It's uncanny how any post about problems with HP always has the same solution in the comments. Brother.
In related news, learning what Audi is doing with their new model and subscriptions makes me think the world has gone mad.
It's a good brand. I have their laser printer and it's great. No annoying registration, 3rd party toner cartridges are allowed. Super fast compared to inkjet. Overall a great experience compared to my HP printer which won't let me scan unless I register on the HP app.
I have a network enabled model from Brother and it's never once shown up on my pi-hole. I'm a fan for life. Will never buy an HP printer again.
For a second I thought you meant never showed up as in your pihole can't print to it. I was mildly surprised when my pihole automatically recognized and configured my brother printer on my network. But now that you mention it, I don't think I've ever seen it black holed in my query log either!
I need to get a pihole... It might not fix my Linux printing situation though. I'm able to print but a big document with a lot of pages will just randomly cancel half through for no reason.
They're amazing. I run mine on an Amazon Lightsail instance. $6/mo. or so? I need to bring that back in-house on an old Pi.
Every tried setting one up? It's hilariously easy. Install Debian or Ubuntu Server, run:
curl -sSL https://install.pi-hole.net | bash
Receive PiHole. Setting a static IP on it is probably the most complicated thing. :)
Thanks for reminding me. Might just do that tonight!
I love my brother printer.
I have installed no drivers and can print from Linux / windows and my iPhone.
It sits on my network, it accepts prints, it gets turned off when I’m done.
I’ve never seen it try to do anything outside my network, I’ve never seen it do much of anything on my network. It just sits listening waiting to print.
brother hll2370dw
edit: works from my android phone, and dual boot windows / Ubuntu pc as well
I have the TN830 that is joined to WiFi that my Ubuntu/windows pc sees on my network without having to have installed any drivers.
Similarly can print from my iPhone.
Not $250/yr for WiFi & nav that you’re referring to, no?
Nor 2019’s scheme which sounds like $1000/mo to drive any of several different Audis?
This reads more like a car club, where you pay a subscription to have access to cars on demand.
For those models probably not a bad deal, if someone only needed a car for a few months. Stupid if you need something longer term.
Because they are no bullshit brand. You get what you pay for. Open the box, put it somewhere, connect to WIFI and forget about it. The moment you need it, it will happily spring to life without complaints and then go back to sleep.
It's hardly believable how problem-free these printers are. They have a bunch of models, but you always get what you pay for. Laser is this much, a bit more expensive is LAN model, a bit more LAN+WIFI, then higher up scanner added, etc. They also work without drivers on Linux. Company also allows recycled and third party toners. In my case they are even faster to receive data and print than any other printer I've had. They even don't send statistics back home, even though they are network connected.
You will earn nothing and be happy.
Meanwhile cheapskates who buy used old products, renew them and use them: happy.
If you want a non-Brother recommendation, find one of the series 4 HP LaserJets. Those things were figuratively and perhaps literally bulletproof.
We had a 5P back in the Win98 days, and it was exactly what you'd expect a printer to be. The refills were pricey, but they'd last a long time (we printed a lot then). And you could get a bit more life out of an empty drum if you shook the hell out it.
I do wonder about compatibility with Win10/11 at this point. I know some other old devices I still have around are all but impossible to get to work.
I remember seeing them abused in my university computer lab. People would print 50 page documents, see they screwed something up, trash the whole thing, and then print again.
Keyboards, monitors, mice, computers, and network switches would come and go but those tanks would just keep rolling. Plus we could program rude messages on the screens via the web interface, which was fun.
I have a brother multifunction laser printer scanner thing. It is a cheap piece of crap with flaky wireless.
Unlike the HP printers I've had or worked with, with the Brother I feel like I at least get what I pay for... but it's a pretty low bar.
I bet the Audi model (pricing) is relying of folks leasing vs buying the cars. I can see how they could cram this on a car someone will only have a couple years vs a purchase.
Personally I'd spend the 800 for VAGcom and make a business unlocking cars features.
Any of the luxury brands are smart moves to lease because they depreciate while being under a needed warranty.
Anyone who buys a luxury car new and keeps it past the bumper to bumper is not smart with money.
