Hey nerds! A product purchasing question.
My daughter inherited this ultra terribad HP Deskjet 4100 at university, it’s awful and they want to replace it. What’s the best non HP replacement for four students to moderately use over two years. Thanks!
It is very well maintained, by Michael Sweet, author of #CUPS and one of the principal designers and developers of IPP (Internet Printing Protocol) and so of driverless printing ...
Practically all modern printers are driverless IPP printers, mainly as the manufacturers want to assure that smartphones (iOS and Android) can print on them. Linux (and also Windows and Mac OS) also support driverless printing (and scanning), so the modern printers should usually work right away.
@popey Another vote for Brother. I recently purchased a second-hand laser, it's great. Colour may be a bit pricey for students, but if black and white will suffice it should be doable.
On some printers (HP, Canon, ...) when they run out of toner or ink, they do not scan any more!
And even worse, if you have a network printer which actually scans with empty ink or toner, it can grab new firmware through the internet and suddenly not scan any more.
Also if you are using 3rd-party ink or toner, an automatic and unattended firmware update can make such cartridges stop working ...
@popey Do you need color? Black and white? A scanner / copier?
I have a Brother BW laser. It works well in Linux and Windows, over the network, without needing to install drivers. It hasn't given us any problems, and we're on the first toner cartridge. It scans well too!
Specifically: Brother MFC-L2750DW
They also make color laser printers, but I opted for simplicity. (Less to go wrong. Although, nothing probably would've gone wrong with a Brother laser. We didn't need color anyway.)
@popey I got good reports from users of Brother laser printers doing their driverless job very well, especially from @ilvipero ...
In most cases you are better off with laser printers, as no ink nozzles can dry out, so they do not only excel with high speed for larger print volumes but are also always ready when you print only a few pages (like your tax declaration once a year) ...
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