Tell HN: Brother printers no longer consumer friendly

36 points

a year ago

I dislike the tactics many of the other printer manufacturers employ such as subscription services, DRM on cartridges, etc. I've always used and recommended Brother laser printers as they seem to largely not employ these non-consumer friendly approaches. They have always let you continue printing even when one cartridge was empty. I've always brought official cartridges out of respect for their business model.

But no longer. I have a newish Brother HL-L3230CDW, and it refuses to print because one colour cartridge is reporting as low. I've followed the reset instructions here [0] which has worked previously on this printer, but it doesn't any more. I don't know if it's a firmware update, or a limit to the number of resets it allows.

So tonight I'm unable to print a black and white document I need for work tomorrow because my yellow toner cartridge is reporting low. And I'm going to have to buy new colour cartridges despite very rarely printing in colour.

So I revoke any past recommendation of Brother I've ever made. I hope others stop recommending them too, the new ones are no longer functional. These printers are now as useless as the rest.

(Also - I'm looking for recommendations for actually decent colour laser printers)

[0] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pkgak9S1h7U

16 comments