Has Epson also gone downhill? The first one I bought lasted 11 years, so about 3 years ago I replaced it with another Epson.
Epson with the eco tank. It's like 12 bucks for several years of ink and the thing just works.
What ink are you getting for $12?? Even allowing for quite a bit of poetic licence, this seems ridiculously cheap.
It's just a bottle of ink that you pour into the tank. You can find generic ones for $7-8.
My wife prints 1-2 boxes of paper per year in color. About 10% of those are photograph quality. A laser printer wouldn't cut it for the photographs so I got her an ecotank.
The tanks hold 130ml of ink so they last a long time. The largest HP cartridge held like 49ml of ink of I recall correctly. Most of them had under 10ml.
If you print infrequently or an absolute ton (like an office) a laser printer is better. If you print a case or two of paper per year and photographs, the inkjet is better.
Oh, I know how they work - we have an ET-8550. I just didn't realise generic ink could be so cheap. My wife sells prints of her photographs and artwork so is a bit "cautious" about her ink and only uses genuine Epson at $25 per 70ml. I just looked on Amazon and found that generic ink can be had for around $6-7 per 70ml ($40 for a 6-pack) - wow!
What ink are you getting for $12
That investment in a squid and giant aquarium is paying for itself, I tells ya! 😛
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I threw mine from the balcony when it stopped me from scanning documents because one of the cartridges was empty.
Been with Brother ever since.
What I heard is that Epson is even better than Brother and the ink is even cheaper, but the printers are much more expensive and repairs are slow, so Brother is probably better for casual individual user.
People should also consider no printer and just use a local place, like FedEx stores or a local library, for the handful of times you need to print per year. Maybe it won't work for you, but consider how much you would dump into any printer compared to the cost per page at a shop. You're going to be spending a lot more for the convenience of printing at home.
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I've still been having good experiences with new Epson printers. Epson and brother good, hp needs to be sued to the stone age.
I have a cannon at home. It was super cheap and super reliable, and no possibility for an internet connection.
Same with me. I had trouble getting that anti-pale-yellow-dot program to work with it though. Still can't do it :(
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I don't have any recent experience with them but they used to be. I haven't used their laser offerings but it looks like they're about on par with Brother from a quick Google search.
I’m guessing they signed up for HP Instant Ink, a monthly subscription service that monitors the ink levels in the printer and automatically mails you refills.
If you buy an HP printer, they HEAVILY promote this and offer discounts/free trials. I declined, because fuck that, but I could see someone agreeing and forgetting about it.
When I was in college, I would go to micro center and buy the cheapest printer there, getting the warranty for $2.99. Run out of ink? Return it as defective and get a new printer with the gift card, paying $2.99 for the warranty again. So I paid $2.99 for ink for all 4 years of college.
Enshittification is driven by consumers who don't bother to get informed. I think everyone has a responsibility to make choices that don't actively make society worse.
No, YOU'RE Steven by consumers who stunt burner! 😛
Edit in case anyone's wondering what I'm babbling about: this was the comment I was responding to before what I assume was a series of autocorrect errors were fixed:
By that same logic, everyone has a responsibility to educate uninformed people about enshitification. Everyone is uninformed until they aren't, and you can help.
Of course. Every night, I go door to door asking people if they have some time to talk about our Lord and Saviour, Linus Torvalds.
That's very hard to do in practice when you make a thousand little choices a day - the time spent researching everything would be astronomical.
The solutions we offer should take rational ignorance into account; shaming victims won't make it go away. Where do your food and clothes come from?
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I used HP4015s for years. I loved those things. So easy to work on. I could rip one apart in under a minute. The company just seemed to go to hell.
Everybody donate to Pine64 so they can get that open source printer off the ground someday.
Pine64, the company that has made such excellent projects as the PinePhone, PineBook, and PineTime(open source hardware and software smartphone, laptop and smart watch), has stated that one of their dream projects would be an open source, hackable printer. There's obviously a ton of logistics though and it will likely never materialize unless they really start making big bucks.
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First time I see it and couldn't find any sources. What kind of printer? Thermal, matrix, laser/led, inkjet?
