Recommendations for a color, full duplex, laser printer?
Another printer company (Brother) has fallen to the allure of “remote disable” if they object to you using your own device in a way they don’t like: trying to self-service, use third party inks, whatever. It’s at their discretion. Given printers are the sorts of devices to which you tend to want to have network access, preventing this is a lot of work.
I’ve been looking at color duplex laser printers, and Brother has been at the top of the list, until they recently announcement that they’d disable printers using third party inks.
BIFL to me implies that the company isn’t going to actively sabotage self-service, or restrict your usage of the thing, so I think this is an appropriate question for this c/.
AFAIK the judgment is still out. Brother denies the claims and is working with Rossman to remedy that. Wait a few days with your judgment and purchase would be my recommendation.
Brother is saying they won’t “brick” your printer. Sounds like they’re only denying the most extreme description and not what they’re actually doing.
Why the hell does a printer need to “call home” for anything anyway?
Man that really grinds my gears. So now I need to isolate my printer in a VLAN and only open a port for my server to access it so it can be shared there, to keep it from accessing the internet.
I’ve found refurbed HP lasers (older ones, that have NICs but before this web crap) - they’re looking pretty attractive…
Yeah, the people having problems with Brother printers aren’t saying that they aren’t working, but rather that print quality is bad. With it appearing to happen to just a few people my guess is that a few poor quality cartridges went out from a third party factory. Give it a week or two if you can and we’ll find out for sure.
Ok, thank you. I’ve had a monochrome Brother laser before, years and years ago, which I destroyed by moving it poorly - toner everywhere. But I loved that printer, and would happily get another if they stay ethical.
My last couple have been used, off Craigslist. So slightly older models. That also means they are less likely to have the phone-home nonsense. And I refuse to ever own an inkjet again.
Currently running a 2013 HP consumer B/W, and a 2018 Canon Color laser. Neither care about internet.