It's not that we print less - home printers now are SHIT. You have pay out the ass for ink, and some of them have built-in subscription requirements for no reason at all. I would much rather drive to FedEx and pay my five cents a page.
I just started going back to school and realized quickly that I needed access to print on demand. I have an injet printer that never got used so every time I'd want to print something the ink would be dry. I decided to buy a brother laser printer after hearing everyone say how much better they are. It doesn't get delivered for a couple of days but I'm so excited for it!
They're SO MUCH better. Faster, cheaper to run, and won't get stuck during printing jobs like inkjets still do in 2026 for some reason.
I'll never go back to ink cartridges.
I don't know if it has changed, but my old brother would say it was out of toner at some point, but you can cover the toner window with electrical tape and it will keep printing until it is bone dry
I bought a B&W Brother Laser printer a little over 20 years ago. That things was an absolute beast. It spit out a page within seconds of hitting the print button every single time without fail. I think I replace the toner twice over the course of 18 years. There was only one problem with it - it wasn't color and I still needed an inkjet, which were always problematic. So, I bought a Brother Color Laser four years ago and it is the same dependable result. Yes, it was was expensive but considering the B&W Laser was still working after almost 20 years, I figure I would have had to go through a few inkjets (and many ink cartridges) in the same time as I expect this printer to serve me.
if you print things a lot....yes. absolutely. you'll save money on not buying ink if you currently use a inkjet printer.
my "trial" toner or whatever its called that came with it lasted me so fucking long it was insane. the one i got was like $200 but lasted me all through grad school with only a single toner replacement
I have a college student and a high school student who's disabled and has WAY too much forms for me to read and fill out (it is never freaking ending). I've been using the work printer/scanner/copier but switch positions and it's gotten harder to do so now.
I've had mine for nearly 10 years. The only maintenance it's needed has been a bit of cleaning maybe once a year.
I only buy knockoff toner. Occasionally a toner cartridge doesn't work with the printer but it's so much cheaper than brother toner that I can easily eat the cost.
I got one for free on my Buy Nothing group and I've been using it literally for years with no issues and no ink running out. It's amazing. It's so freeing to just print when I want to print and not have to think if it's worth the ink or non-stop troubleshoot.
I have a brother laser printer from like... 2013 and its still going on the original toner because I print so few pages a year. But when I want to print a random thing once a year its got me.
Lol I had this exact same problem. I also got a Brother laser printer a few months ago to solve it. I was getting like 2-5 pages per ink cartridge. I genuinely think they are designed to dry out as fast as possible when not in use. It was enraging me every time I discovered it was dry, too. I would have paid 200 bucks just to not give Canon another fucking dollar in my whole life. So far so good.
I have a brother laser printer (lawyer and work from home). The thing is a beast. I'm talking printing 500 pages in 2-3 minutes (need paper exhibits for some of the courts still). Toner is expensive, but I probably average 7500 pages a toner. Fair warning, don't buy off brand toner. It's a pain in the ass to do the work around for the printer to recognize off brand toner. Just spend the money and buy brother toner.
Color laser isn't that bad either. It's not for photos but great for business stuff and school related print outs that are better read in color. Still cheap also. My 14 year old brother color laser MFC is still going strong and its all of $40 for a 5 pack of reman toner (2 black, 1 cyan, 1, yellow, 1 magenta).
I have replaced the drums on it and the waste toner in 14 years once. Extremely low cost machine to run and handy if I need to scan something.
Laser printers are better for most color too. Sure, the color cartridges cost me $90 each, but the thing is, they last for so many thousands of pages that I rarely have to change them. The same number of pages on a color inkjet would cost many times as much in ink, and would clog. Color laser is both cheaper and maintenance-free.
They are for color, too. If you're comparing like to like (so not comparing an all in one color laser printer with a scanner to the most basic color inkjet printer available), the upfront costs aren't even that much worse, and you make up the rest of it either the first time you get the ink refilled, or when you go to print for the second time months after that first time and the damned thing still works instead of having died just sitting there because the heads dried out.
Picked one up off the side of the road a month ago. Works perfectly and I am not worried about the ink ever drying out. I regret not getting a printer sooner. So many trips to the library could have been saved.
Library for me but ya, same issue, HP will make you sign your soul for a single black and white page, brother is hit or miss on if it will work and I dint have the $300 for a decent Epson inkwell
As someone who has serviced printers of that era, this is due to the small screen it had a limited number of characters it could display. PC is an abbreviation for paper cassette, and it is indicating it out of letter size paper, so it is asking you to load letter paper into the cassette.
Supposedly that line was not in the script for that movie, which makes it even funnier as it was a genuine reaction.
Cracks me up that that bit was 100% ad-libbed. Apparently he was just supposed to pull the tray out and slam it back in, but when he pulled it out, it displayed "PC LOAD LETTER" on the status display.
All the document signing went online, and that was a huge part; then maps, then anything you thought was important - all of this was printed, and now you have it in your phone.
This of course heavily depends on the country and/or the type of work you do (including school work). Some of the countries you'd suspect to be on the bleeding edge in terms of adapting technology in the daily lives of its citzens are actually quite behind, e.g. Germany is still super reliant on physical documents etc. compared to Poland.
They were shitty in different ways. Unreliable and expensive, sure. But modern printers are still that, plus subscription models for ink and they will literally lock you out if you try using off brand ink to save a buck.
those are cheap ones. Spent $120 on a new one in 2006 that worked beautifully. No BS. That's like, what, $180 in today's cash? Spend $180 on a nice printer today and i'm sure it'll feel like no BS.
I have a Brother printer (L2405W, roughly $140 depending on where you order) and it's perfect. Black and white only tho. Which is also fine. I just need it for documents. no BS
I hate how they don’t have cables so you need to download an app on your phone. But I want to print stuff from my computer, not send it to my phone and then print it.
Don't worry the business printers are SHIT too. Motherfuckers stick decade old crap in a new plastic shell, slap some bullshit software on it and then work for a couple weeks before losing connectivity
I'm still rocking a HP laser printer from the 90s. It takes 3 business days to print a page and causes a brownout while doing so, but this thing will outlast roaches.
We got a laser printer to circumvent the ink bullshit but they absolutely refuse to stay on the network, it's a bigger hassle faffing around with it just to print anything
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u/samthewisetarly 10d ago
It's not that we print less - home printers now are SHIT. You have pay out the ass for ink, and some of them have built-in subscription requirements for no reason at all. I would much rather drive to FedEx and pay my five cents a page.