They only mentioned it in passing once (afaik) in a blog post. These aren't actual plans so much as a pipe dream I think
Epson EcoTank. They’re expensive printers, but the ink is so cheap they make up for it. I absolutely love mine and recommend it to anyone looking for a printer.
If you're gonna spend money on a decent printer, go with a laser printer unless you specifically need ink printing.
I have an HP I got like a decade ago, and only had to change the OEM toner carts in the last 6mo or so. The thing has survived 3 moves too, so it's held up like a champ. It probably helps that it's an older HP, so it was before they went to shit.
Hi, this is Hewlett Packard here. We read your post and are happy you love our products! Wouldn’t it make sense for you to upgrade to one of our newer models? I’m sure you’re tired of lugging your heavy, old printer these days.
Our new ones are much lighter! Lighter in weight due to beautiful design! Lighter even on your wallet (at first, and for now)!
Won’t you consider upgrading and locking in - I mean - “purchasing” a new printer, pretty please? uwu :3
Here’s a friendly Kirby to convince you to upgrade! See, we’re cool and we know how to use product placement! Upgrade now or else!! We can’t wait for YOUR SOUL TO BE OURS.
Your Friend, HP
(We rebranded. Now the “P” stands for Predatory, but like the cute kind 😘. It’s okay to give us your money, trust us.)
Won’t you consider upgrading and locking in - I mean - “purchasing” a new printer, pretty please? uwu :3
Not a chance lol
Yup. Inkjet printers became popular because of digital cameras. But unless you’re printing a bunch of photos, you really don’t need an inkjet. And even if you are printing photos, it’s usually better to just go to a print shop or use Google Photos.
I'd like to just say that I appreciate the nuance of printer usage around here. Reddit was single minded about Brother lasers, and had no idea what high end inkjet photo printers were for. It's a niche, but >$1000 inkjets with 7 different ink colors exist for a reason.
If people want a simple answer, then it's that no printer under $150 or so should exist. If you can't afford spending a little more up front, then you won't be able to afford the ink on those printers.
Honestly, if I printed enough to warrant it, I'd go for that Epson... But I stick with my color laser because it's over ten years old and I print so little it still has the starter cartridges in it, ink would have dried out so many times during that period
Disadvantage with laser is they are bigger and heavier and when you do have to replace parts other than the toner, it’s expensive. I don’t have a large house and went with a small Canon inkjet for space considerations. We only print occasionally so it’s worked ok for us.
Do you have issues with the inkjet heads crusting up and causing issues with ink waste? We only print like once or twice a month at most, and that was the reason I went away from them.
That was my issue. Pretty much print a handful of times a year, mostly around tax season and without fail my ink has dried out and needs to be repurchased. Got a brother laser printer 2 yrs ago, still haven't replaced the original toner. Easily in the black for not having to buy ink 2x despite the laser printer being pricier than I'd prefer
At least you can replace parts. When is the last inkjet that had something user replaceable?
Maybe the print head?
Laser Printers are made for businesses and long lifetime generally.
Anyway HP has turned me bitter.
I love my HP LaserJet but it's like 7 years old at this point...
The paper tray, you could replace papers, but they never quite fit and would take several papers at times, sometimes blocking the feed.
Rollers seem to be difficult to swap. I did manage to combine two together to make a working unit once.
But that's noted.
Lasers seem to have more things that can be maintained in a documented way.
They really don't have to be bigger and heavier. I have a Pantum P2502w laser printer and it is seriously one of the smallest printers I've ever owned including inkjets. I feel like laser printers always default to paper storage being underneath them instead of having a feeder tray that sticks out further from the body? And that puts them into a larger form factor.
That being said, I'm fairly sure this is a much lighter duty laser printer than other heavier ones.
Also this is not really an endorsement for Pantum, the software and firmware are buggy as hell, but the software isn't bad enough for me to throw it out and the hardware will probably last a decade so good luck to me.
Mine's tiny and light and runs like a champ.
https://support.hp.com/us-en/product/details/hp-laserjet-pro-p1102-printer-series/model/4110306
I run an easy 1,000+ pages a year for work, printing targets and other misc. stuff.
