207 points

I’ve singlehandedly caused hp to lose thousands of dollars. People trust my advice and I’ve lost all trust in hp so I tell people not to waste their money on it.

permalink
report
reply
245 points

When I got hired to take charge of the IT department, the first thing I did was phase out ALL HP products and then implemented an “Unacceptable and Barred Brands for purchasing” policy with HP right at top.

permalink
report
parent
reply
70 points

Thank you for your service

permalink
report
parent
reply
49 points
*

Unfathomably Based

permalink
report
parent
reply
12 points

Anyone have recommendations for MICR compatible printers that AREN’T HP? It’s the last HP product we have in my office.

permalink
report
parent
reply
70 points

Don’t buy a smart printer. Buy a dumb printer, then plug it into a raspberry pi.

permalink
report
parent
reply
45 points
*

Who sells dumb printers though? I would buy that in a heartbeat.

permalink
report
parent
reply
22 points
*

I’m pretty sure you can still get brother, Canon, and Epson ones

permalink
report
parent
reply
17 points

Brother sells some

permalink
report
parent
reply
4 points

Estate sales, yard sales, and tech scrappers/recyclers tend to have em as well.

permalink
report
parent
reply
11 points

we need an easily flashed prerolled Printer OS that makes this easy to make work

permalink
report
parent
reply
8 points

What’s a smart printer?

permalink
report
parent
reply
10 points

A printer that supports network print, typically through an Internet service.

permalink
report
parent
reply
5 points

I haven’t bought a printer recently. Wtf is a smart printer?

permalink
report
parent
reply
9 points

It’s a printer that, when you tell it to print, tries its best to find a reason to refuse to do so.

permalink
report
parent
reply
4 points
*

Most newer models that automatically make themselves available to all the devices connected to the network they are connected to, and manage the printer queue internally. Usually comes with a ton of shitty “features” e.g preventing you from printing black & white when you’re out of yellow ink.
2-in-one scanner+printer machines are especially heinous with this, most of the ones I’ve used block you from scanning a document if you’re out of any ink (yes, even when you’re only trying to scan and not use the “copy” mode)

Somehow they found a way to make me miss having to boot the “printer PC” and wrangling windows’ god awful printer queue system.

permalink
report
parent
reply
133 points

Buy brother laser. It’s more expensive, but it’s worth it long term. They last a real long time and the cartridges last bananas and they don’t care about “official” ink

permalink
report
reply
48 points

Straight up when I bought my black and white brother laser printer I got an extra cartridge with it because I didn’t expect it to last very long

By the time I finally had to swap it out I couldn’t find the extra cartridge I bought with it because it had been so long

Needless to say I’m 3 years and 500+ pages into the second cartridge and happy to have this clunky little printer

permalink
report
parent
reply
53 points

Unfortunately someone snuck someone from HP into Brother’s executive chain. They’re starting the fuckery now too.

permalink
report
parent
reply
15 points

I guess the only right thing to do is to buy used Brother laser printers until they all break… Such warhorses.

permalink
report
parent
reply
9 points

Nooooooooooo!

permalink
report
parent
reply
5 points

Sadly this is true and even on updated software for old printers. I’m rolling back though. The old versions worked fine.

permalink
report
parent
reply
25 points
*

I thought the latest update to the new brother color laser added cartridge DRM?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31860131

permalink
report
parent
reply
8 points

So far, on my 5 year old brother it annoys me to but toner from them but had a “do not show this message again” choice to click. Happened with two messages and no more so far. They also added a thing in status monitor when it tells you your toner levels wether it’s official or not and that you should not official. So far it hasn’t stopped me from using it, but like every corporation I fully expect them to go full stupid soon.

permalink
report
parent
reply
14 points

Laser printers are especially handy if you rarely ever need to print anything, because they don’t dry up and get clogged.

permalink
report
parent
reply
3 points

Yeah I tend to either not print anything for years, or print huge amounts in a short span of time. Lasers are brilliant for this use case, because they also print really really quickly when they are printing, in addition to not drying up.

permalink
report
parent
reply
11 points

It’s not even more expensive. You can get a full duplex wifi printer for under $200. I want one, but my 20 year old Brother printer is still going strong.

permalink
report
parent
reply
7 points

Laser printers don’t use ink.

permalink
report
parent
reply
3 points

This is what i own. Amazing printer

permalink
report
parent
reply
3 points

My Dell mono laser is also going strong. Haven’t had a single issue in over 10 years. Ink printers have been and still are a scam

permalink
report
parent
reply
96 points
*

And this is why things like pirating are not only acceptable but necessary. When companies lock services behind paywalls for products we should legally own, we are left with no recourse but to obtain the services we are owed illegally.

permalink
report
reply
26 points

Agreed. Piracy, aka the sharing of information freely (see also: libraries), is a fundamentally ethically correct course of action. Always.

Withholding knowledge for personal profit on the other hand is obviously not.

permalink
report
parent
reply
78 points

They’ll be the first company with their backs against the wall when the revolution comes

permalink
report
reply
39 points

I’m pretty sure that’s Nestle

permalink
report
parent
reply
28 points

The revolution will not be printed in color.

permalink
report
parent
reply
5 points

“Your printer pal that’s fun to be with!”

permalink
report
parent
reply
76 points

This should straight up be illegal

permalink
report
reply
25 points

No joke, like what the fuck is this? I bought the thing, and you can just disable it ???

permalink
report
parent
reply
11 points

That’s the issue, people won’t stop buying these things and then complain - selling a scam calling it a feature should be illegal and all these practices should be called out as much as possible.

permalink
report
parent
reply