" label on it.

All the above is "my opinion only"...
 
satcomer said:
laser inserts laksa us for abomember printer black ink is Sally super hard about once every two years!
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I think voice-to-text went horribly wrong?

We've had good luck with Samsung cheap B&W laser and Epson color printers. With the Epson we switched to their Ecotank, which so far hasn't had the usual inkjet issues with clogged jets.
 
velocityg4 said:
I'd just get a Brother Laser printer. The linked printer plugs in via USB. If you want network printing. It'll cost more. Unlike inkjets, you won't have to worry about toner drying out and clogging. Unfortunately, the days of the sub $100 laser are over. This is the cheapest they have now.

Brother HLL2300D | Compact Monochrome Laser Printer

This compact machine prints up to 27 pages per minute with automatic duplex printing and comes with a 250-sheet capacity paper tray. Learn more.
www.brother-usa.com www.brother-usa.com
Click to expand...

I have one.

Its the most brain dead (in a good way) printer you can get that "just works",

on my mac, on my iPad, from my iPhone. The darn thing just goes!!!

Depending on your use case, the toner just last and lasts.

fast, great quality. I really think Brother cares about their apple users.
 
macsplusmacs said:
I have one.

Its the most brain dead (in a good way) printer you can get that "just works",

on my mac, on my iPad, from my iPhone. The darn thing just goes!!!

Depending on your use case, the toner just last and lasts.

fast, great quality. I really think Brother cares about their apple users.
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Important to note they do have an app (at least for some of the machines, like the color MFC that I have) which works well. So there are some ‘smarts’ but they‘re largely optional. It also has some nice connected features that you can setup and use directly from the machine, like scanning directly to email, which is a great feature.
 
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I'm not sure why the negativity about Canon. We have an ancient LBP6030 (USB) that has been running well for a decade. In fact, we find so reliable that we're about to replace a way-too-big Canon MF4420W with a LBP6030W (wireless).
 
I've had many printers over the years and used to be an IT manager so I was exposed to many more at work as well. In my experience, nothing comes close to Brother's printers for ease-of-use, flexibility, reliability, and support. I don't think you'd go wrong with any of their current lineup. Just look for the features that you want and need as well as an affordable price.

If you do get an inkjet and don't use it very often, it's a good idea to print something with all the colors every couple of months or so. I've gone longer, but eventually the ink will dry and clog the nozzles. If you haven't gone too long, a cleaning will take care of this, but a good thorough cleaning can waste a lot of ink.

In my experience the Brothers have been the most forgiving with regards to long periods of no printing. Canons seem okay, but Epsons are terrible and I've killed a few due to lack of use and no amount of cleaning would bring them back. HP may have addressed this, as I gave up on them a long time ago, but I always ran into paper-handling problems with them.
 
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Brother is one of the last companies that make printers which do not try to artificially limit the users' freedoms. Most printer manufacturers, especially HP, have become a "printer as a service" company. No thanks.
 
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As I stated above, my wife and I had originally decided to buy a Canon laster printer to replace the Canon multifunction laser that's being relocated to her office. After reading this thread we decided to give Brother a shot. We bought their cheapest wireless enabled laser printer, the HL-1210W. That was a good decision.

I'm very impressed. Everything, including unboxing, assembly, wireless setup and driver installation was a breeze. Not a single glitch. With no paper loaded the footprint is very small. Print quality is just fine for our purposes. It is not a speed champ, but if you need speed you'll probably be willing to spend a bit more.

I'm glad I came across this thread. Thanks to all.
 
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I have a Brother HL-3170CDW color laser. We print maybe 3-5 pages every other week or so, so I'm afraid inkjets would dry out on us.

It's been relatively problem-free, although every now (like once every couple of months or something) and then the printer will refuse to wake from deep sleep and seems to just ignore the command to print. A power cycle on the printer will get it printing again.

While it's possible it's the printer, it's also just as possible that it's a weird network error -- printer is connected to ethernet and not to a specific computer via USB, so I'm not beyond blaming my big network switch or something. Seems to mostly happen to my daughter's laptop -- she mostly lives at school so maybe it's something weird with her laptop. Hard to tell since when she's home, she's the one who uses it most, so may just be coincidental. She recently got a new laptop, so we'll see if it continues. Anyway, it's uncommon enough that it's never been too much of an issue.
 
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velocityg4 said:
I'd just get a Brother Laser printer. The linked printer plugs in via USB. If you want network printing. It'll cost more. Unlike inkjets, you won't have to worry about toner drying out and clogging. Unfortunately, the days of the sub $100 laser are over. This is the cheapest they have now.

Brother HLL2300D | Compact Monochrome Laser Printer

This compact machine prints up to 27 pages per minute with automatic duplex printing and comes with a 250-sheet capacity paper tray. Learn more.
www.brother-usa.com www.brother-usa.com
Click to expand...
thank you
 
Buadhai said:
I'm not sure why the negativity about Canon. We have an ancient LBP6030 (USB) that has been running well for a decade. In fact, we find so reliable that we're about to replace a way-too-big Canon MF4420W with a LBP6030W (wireless).
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main thing is the horrendous software
 
Jumping in here - Looking for a color laser all in one to replace an older HP that is just having too many problems after about 10 years.

I've looked at Brother MFC-L8900CDW, but it seems like it's been around and unchanged for like 5 years or more. Does brother make such good products that there's no need for a newer one? I just hate to spend that kind of money on something that "out of date". It really seems like printer technology has just died off.
 
pprior said:
Jumping in here - Looking for a color laser all in one to replace an older HP that is just having too many problems after about 10 years.

I've looked at Brother MFC-L8900CDW, but it seems like it's been around and unchanged for like 5 years or more. Does brother make such good products that there's no need for a newer one? I just hate to spend that kind of money on something that "out of date". It really seems like printer technology has just died off.
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I can’t think off anything they could add to it. To bother with a new model. Printing tech matured quite a while ago. All they can seem to do is add more cloud services. Just bells and whistles which don’t improve printing or reliability.
 
velocityg4 said:
I can’t think off anything they could add to it. To bother with a new model. Printing tech matured quite a while ago. All they can seem to do is add more cloud services. Just bells and whistles which don’t improve printing or reliability.
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Oh I think there’s a LOT to be done in the printing world, for the last 20 years laser printers can’t print a decent photograph but injets dry out and just suck for overall quality.

I’ve been using printers since the old school dot matrix days (40+ years) and the last 10-15 years have seen basically nothing happen except maybe convenience like airprint. It’s absurd that we can’t have a LED or laser based photographic quality printer with archival ink on glossy paper by now.

But that aside, I went ahead and ordered the Brother, I’ve owned HP printers for decades, but always heard good things about brother. We shall see
 
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