Boom. My HP is a tiny B&W from 10+ years ago. Runs like a champ, $20 for an easy 1,000 pages, or more. WFH and do a little company printing so they buy the supplies. MUCH love. When it finally kicks it, if I can't find a refurb kit, I'll go Brother.
Hands down the best printer I've ever had. Only challenge is cleaning the printer heads because I don't print often enough.
I just run the automated thing like 4 or 5 times until it prints well again. It always works eventually.
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I won't go eco tank personally, clogs and cleaning is a royal pain on them and there's no good purge feature. I would fully recommend going this path only if accuracy on color is requirement further then laser printers do
I’ve had mine for about four years. I’ve had clogged print heads once, and I ran the auto cleaning five times, then it worked. I’ll give you that it was a pain, but the purge feature works. You’ve just gotta do it multiple times if it’s a really bad clog.
Actually eco tank printers are also designed to fail as they have ink pads that can only be replaced by the manufacturer I recommend you watch this video explaining the problem with tank printers like the eco tank.
That’s an ink absorber, and all inkjet printers have them. It’s not “designed to fail”, it’s a physical limitation of the universe. You can’t just keep dumping ink into a sponge forever. Eventually it will become saturated and you can either clean it or replace it.
I’ve had my printer for about four years and haven’t needed to replace one yet. They only cost about $10 when you do need to replace it. If they cost several hundred dollars, I would see your point, but the savings in ink more than makes up for having to replace a sponge every decade or so.
Edit: I missed that you said only the manufacturer can replace it. That’s not true. It’s user replaceable with a Phillips head screwdriver.
Edit 2: Added links.
What I meant by "designed to fail" is that most of these ecotank printers need the counter to be reset by epson themselves. You can easily replace the pads. But you can't easily reset the counter. It is possible but it involves trusting sketch sites and paying for a license to use the reset software. Older cartridges based epson printers had waste tanks with chips so that it could know when it was replaced. Newer eco tank printers don't have the chip that let's it know when the waste tank is replaced.
That’s not designed to fail, that’s designed to be serviced. Do you call cars “designed to fail” because they need new oil filters and the check engine light comes on when you need an oil change?
Yeah but it's the same as if the oil filter in your car was super glued in and the dealership was the only ones that had the chemical to dissolve the glue.
You just said there are other ways to do it besides Epson. There are multiple sites that provide utilities to reset the counter.
The sponges are cheap. Way cheaper than using a cartridge printer. You can even just clean out the sponge and put it back in. You don’t have to buy a new one.
Even going through Epson’s first party maintenance program is way cheaper than using a cartridge printer. Like, orders of magnitude cheaper.
It is? It’s behind a panel on the back of the printer. Just take the single Phillips head screw off.
It’s not designed to fail. It’s designed to be user serviceable. You can buy a replacement and replace it yourself. It literally only requires a Phillips head screwdriver to take out the one screw on the back panel. If that is designed to fail, then a car needing an oil change is “designed to fail”.
It literally only requires a Phillips head screwdriver to take out the one screw on the back panel.
Literally rocket science. I'm gonna have to pay a monthly subscription so a service tech can come out and do it for me.
It is made out of materials that have a set lifetime or propensity for easily breaking, like glass screens that explode into a supernova if you look at them wrong.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Nah. After getting a laser jet I'll never go back to an inkjet printer. For the cost of an eco tank you can get a solid laser printer with zero maintenance and it will last much longer.
I've had mine for seven years and only changed the ink twice.
Actually eco tank printers are also designed to fail as they have ink pads that can only be replaced by the manufacturer I recommend you watch this video explaining the problem with tank printers like the eco tank.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Yes and no. I have one and they work fine until you unplug them for any length of time. Then you have to deal with cleaning all the printheads and getting it to work properly again. Typically needs multiple passes before it will print right. I know it's a problem with all ink jet printers. It's a shame toner is more expensive and colour laser printers are so expensive. If not I would switch to one of them.
Fuck Epson, fuck them fuck them fuck them fuck Epson, Epson can suck my dick, Epson can lick my asshole, Epson can dance in traffic and go to hell. Fuck Epson.
