Best printer 2024: a humorous critique of the Google search engine, LLMs and printer enshittification

Google's LLM got one critical fact wrong, of course. If you only need occasional color printing, an inkjet is still the wrong answer. The right answer is probably just to have Staples or your local print shop print for you, honestly. The ink dries out in disused inkjet machines and that'll cause you no end of headaches. Or force you to buy a set of expensive cartridges just to print one damn page, because the last thing you printed was three months ago.

Color laser printers aren't even that expensive anymore. Sure, a set of color toner cartridges may cost well north of what a set of inkjet cartridges would run you, but the difference is that the laser toner will probably last many home users a lifetime.

Hey, I own that printer! It's a good printer.

Remember kids, always buy laser, never inkjet.

All printers are bad and the Brother Printers are consistently the least bad.

I bought two printers in the last 2 decades. One looked like the model in the article, which I gave to a family member. The other one is a Brother Laser printer with a scanner.

I'd rather get a 50 pack of markers and start coloring in my printouts than buy a crappy inkjet printer. Plus it's bonding time with my nieces and nephews. I pay them in cookies.

I still recommend Brother printers, but some MFC-* models do support/enforce OEM lock-in after firmware updates according to reports. All the info is 2 years old and I so want to be wrong on this. Have they reversed that decision? Firmware update disables 3rd party toner

I just advised a business on a tech proposal, including printers, and the bid quoted one of the lock-in models. Of course it's a company so toner is a business expense and they arn't pinching pennies, but the owner is with the us in not supporting this decision. Props to them.

"Also this strikes me as a very lazy reviewer. Which makes him profoundly qualified to review printers"

😂

Maybe I’m in the minority, but I like my EcoTank. I got it cause we print a decent amount of pictures and laser can’t do even passing quality photos. Having no cartridges to worry about is much less of a hassle than it used to be.

That said, laser is fine for most people.

Just get a 3d printer and put it in 2d print mode as needed so you aren't gunking up your home and network with so many devices.

Sorry, the printer of the year is still the 2008 HP 4730mfp. Still going strong 16 years later!

Glad to see the perfect Brother laser printer + Linux combo getting a well deserved press attention, again like in 2023 :)

Weird thumbnail. Why is the printer pixelated, but the logo is super crisp?

I'm buying my 3rd brother printer today, I got rid of my first when consolidating households even though it was working fine and only needed new toner once in 10 years. Recently I convinced my MIL to ditch HP but she insists we need a color printer so I'm picking up a second hand mfc-9340cdw to finally break free of instant ink. I look forward to not thinking about printers for another 10+ years.

I can print at my workplace, and there is a library 5 minutes walking distance from my apartment. These huge commercial printing machines are so much better than anything you can buy for your home, and I don't have to maintain them. I'm very grateful I don't have to own a printer.

I like that the AI generated "cons" of the brother printer are just gripes about laser printers in general.

From the title and picture, I thought this was some weird diss on the depicted Brother laser printer and stopped by to defend it. Fortunately it is, instead, tauting the superiority of Brother laser printers.

I own the depicted printer, or one very close to it, and it is a workhorse. Brother laser printers are the way.

I just use the printer at work.

Permanently Deleted

I actually think the Google LLM produced a really good summary of trade-offs. I didn’t choose a laser printer because it’s more expensive and larger and I don’t print very often. I got the Canon TS702, which has AirPrint and cheap knock-off ink available on Amazon. The older Verge article mentioned seeing Brother printers in the background of video calls. You won’t see a printer in my background, it fits in a cabinet. Why would I want a huge appliance that I use once or twice a month sitting on a table top in the background of my video calls?

If you can find an inkjet that removes the ink-racket of the business model, it’s a really good value. The company making the printer maybe even loses money on it. That’s a win in my book.

I might be in the mood to buy a new printer. I have a Brother HL-2070N. And I've long since forgotten the admin password.

Our HP inkjet scanner/copier/printer stopped recognizing cartridges were installed. We replaced it with a Brother laser and it just works.

I'm still using my HL5280DW. The w (and later the n) both stopped working, so I connected it to an old pi I had laying around to print to it over the network.

Only downside is no Windows 11 (thanks new work laptop) driver support if I connect directly via USB.

I think I changed my toner for the first time like 2 years ago. The high capacity toner I bought with the printer worked just fine (after 16 years in my closet) when I installed it. I don't expect it to run out of toner until I'm long dead.

This is the best summary I could come up with:

It’s been over a year since I last told you to just buy a Brother laser printer, and that article has fallen down the list of Google search results because I haven’t spent my time loading it up with fake updates every so often to gain the attention of the Google search robot.

Pointing out that incentive structure and the culture that’s developed around it seems to make a lot of people mad, which is also interesting!

Both of them have reliably printed return labels and random forms and pictures for my kid to color for years now, and I have never purchased replacement toner for either one.

Neither has fallen off the WiFi or insisted I sign up for an ink-related hostage situation or required me to consider the ongoing schemes of HP executives who seem determined to make people hate a legendary brand with straightforward cash grabs and weird DRM ideas.

Don’t feel compelled to do it; my only ask is that you make this article go viral by sharing it in faux-outrage that the EIC of The Verge has published an article partially generated by AI, because after the buttons I am going to include a bunch of AI-generated copy from Google’s Gemini in order to pad this thing out.

Brother laser printers are strong contenders, especially for black and white printing needs, but weigh the pros and cons against other options like inkjets before deciding.

The original article contains 428 words, the summary contains 239 words. Saved 44%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

my only ask

Don't be a sales-bro wanna-be. Ask questions or make requests; don't "ask asks".