Re: [LUG] A new printer, Part two

[comrade meowski <mr.meowski@xxxxxxxx>]

I get through a lot of printers for clients (so much for the paperless 
office) and can offer this: it's the same choice I give all of them when 
their old inkjet packs up and they need a replacement.

A: Buy an all-in-one laser printer/scanner in the £100-£150 (mono) or 
£200-£350 (colour) range.

B: Condemn yourself to the cycle of buying another £40 inkjet printer 
every 18-24 months for the rest of your life - that's as long as any of 
them will last these days.

B is obviously cheaper short term but you have the constant hassle of 
ink supplies to deal with, which are extortionate and have a very short 
lifespan once opened. Reliability and quality are unexceptional to 
comically bad.

A is obviously more expensive short term but if you print a lot or don't 
want to buy in to the planned obsolescence cycle of modern disposable 
inkjet units it's the only tenable option. Long term for anyone who 
plans on printing for the next 5, 10 or more years it's the rational 
choice.

I personally have a HP M281fdw colour laserjet bought on a 
recommendation (from MJE I think) after a similar printer discussion 
here on the list a couple of years back. In turn I highly recommend it.

General printer advice:

Forget checking compatibility with Linux, that hasn't been a thing for a 
long time now. If there's one OS in the world that's going to plug and 
play random hardware, it's Linux. Any printer you buy will work. 
Absolute worse case, spend 2 minutes googling the answer.

If you want to play it safe, just buy a HP. I dislike them as much as 
anyone but that aside, just buy a HP printer.

Cheap inkjets do not have ethernet ports any more, only wifi and USB.

Modern all-in-one inkjet printers do not _require_ you to have a mobile 
phone to connect to it or set up their wifi. It's true that most inkjets 
now come with optional functionality to allow adhoc connections from 
mobile devices - which can be quite useful actually - but they never 
require it.

Some particularly crappy inkjets can only have their network 
functionality controlled once it's already been plugged in via USB to a 
working computer, sometimes even requiring a windows-only setup tool. 
They're increasingly uncommon now fortunately as even the cheapest of 
cheap inkjet all-in-ones normally now have a rudimentary touchscreen to 
input wifi passwords and so on.

TLDR: Buy a cheap laserjet all-in-one. Specifically, buy an expensive HP 
laserjet all-in-one for cheap. These things are always on sale, all of 
the time. HP particularly like to offer cashback on laserjet purchases 
which is a pain in the arse to claw back but can lop £60-£150 off the 
box price.

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