this post was submitted on 22 Oct 2023
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So my mother recently bought an ET-2800, By HP we had an HP printer before and we got a new one because the old one would not work with my sister's Windows 11 Laptop. So I had to set it up for my mother, the manual said you can use it without the app. But there was no way to physically do that. Anyway, I downloaded the app on my phone (android) and the app would not connect to the printer. So I used my mother's iPhone and it would connect. The setup process was stupid proof. And after I got it all full of ink, it was very painless. However, this is where the H in HP should stand for HELL. Because a few months go by and my sister and my mother need some papers printed. No problem. I thought to myself, so my sister tried to print it wirelessly. Couldn't find the printer, I said ok maybe it's a dumb driver, USB didn't work either. I asked my sister to send it to me, so I can print it on my w540 running rocky 9. Rocky picked up that I needed drivers and installed them. Wireless didn't work but wired showed up, I thought sweet I can just print the paper and get back to what I was doing. However, when I clicked print, the printer would grab the paper and run it though but not put ink on the paper. My mother asks me to forward the email to her to try to print it on her phone. I send it, and it prints, and the paper come out how it should with ink and the paper is finally printed.

After this experience with this printer, it makes me rather aggravated at this purchase, and no longer want to buy from HP. I have looked at Brother printers and there are no Proprietary ink cartage, and or laser printers. I purely wanted to talk about my experience with HP printers and would like to know what others have for a printer for recommendations, for when eventually HP kills support and makes it a paper weight, I've read many negative experiences with HP printer, specially from Lois Ross man and their anti consumer products.

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[–] towerful@programming.dev 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

For A4, I always recommend Brother printers.
If you can spend for a laser printer, it is SOO worth it.

I had a fancy inkjet. The problem is I didnt use it often, so when I did use it I got really bad result.
It was also slow, and the ink was expensive.

So, I thought about buying a new one.
Fresh ink and replacement print heads were going to be more than the cost of a new printer anyway.

I looked into it and bought a brother A4 colour laser. A quick Google shows them to be currently ~£250.
I have had that printer for years. I rarely print anything. But when I do, the image is as good as when I bought it.

Checking the printer stats, I've printed 430 pages. Wear and tear is at 98% (IE 2% used of drum/belt/fuser/feeder lifespan).
The black toner is 40%, and the colour toners are 80%.
3rd party toners are £30 per color, and apparently yield 2500 pages. So more expensive than 3rd part ink cartridges, but the yield is significantly more!
Overall more expensive. But the reliability is outstanding!

Edit:
Well, all this printer talk, I thought I should update the firmware.
Brother only provide a dmg for OSX 10.7.
So, that's a pretty huge drawback!
Edit again:
Nope, I'm an idiot. Found the link for W10 update tool.
All updated, and over the network too!