(Laser) Printer go brrrr

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imo the best printer is somebody else's printer, i.e your school's, work's, or library's. Not worth dealing with that shit
- Sure but what if you're in your underwear and want to print a pretty page right now?
  
  If your employer won't let you in to print a picture off in your underwear... what are they even doing!?
- We have a cheap and reliable black and white laser printer at home for convenient printing of stuff like return labels.
  On the rare occasion colour of photo prints are needed, there’s a great little independent print and photo place in town that does prints for pennies.
  Seems to be the best of both worlds.
  
  My brother laser fits into the same basic role. I paid extra for the colour version however. The key is that laser toner never goes bad, unlike inkjets.
- That's my strategy. If I add up all the printing I've done at libraries, schools, work, etc. it would cost a fraction of buying my own.
  They take up so much space that can be used for more useful things, too.
- The only printers Ive seen "publicly" cost money to use. I'd rather firewall my brother printer and manually refill the cartridge with 3rd party ink. More private that way
  
  My local library lets you print up to 30 pages for free. I was pretty shocked, because I was ready to pay when I needed to print something last time I was there.
- Like owning a boat. Best if your friend has one and you bring the beers (paper).

Laser printers are the best. You sacrifice the quality of dense pictures, but gain incomparable speed and reliability. It's especially worth it if you print less often, because the ink dries up if you don't print every once in a while and you end up buying new ink even though the cartridge is full, but the toner just sits there indefinitely.
- I’ve been in the color laser gang since 2006 when they started to go under $500
  
  I got a pair of used Brother color lasers for $50 each.
  
  I have a HL3170CDW color laser. It was on sale for under $200 at the time.
- you forgot the best part, the papers are all nice and warm
  
  My home office used to be extremely cold in the mornings, somewhat humid. And printer lives by the window. Meaning if I printed in the morning as the sun rose, I could see just a bit of steam coming off the page at the rollers as it was printing. Along with the warmth of the paper, and a cup of coffee... Nirvana.
- Ink drying up is intentional btw. My old HP inkjet does not have that problem and it takes refills, prints black and white without needing color ink, does not have an internet connection, require a subscription or come with any other bs. We perfected inkjet printers 20 years ago and then started the enshittification process.

People love laser printers (and rightfully so compared to inkjets), but ink tanks fix most of the issues with inkjets.
Ink tanks are refilled with generic ink, as opposed to proprietary cartridges. They thus have vastly cheaper running costs, even more so than lasers, which still needs replacements for their drum units every few years.
Also, laser toner is literally fine microplastic powder, and printing works by depositing and "baking" this powder onto paper. Laser printers result in terrible indoor air quality without adequate ventilation.
- First off, inkjet printers have way more issues than the ink being expensive.
  Secondly, the average household isn't going to be printing enough to have to replace the drum every few years, or for toner dust to have an actual impact on indoor air quality.
  My laser printer is nearly 20 years old, and I've only ever changed the drum because it came packaged with the toner cartridge, and I've only had to change that once.
  
  I'm printing at home and I had to replace toner cartridge twice over 10 years... still way better in the inkjet.
  
  I'm unfortunately very sensitive to those particles from laser printers. They're really good at triggering migraines, so I could never have a laser printer at home.
- I've never used an ink-tank printer, but I've read that they have “pads” that wear out, and some ink-tank printers require you to throw away the entire printer when that happens. Doesn't sound too great.
  Also, inkjets suffer a lot of clogging, smearing, and other such problems stemming from the use of liquid ink. These problems go away (temporarily, at least) when you replace the ink cartridge, but how do you solve them when there's no ink cartridge and the print head is part of the printer?
  
  Ink tanks have a waste ink pad, which is essentially a sponge that soaks up ink, which may be replaceable depending on how shitty the manufacturer is.
  Canon Megatanks don't have a pad at all just dump the ink randomly, so you have to throw the printer out.
  Epson's Ecotank pads are replaceable, but have a DRM chip for a sponge (though quite cheap).
  In a rare W for HP, their smart tanks have user replaceable pads (albeit labour intensive).
  Print heads for ink tanks also tend to be fairly cheap, around $50 for a colour set. Issues with clogging etc are also overblown, with most modern models with auto clean cycles.

Are the kids still printing things on paper for class these days?
- Sometimes, especially after ChatGPT became a thing. Most recently I printed a bunch of stuff for a Swedish writing assignment were I had to print out all of my online sources. They can't let have computers then, people will just generate some slop for the assignment
  That probably made no sense but TLDR I'm 16 and in school and I regularly print stuff

I still use an inkjet but I hate myself more for it everyday.
- What's the reason to keep the inkjet?
  
  Don’t feel like dropping $400

No, print it as PDF.

I use an inkjet that I refill the ink in (I cut open the carts). I get the ink in bulk (1pint of each color) for like 12usd. Its not as good as a laser, but its a lot cheaper than paying $32 for 1oz of fluid.

Try printing color with your $150 laser printer.
- Ok. My HL-3170CDW color laser was on sale for like $160 when I got it almost 10 years ago. Still on the original oem toner and drums, and just printed off a bunch of stuff in color last week.

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