Are ALL home printers complete bastards?

[CharliesAngles]

As in, really unreliable, expensive and utterly contemptible temperamental twats?

We've had three.
All "good" brands - HP, Epson etc, and they've all been absolutely useless.
Only print come alive when they feel like it.
Refuses to connect to the WiFi.
Always running out of ink (Like, how???? When you've refused to print a damn thing ever?!)
Not even wanting to print out loads. It's just the odd thing for DCs school work now and then.

Just wondering if I'm missing something here, and all you wonderful MNs are in some secret club, and actually know of the Holy Grail of home printers?

Share please? 🙏

My bastard was a colour Canon. Why is it that once one colour runs out the whole printer stops working? I only want black and white but, Oh Noes! It has run out of cyan and therefore cannot comply with my request.
Bastard. Now I just tell people things. It's easier.

Ours is definitely a bastard. Acts like it’s got no ink even when it clearly has, you do the cleaning setting and that makes no difference. It’s just sat there like a twatting ornament these days, can’t even be arsed to try.

My loft is filled with the rotten corpses of at least 5 cunty printers. And a Henry, what a twat!

Yes. I bought a little HP printer. Had to download an app… it worked ONCE. Now I can’t get it to recognise the app as I don’t know the 27 digit passcode or something. So I’ve basically spent £80 printing one document 😤
Printers are all cunts.

They are portals between the mystical otherworld known as the internet and Real Life and therefore, they can be a bit temperamental. Mystical portals are always that way.

I am sure this is it, because I swear before we started printing things off the internet, when everything was offline and you had to use fax instead of email, they worked perfectly fine.

Yes, very picky about which devices it will print from. Then once they get past a certain age they don’t support the software any more. Luckily don’t have to print at home very often

I moved mine from one side of the desk to the other and now it will only connect to the WiFi from my iPad. Laptop, the thing I want to print from, that is sitting right next to it, absolutely not.
It decides on whether to print in colour and double sided on a case by case basis, regardless of what settings you’ve chosen.
Cancel print, 2 page document, OK then. 500 pages it’s still thinking about, no, you’re getting the whole lot.

And Ive never known mine to not be low on ink.

I managed to liberate a laser printer from the office during Covid, which was brilliant. Unfortunately they asked for it back when I got
made redundant.

You're all making me sad. I have an ancient Brother laser that printed reliably for 10 years, but is now about to lay down its toner. I really did hope someone would come in to eulogise a simple printer that works. Yes, I am that delusional.

(And yes, I did also flirt briefly with an inkjet. Although mine only cost me about £10 per printed sheet, the smug and useless piece of trash.)

It’s a business model that would make a gangster blush.

I don’t want to say anything about mine for fear I will jinx it.

I’ve always had trouble with home printers. I thought it was just me!

A long, long, long time ago Kodak used to make printers. It was expensive to buy the printer but the ink was very reasonably priced. It worked, no fuss or diva demands. Then Kodak stopped making them and we couldn't get the ink anymore. Every home printer before and since the Kodak has been a pain in the neck.

I have an HP Office Jet 8012. It’s 5 years old (got during pandemic) and still works 95% of the time. I do generally use HP cartridges but it has worked with off brand ones too.

Probably jinxed it now 😆

And I give you while we’re about it!

I‘ve got on better with my printer after switching to a laser printer (black ink only, you can get colour but it’s expensive). Had a wonderful Samsung for eight years that needed a new toner once a year (I print a fair amount). It’s successor, a Pantum, can be a bit iffy with WiFi, but will usually print. After a year it’s on its second toner.

Haven‘t got on with inkjets for years. And if you don’t print often the print heads clog and it wastes loads of ink cleaning them.

Stay away from scan/copy/print all-in-one machines. IME they like to do all 3 jobs badly.

I have a HP all in one printer that must be about 15 years old now. It scans, photo copies and prints. I have never used the fax facility. It prints from my Big Mac and my phone and my son’s PC and phone over our crap WiFi. It has got me through aborted PhD, Tribunal, home Ed and now a divorce court case. All of which necessitated the printing, copying and scanning of thousands of pages. I don’t use expensive HP cartridges. The document feeder has developed a grinding noise now and I fear this may be a sign of the end.

#not all printers are bastards

… well that’s jinxed that @PocketSand

Not exactly the same but has an ‘excellent’ rating… I don’t use instant ink though as always seemed a rip off

https://www.currys.co.uk/products/hp-officejet-pro-8124e-allinone-wireless-inkjet-printer-and-instant-ink-with-hp-10258969.html?istCompanyId=bec25c7e-cbcd-460d-81d5-a25372d2e3d7&istFeedId=4d7eb93e-055f-499d-8ee5-1cdcc50d67d1&istItemId=mtxttiprl&istBid=t&srcid=198&cmpid=ppc~gg~1012+(Shopping+Ads)+Printers+-+Brand+HP+PMAX~~Exact~71700000114549565~&mctag=gg_goog_7904&kwid=GOOGLE&device=m&ds_kids=&tgtid=1012+(Shopping+Ads)+Printers+-+Brand+HP+PMAX&gclsrc=aw.ds&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=20545466818&gbraid=0AAAAAD7JKSKXHx-GAtviVCu93IK7VF1-H

You describe mine, it only comes alive when it chooses, when I want to print something it sits on the cupboard looking smug!

Oh yes indeed

The black and white laser printer is better than the previous printers

it has a strange feature in that you turn it on and then wait for it to go to deep sleep mode before you stand a chance of connecting to it

so turn on
let it go to sleep
try to print
if at that stage printer not found - bump it awake with the on off switch , try to print again leaving it alone whilst you make a cup of tea

once it’s decided to play you can print other things with less drama

They are all crap and the companies involved HP , Epsom etc are criminals with their appalling hardware and dreadful, overpriced ink. In 30 years I've never had one that could print reliably. Utter bastards.

Yes! And the bloody ink cartridges cost an arm and a leg. Awful. Waste of time having them.

We have one of those, now, too. It's great, except when it isn't.

My bastard laptop randomly forgot it existed, the other week, and randomly tried to print to the one that had been chucked in a skip about 6 months ago.

Inkjet printers are absolutely useless for occasional home use. You need to use them daily so the ink doesn't clog.

We got fed up of them and switched to a HP, tonner we have now had it longer then any of a previous printers and the only downside is its black and white. You can get colour ones but DH didn't want to pay the extra cost at the time.

Oh it will pretend it's not ready to print but then will suddenly come to life, it's the only thing that annoys me about it.