Brother is the only real choice. Their MFC are very versatile and handy and quite reasonable.
this post was submitted on 17 Mar 2026
87 points (97.8% liked)
Ask Lemmy
38847 readers
1172 users here now
A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions
Rules: (interactive)
1) Be nice and; have fun
Doxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, toxicity and dog-whistling are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them
2) All posts must end with a '?'
This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?
3) No spam
Please do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.
4) NSFW is okay, within reason
Just remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com.
NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].
5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions.
If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email info@lemmy.world. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.
6) No US Politics.
Please don't post about current US Politics. If you need to do this, try !politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world or !askusa@discuss.online
Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.
Partnered Communities:
Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
You are correct that Canon and Brother tend to be the best straight forward printers. Brother is better for laser printing and Canon is better for ink jet printing. If you go ink jet go with individual cartridges instead of the combined cartridges it’s way less fuss.
If you can do laser the basic Brothers just work. We had one in our woodshop for almost a decade. Sawdust spray paint etc. and it just did not care. It didn’t end up dying even, we just swapped it for a color version, and we’re on year 4 with that one.
I have been thinking about replacing my brother laser with a color laser. Not sure how much I would use it outside of printing commie things for Pathfinder games though.
Maybe just go with a B&W printer and go to the local copy shop or library for the occasional color print? That's what I do.
load more comments
(1 replies)
Now THIS is a recommendation! My next printer (fuck HP) will be a Brother laser printer!
I've got a small Canon MFC laser printer/copier. No complaints at all. It only prints black and white but I tend to scan more than print so that was a big focus for me when I bought it.
Color Ink: Epson Ecotank (no cartridge bullshit)
B/W: Brother HL-L Series Laser (bulletproof, long-lasting, cheap)
Would there be any advantage to going just black and white?
The advantage is that you can get a cheap laser printer.
They'll happily print every day for years and cost next to nothing to run.
They'll also happily print after you didn't use them for a long time.
Ink printers are generally less durable, cost much more to run and their heads dry out if you don't use them regularly.
Color laser printers are expensive, big, and the color isn't good enough for photos, only colored documents.
Color laser printers are expensive, big, and the color isn’t good enough for photos, only colored documents.
I own two (identical) color laser printers, can confirm two out of three. They're gigantic and the color isn't very vibrant.
However, they weren't all that expensive because I got them used. Still not quite dirt-cheap like a black & white laser is, but affordable.
My brother color laser is decent, but the toner is expensive. So expensive that i buy knockoff toner. Which 95% of the time is solid. Until every once in a while a kid needs something printed that's a photo. Not sure why, but it is absolute garbage at photos. Like not even close. Streaks and bands of color everywhere. I'm not even trying fancy photo paper, just trying to get details. A caffeinated adhd toddler with fistful of crayons could do better.
But if you want to print a worksheet in color? Does fantastic.
Advantage being you only have to buy one toner cartridge and drum.
Depending on the age, you may need a new drum unit, but I think that may also just be a deficit of laser.
Laser printers are usually lower resolution than ink printers and half toning is usually more difficult for laser printers. However, the results shouldn't be THAT bad.
Agreed, i'm not expecting good. But I've had pictures come out that look like an inkjet with the worst case of dirty print head you've ever seen.
load more comments
(2 replies)
load more comments
(4 replies)
Toner is cheaper if you have a laser black only, lots of pages per refill.
At work I've installed 10 color inkjet epson L6460 printers 2-3 years ago and most of them I still haven't refilled.
They come with 2 bottles of black ink and one of everything else, last forever, will print after 4 months unused if you do a print head cleaning (a few times in a row) and the Epson brand bottles are 8 - 12 bucks each.
For home use a cheaper Ecotank would probably serve you just as well.
Cost is like 100 times less per page.
Black and white is more common in laser printers, less complex, cheaper and it takes up less room.
Laser printers don't just shoot color particles on the paper like ink jet / piezo printers.