Epson is the only one for me, my beloved. She prints in black, when the colours are empty. She has simple and intuitive router pairing. She did not fucking explode a FUCKING INK CARTRIDGE ONTO MY FUCKING FACE I CANT KEEP THIS CHARADE UP I FUCKING HATE EPSON PRINTERS RRRRRRRGGGGGHHHHHHH
The fact that HP didn't even say anything makes it look less like profiteering and more like spite. Idiots. I'm actually in the market for a printer and from what I can tell, in order to get something that won't stiff me in some way I have to get one which is really old. And not made by HP.
You just want a Brother laser jet black and white printer
It's no bullshit and will work forever
I'm with the others recommending Brother. They aren't perfect, but they're the least bad.
Running about a 10 year old MFC 9349 CDW here, only changed the black toner so far. Used a cartridge reset truck I found on YouTube to get more life out of the original black before that.
Scans to network nicely, does 2 sided prints etc.
Go for a Brother.
I've owned a HL-3070cw for a decade (I think, close to if not) - I've changed the toner carts 4 times, it's printed high res color daily for pennies. Shit just works, and quality isn't bad at all. Works from any device on the network - phones tablets desktops laptops - practically zero network admin/setup, it just fucking works for everyone. Cannot recommend enough.
Which is fine until Grandma wants to print out all the selfies and other photos our Grand kids send her. Then, that black and white anything won't cut it. And I can't afford a photo quality laser printer..........
There's online and supermarket printing services for that. Usually works out cheaper than maintaining a printer.
Yep and there are also fairly cheap strictly photo printers (cheap compared to getting film developed, at least)
There nearest grocery store that might offer that kind of service would be at least a 200 mile round trip. And while we are old enough to remember sending real film to film labs for developing and then waiting weeks to get something back, she's not very interested in doing so anymore. To her the cost is not worth the inconvenience of waiting anymore.
And frankly, some arguments are not worth having. In marriage, you need to pick your fights.
Apparently Brother, and some Lexmark, printers don't come with this BS DRM baked into the firmware.
Has anyone cracked the HP firmware to give us proper access to our hardware?
Thanks to DMCA, circumventing this protection and sharing it with people is illegal.
Honestly hasn’t stopped people in the past but I suspect it hasn’t been cracked because of how it connects to an external server to verify. Probably need to patch the firmware entirely
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Thanks to DMCA, circumventing this protection and sharing it with people is illegal.
🏴☠️ Which means hypothetically it would need to be done anonymously. 🏴☠️
I've been around in IT long enough... The emails went to someone who has left or someone set auto delete "on these annoying spam emails!".
Not to make it right or better, hp sucks donkey balls, but I don't believe the would've been zero contact. If you buy a subscription printer and stop paying for a subscription... That's on you.
Because if you make everything this level of shit and you sell someone "printer that always works at £6 a month!" It sounds like a great deal.
For those who don't know, Wendigoon is a creepy lore youtuber.
He's also sometimes been acredited with creating the aesthetic of the boogaloo boys, not sure how true that is.
As far as I've heard, his videos are fairly consistent with documentation of the events he covers, such as the unibomber, the MLK assassination, etc.
It's very funny to think he wasn't radicalized before the printer situation.
Yeah, he has a... questionable history, what with the "boogaloo boys" memes, but he stopped engaging with that pretty quickly around the time it became associated with Actual Nazis instead of semi-ironic government-hating libertarians.
He is not exactly radical, he is not a fan of the government and loves a good conspiracy.
He also is a devote Christian, but not a dick about it.
He, by all accounts, is a wonderful person that everybody who knows him loves.
He’s also sometimes been acredited with creating the aesthetic of the boogaloo boys, not sure how true that is.
I don't really know anything about him, but I just checked out his channel and I don't really think that's true since its only 3 years old
Seen this so many times and glad to keep seeing it.
More people being informed on these scummy practices to look out for and avoid is a good thing.
I'm not glad that I keep seeing it. They were using managed printing i.e. pay-per-page. HP may make garbage and overcharge for ink, but I'm sick of people tapping the up arrow on low effort posts like this.
I will happily upvote anything that rags on HP printers, I don't care how low effort it is. In fact, I would hate to think someone spent actual effort on anything HP related.
