After a full year of not thinking about printers, the best printer is still whatever random Brother laser printer that’s on sale.

Verge editor laments the perverse incentives of SEO rankings.

  • @politicalcustard@beehaw.org
    38•9 months ago

    People are still printing? I love it, proppa old skool that is. I thought the only person who printed stuff anymore was my mum who prints out her daily crossword.

    Don’t forget to boycott HP because, not only are they shit printers, they provide computer hardware for the IDF, Israel’s police, and their Immigration and Population Authority. https://bdsmovement.net/boycott-hp

    • livus
      18•9 months ago

      This article’s compatible with that. The tldr is as usual brother laser, any model.

    • @MadMadBunny@lemmy.ca
      3•9 months ago

      Yes, we do print. Many industries still need printed material.

      That being said, call me old school all you want, but I prefer the feel of newspaper over any screen. Data, especially online data, is so easily lost. Print remains.

    • @terminhell@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      2•9 months ago

      There are still a need for document printing at home. Granted it’s just smaller in scale these days. Mine is mostly used for the kids. Like printing out things to color on, or something educational. On rare occasions I’ll need to print some kinda form, for work or some kinda government form, even event tickets.

      That said, I really don’t know anyone that’s looking to photo print at home anymore. It’s just cheaper to have it done somewhere like Walgreens or Walmart.

  • @gu3miles@beehaw.org
    22•9 months ago

    Brother laser printers are great. I get new toner for my laser jet twice each decade. Never had a problem. I press print, it prints. Only issue is pretty high current draw when it kicks on with my old house wiring. That’s about it.

  • @Anyolduser@lemmynsfw.com
    14•9 months ago

    I am outraged that - let me check my notes - the EIC of The Verge has published an article partially generated by AI.

  • @cmnybo@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
    10•9 months ago

    That’s a good printer, but if you print a lot, I would suggest getting one with that supports duplex printing to save some paper.

  • FubarberryEnglish
    7•9 months ago

    I’ve long heard arguments in favor of laser printers, but after finding out that every laser printer is printing yellow tracking dots on every page it prints, it’s made me question if I actually want one. I haven’t been able to find any confirmation that inkjet printers have tracking dots. It’s very possible some do, but in comparison it sounds like every laser printer does.

    I currently have an Epson ecotank, to refill it I just pour ink in from a bottle. The ink is super cheap (at least compared to regular inkjets, and there’s no way for them to restrict what brand of liquid ink I use. Honestly it’s a very decent printing experience, and I’m not sure I’d be better off with a Brother Laser.

    • Semi-Hemi-Demigod
      21•9 months ago

      Only color laser printers put those yellow dots on paper. The black and white ones don’t because they can’t: They don’t have yellow toner.

      So get a black and white printer and you’ll be fine.

      • @ReversalHatchery@beehaw.orgEnglish
        6•9 months ago

        I don’t want to be that guy, but if they really want to be tracking prints, black and white printing does not need to make it impossible. There’s other ways to code information.

        • Semi-Hemi-Demigod
          6•9 months ago

          There is, but since color printers are the ones that were used in counterfeiting most black and white printers don’t do that sort of thing. Plus I don’t know how you’d encode that much information in black and white without making it visible on the paper.

          • @jarfil@beehaw.org
            2•9 months ago

            You could encode information as slight “mistakes” in the print. An extra dot here, a missing dot there, some slight “printing error” in some place.

            There could be ways, but as you said, it’s to combat money counterfeiting. Like the Euro constellation detection in scanners, PhotoShop, and printer drivers. (fun fact: it’s quite easy to bypass, not sure why they even bothered… it only stops people who put 0 thought into counterfeiting anyway)

  • @scrchngwsl@feddit.ukEnglish
    5•9 months ago

    I have a similar printer but with duplex printing, which I bought because it fits under my sofa. It does everything I wanted it to do; namely, to print double-sided black and white documents and fit under my sofa.

    BTW I also recommend the Brother ADS-2xxx series of document scanners, which I bought to scan multi-page double-sided documents automatically. I put the stack of papers in the top, press Go, and it scans to PDF in a few seconds.

  • AutoTL;DRBEnglish
    4•9 months ago

    🤖 I’m a bot that provides automatic summaries for articles:

    Click here to see the summary

    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.

    Saved 44% of original text.

  • @cobra89@beehaw.org
    4•9 months ago

    Lol again, everyone in this community loves to call The Verge corporate shills but then has no problem upvoting and commenting on posts like these. Like if the Verge were truly biased by corporate interests, wouldn’t an article like this be the place most ripe for that bias to show through and be a problem?

    I get that the community is not a hive mind and is made up of many different people, but on posts where people are criticizing the Verge because they don’t like the way they show the corporate viewpoint you’d be drowned out completely if you were to argue anything otherwise. The irony just kills me.

    • @brisk@aussie.zoneOP
      2•9 months ago

      It’s not clear from your post whether you’ve read the article. In case you haven’t, it’s not really about printers.

      • @cobra89@beehaw.org
        1•9 months ago

        I mean it is but it isn’t. I think Nilay wanted to get the Verge back at the top of the search engine results but also wanted to make a point about why he had to do it. It’s funny because it’s really 2 paragraphs about it and then the rest of it is a normal article about the best printer lol. And the fun Gemini thing thrown in.

  • @solanaceous@beehaw.org
    2•9 months ago

    This reminds me of an old joke:

    An SEO copywriter walks into a bar, pub, Irish bar, drinks, beer, wine, whiskey, cocktails, liquor.

    But since then the situation has gotten a lot shittier.