They "magnetize" a photo conductor so the toner particles stick to it and then usually transfer it to the paper using pressure and then fix it using heat. You can't really do the first part for multiple colors at the same time so color lasers can get pretty complex to repeat this process for each color (CMKY, sometimes more).
So why not an ink printer instead?
- If you use them often they will cost you a lot. Printer manufacturers love ink printers because they can basically sell water (with a tiny bit of color) for the price of gold. That's also the reason why they put you much effort into detection of original ink cartridges.
- If you don't use them often, the print heads tend to clog and guess what the printers use to flush them? Copious amounts of liquid gold (ink).
load more comments
(1 replies)
We recently retired our color laser printer of ten years for an epson ecotank. I'm happy with it two months in, and only the black has depleted some 10% with the Mrs doing a couple of color copies daily.
Eco tank uses ink that fades and is sub par. Laser toner printers are crisper and last longer.
load more comments
(1 replies)
EcoTanks are so cool, you can buy their colors for cheap, you can get all colors refills for 15-20€ but they will last forever, bought last year, used them a lot for documents a few photos and a DnD sheet (with image included) and the tank is still full
I found my Brother HL out on the curb on a lightly rainy day. I had passed by it on my walk thinking it was an Epson inkjet, but on my way back I saw it was one of those Brother BW lasers the Internet nerds always go on about so I brought it inside and dried it off.
Fired right up and has been handling my once a month or so printing duties ever since, still on the same toner that I found it with. Best non-commercial printer I've ever used.
Brother laser printer. Mine's going on 9 years now, a cartridge lasts so long I have to look up how to change it when it finally needs it.
load more comments
(1 replies)
Only advice I can give is if you are just printing on paper, pay the extra $ and get a laser printer. Avoid inkjets - they are a complete scam and a waste of money. The toner will last 10x longer, never goes bad or clogs up the print heads, and the quality is better.
I don't know how laser printers handle sticker sheets, but for all practical printing purposes I wholeheartedly recommend a laser printer.
Brother is also a solid brand. I have had mine for almost 10 years now and it's still running like the day I got it.
For sticker sheets you want a straight through paper path - this often means feed sheets one at a time, and catch them out the back instead of letting them to to the paper tray.
Stickers meant for printing in printers generally will work with a normal feed though, so if you don't mind opening your printer you can take a chance and normally be okay.
load more comments
(1 replies)
What’s your budget, here’s 2 options and they should work with the sheets.
Brother HL2405 $139: https://a.co/d/0bHDQ885
Brother HL2460DW $179: https://a.co/d/0ccXVUgP
Echoing others, Brother laser printers. Cheap, reliable, and toner lasts forever. Initial one with purchase is like...40% of standard, and will still get you a few hundred pages. The regular ones are like 1200+, and the large ones are I think pushing 2k for like $70.
You can do stickers on sticker paper with lasers, but idk the quality. Is it like...address labels? If so, lasers are perfect tly fine for that. Fine details? Idk.
Brother laser or bust. I use mine once a month Max and it's been years since I even serviced it, they simply last forever with no maintenance. Color laser is significantly more expensive for the initial buy than inkjet but supplies are infinitely cheaper per-page. Problem being I don't know how laser behaves with most sticker package paper, so you'll need to research your preferred stickers to make sure they are compatible.
Brother laser printers are my current go to
My wife has a brother black/white laser printer. I got it about 5yrs ago and still going with no issues. She does sell things and makes labels and also uses a small thermal printer that pumps out label packages. Not sure if that can double for stickers for you, but could be an option.
My Brother printer can legally vote in the next election and it's still kickin
Mine is about old enough to buy alcohol, although the NIC died and the Linux drivers for a print server are garbage, so I replaced it with another Brother (found nearly brand new in the Goodwill bins for $10)
It definitely still works as a wired printer, though.
The Brothers are really good, but the Ricohs closely behind and a little cheaper. Both with relatively few bullshit going on.