HP printers have been kicking puppies and insulting your mother for well over 20 years. Wait, they haven't? Well, after a certain point a company has burned so much good will by making marginal printers, less-than marginal drivers and artificially differentiating inks and toners to such a degree it's hard to see it as anything other than profiteering... pant pant ...that nobody cares if it's unfair or inaccurate.
Don't buy HP. Think of the puppies. Think of your mother, for God's sake!
I just don't see the point in spreading misinformation. I have had almost entirely bad experiences with HP, but that doesn't mean I go around spreading lies.
The point in shitting on HP is to shit on HP. Not sure what other point you're looking for. Are you concerned that people are going to start feeling sympathetic?
No, i just don't want to see misinformation period. The reason the printer wasn't working is because they were on a managed printing plan, not because HP was trying to pull one over on them.
Printers shouldn't be allowed to the edge...vlan with no Internet access.... it's a fucking printer not a web host.
I was given a Brother printer that had spent 10+ years in a damp cellar. I already had one but this one was A3 and that could be ha'dy. Unfortunately it was an ink jet.
So, of course, I had to buy cartridges as the printer was screaming bloody murder. Alas, the whole feeding circuit and the printing head were clogged beyond salvage (the manual insists that it's not to be left unplugged for extended periods).
But that's not the point of the story. The whole (compatible) set of four cartridges was something like 17€. Also the scanner still worked just fine.
Looked like a great machine, probably not worth it to fix (new one is about 450€).
I replaced my HP with a brother laser printer. Works great and no more ink cartridges. That toner cart will last me years
My mom bought a cheap HP printer/scanner several years ago and subscribed to their "instant ink" subscription which was actually surprisingly cheap (like $3/mo) but once the printer stopped reliably connecting to the internet and nobody could print wirelessly anymore with it, she canceled the subscription and HP DISABLED ALL OF THE INK CARTRIDGES. The cartridges themselves have wifi connections so HP can automatically send you new ink when they get low. What a scam.
No, they have serial numbers that are read by the printer when you try to use them. Air Gap the printer.
every time I see this screenshot I'm disappointed that it misses the photo of Ted Kaczynski he responded with
this one?
Never use a smart printer. If this is your only choice, make sure this dorker has no internet connection. If it does make any sudden movements, use the 9mm.
I got an old… Ricoh? machine from some company sellout with a heck of a lot of toners. Was €500 but I’ll never need to buy anything again for the next 3 decades.
It’s crazy how the people and govt have let this go on for so long. This has been a known issue with consumer grade printers for a long time now. I remember my parents bitching about ink costs when I was in grade school. Now these companies have raced to the bottom and are locking them down.
Personally, I have found myself to print less than a dozen pages per year. Usually it’s some government office that wants hard copy. For every instance, I just used my local Office Depot to handle all of my printing needs. So glad I don’t have to deal with printer bs
You can go to your local library, as well. Mine charges around ten cents per page if I remember correctly. They have computers you can use for free too. Libraries are a great resource
My old HP printer takes XL refills and HP can't do a thing about it. I need them to know this too.
I did an internship at an OEM that was the dying most of the revenue came from government make work money for economic development and selling machines to the 3rd world because they were too dangerous for first world.
Our high end products did this remote deactivation thing. Hated it at the time still hate it today.
Part of the reason I got a brother LaserJet instead of an Epson eco tank was because I don't need to worry about toner drying out. As much as I try to avoid it, I still need to print once in a blue moon and it's not really "efficient" to drive to the library.
Yeah I had a legal document that needed a shorter turnaround than the time it took me to drive to the library print it, bring it by and submit it. So I own a LaserJet brother printer I got at office Max because my HP printer doesn't print anymore because I unsubscribed from their ink shipping service so they remotely bricked it.
I highly recommend everyone buy a black and white toner based printer. Its the way to go to hit the right blend of "I live paperless what need have I for a printer" and "oh actually my society isn't totally paperless sometimes I need a printed document"
Yeah, the only time I needed to print something in the last 5 years was a passport renewal form. I just spent 10 cents to print it at my local library. I really don't understand why anybody really needs a printer nowadays.