Which consumer grade printer should I buy?

Make sure its a laser

Has to be a Brother

I see nobody else is touching the flatbed scanner requirement.

Instead of one device that's a mediocre scanner and a mediocre printer, get a decent printer, and a separate decent scanner. It will also be far easier to find two separate devices with good Linux driver support vs. a more obscure MFC.

Brother laser, any model. Make sure it's not just b&w though I guess, mine is, which I don't care for mine but you listed it as a requirement.

No matter what, "bimonthly print job" means you need a laser printer, brother or not. Ink'll dry between prints, toner never will, and it lasts longer in general.

"Linux" suggests you should make it a Brother though. They work great on linux.

I have a Brother MFC-J1205W and I’m super happy with it. Idk about the Linux support side, but it fits all the other requirements, it was pretty cheap, + so far for me it’s been super reliable, cheap ink, and very high quality prints.

Whatever brother printer is on sale

I was certain this link would already be here! https://www.theverge.com/2024/4/2/24117976/best-printer-2024-home-use-office-use-labels-school-homework

Advice from most to least certain: If you want very long standby time (a reliably perfect first print after literally months of inactivity) and you have the space for an ugly cube of a printer, laser is the only option. Ink tank printers have unexpected wear parts, like internal ink sponges.

Black and white laser is stupid simple. Color laser “prints” four times in series onto an intermediate transfer belt (ITB) and then puts that onto the paper, still super reliable but bulkier, and your prints get watermarked with yellow dots because FBI or something. I’d go color.

Toner lock-in is becoming more common, not just for HP. If your page count is going to be low, just pay full price for name brand toner. If you don’t want to do that, like your use case could involve printing a single page or entire binders of paper between months of inactivity, read on.

Start your printer research by shopping for cheap off brand toner, get a sense for what they’re selling the most of and what that’s compatible with, and see what printers they support.

Some aftermarket toner just works, out of the box, because the printer isn’t crazy locked down. Those cartridges have normal sounding instructions. Some aftermarket toner requires you to transplant a chip from a first party cartridge, and their instructions include this. Avoid those printers.

And consider used printers. I have a used HP LaserJet Pro MFP M477fdw that I love, but I would never ever buy another HP printer, especially not one made later than this one. Be very careful before buying any HP printer, especially one made in the past 6-8 years. Even wear items (like the ITB) have modules with firmware and compatibility requirements, and I’m worried I could be one replacement component away from suddenly having a locked down printer.

People are saying no to Brother in this thread but at the end of the day it just works super well.

https://www.theverge.com/23642073/best-printer-2023-brother-laser-wi-fi-its-fine

Get an old color laser printer, that is not aimed at the home market. Get whatever boring printer box your local library has. Toner stores very well, and it takes almost a decade for a normal person to print an office sized amount of toner.

To do that you will need a separate scanner. Most desktop printer/scanners are aimed at home users where they do much more of the, "cannot scan low magenta."

Brother laser. Mine has been working for years without issue. No BS.

Used brother MFC-L3770CDW with a firmware T or older. If you can't get one with an old firmware you have to use brother replacement toner. It's sometimes possible to downgrade firmware but having had to do it once I never want to again.

But other than the toner issue it works fantastic on Linux and my whole house uses it.

Would not recommend for photo printing.

I have a brother b&w laser printer with scanner (hl-l2390dw) that I got after years of grief from an awful canon inkjet that would clog after 2 weeks of no use. Went through so many ink cartridges on that thing.

I love the brother now. It can sit around for weeks and when I do occasionally need to print something it comes out great. Sure I do miss printing color but I can always send a print job over to Walgreen or Staples and they'll have it printed out in an hour with better quality than a consumer inkjet printer can put out

Mine works with Linux so no issues there

If you are only printing bimonthly have you considered using a library?

I think the options may be either:

An ecotank, the problem with them is that it doesnt respect the last point, since if it's not used in a while the ink it's going to dry and clog the print head, but i've seen some pretty good prints coming out of them+ on aliexpress you can get ink + other bits for cheap

A brother mfc, if i remember correctly there where color laser variants, the problem with them is cost and size, if i remember correctly they are office printers, space was not taken in cosideration when they where desined, so they are huge compared to standard printers + the ink cartriges are expensive, but last forever, i'm not sure if you can find cartiges on aliexpress, toner refills are more likely, but can be very messy and requiring cutting a hole in the cartriges, and i've found out that for the b/w toner printers it's the most economical way of getting ink for them

Sorry for the length of the comment.

I have an Epson ET-2851 and I'm pretty happy with it. The Eco-tank ink seems to last pretty long and is easy to top up. It runs without any trouble under Linux. For my modest requirements it's fine.

Why must it be color?

I can't think of any brand that's going to be connected to Wi-Fi that eventually isn't going to cut off your ability to scan when you run out of a certain color of ink.

I bought a last generation flatbed scanner for like $15 and a Canon printer that will never be connected to the internet

Mostly I get printers at the thrift store. For some reason people donate perfectly good working printers. They cost like $15 and all you need to do is find out what kind of ink they use and get some

Yo...best purchase has been an Epson eco tank...never buy heads again.

Upvote for "my old torture device"... I'll be stealing that

Do you really need all that? Is there a local copy shop (often public libraries, drug stores...) that have some of those services? Sometimes they have better quality printers (photo printers for example). While you pay more per page, do you really do whatever it is enough to make it worth the cost of the printer vs just going elsewhere? There are many middle grounds (black and white printer. Use your phone camera as a scanner) that are clearly worse than what you want, but still good enough for most purposes and you can use the better option when you need it.

The answer to the above of course depends on your specific situation so there isn't one right answer. It is always work thinking about though.

Buy a cheap used printer and get cheep off brand ink off Amazon.

The brother printer thing is mostly for laser printers.

I personally have one, and an old color hp that I put cheap in from Amazon.

Somebody said laser. Those things vaporize toner into your air.

A printer where you can actually see the ink tank and you can refill it.