If you are fine with ink printers, get inktank which you can refill yourself with pretty much any ink you can find. Never buy ink cartridge one like ever. Also, I would opt out of ink printers if you are not using them so often and if speed is preferable. They are slow as fuck and in my experience, a seldom used printer would at some point clog and it is pretty much impossible to clean this shit out.
As for laser ones, get preferably Brother. I have Lexmark and their toners can be refilled at home which is nice but I believe Brother toners if not easily refillable at home, can be refiled at print shops for cheap. Also, look for part availability so that in case of some part become broken, you can easily get a replacement off the web. Then you're set!
Don't even think about getting an inkjet printer unless you really, really need color, and need it often. Even if you aren't dealing with DRM and price-gouging BS, the ink dries and gums up the print heads unless you're using them regularly.
For me, color is a want, not a need (meaning I'm not relying on the quality of the output or making money from it), and only an occasional one. But I did want it, along with other bells and whistles like automatic duplex printing, for my "buy it for life" printer. So I decided to go with a Brother color laser.
I ended up buying two used ones from some office getting rid of them on Craigslist for maybe $50? each. The one I actually print with -- the other is basically for spare parts -- has almost 60K pages on it and is complaining that it's due for some expensive "fuser" and "PF Kit" replacements, but it keeps working, so I haven't actually bothered yet.
If your use case is very much about stickers on sticker paper, and you're doing it regularly and often (not necessarily tons of pages at a time, but not going weeks at a time without printing anything), you may actually want an inkjet rather than a laser. Aside from the images not being as pretty as with an inkjet, the other disadvantage of a laser for you is that because it heats the paper, you might have to worry about paper compatibility to avoid gumming up the machine with melted adhesive.
I had a brother printer (mfc) that i bought and gave to my friend after a couple years. bought another and the colors are off but it works. the ink dries out tho so i was thinking my next printer might use toner/lasers. i just buy ink cartriges, i don't refill.
I can't say much about brands, I bought a Samsung color laser years ago and still use it.
What I will say is being able to network print is amazing and well worth having. I can print from my tablet, phone, or desktop.
load more comments
(4 replies)
After a long time with HP printers, i switched to Epson Ecotank series. Way better with regards to ink usage and prices.
Key features for me: all-in-one device that also scans and copies, feeder for the scanner, double-sided printing, color.
Like other posts - brother, laser.
My ancient HP laserjet died a few months back so I picked up a brother. It amazed me that I just plugged it in (Linux) and it worked. No hplip, no cups config, just worked.
Even more impressive, I tried the network/wifi print out of curiosity and it also just worked... Nothing special, Debian 13 auto discovered it on the network and added it to my printer list.
I had the HP for over 15 years and it was always a bitch to get working with Linux. Hoping this brother lasts at least as long.
See if you can find a used Brother laser printer. The older Brother printers are fantastic. I thought I heard somewhere Brother had started to enshitify their newer products (last coulple of years). But I might be wrong there.
It was a mountain out of a molehill situation. Basically, brother toner cartridges can do an internal calibration to fix minor alignment issues. For off brand toner, it needs to be done manually. It had been that way for a while. The original author just got some particularly misaligned cartridges and "discovered" this.
Other than that, I've seen no signs of enshitifcation from Brother. I ended up buying a brother colour laser not long afterwards, and have been quite happy so far.
I hear that once in a while, but so far it seems to be mostly haters have to take everything to the extreme vs a real problem. Still things could change.
I just got a new brother laser DCP-L6600DW after my old brother laser started malfunctioning after nearly 15 years of duty. They both work fine, even with 3rd party toners. I'm using Debian BTW, but my phone also worjs fine with it. I did have to install the brother driver package, as the Debian included one didn't work quite right.
I have bought a brother laser printer 8 years ago. It just stop working, because of a know problem of not turning on. There's a workaround that a used, and lately let it always on, but it finally stopped working, even with the workaround. Although it was a good printer because I would have spend many times its value if I had used the cheap ones. I also have a xerox and canon laser printer and so far so good.
view more: next ›