John McGaw wrote:
On 1/25/2020 6:24 AM, John C. wrote:
Tonight I tried to print a grayscale portrait of my late uncle and
aunt on some nice, glossy photo paper. After waiting a long time for
the job to finish (the XP drivers for the HP 855C really suck badly),
I was astonished when the paper came out exactly as it went in...
BLANK! This was after I'd gone into the settings (with which I am
intimately familiar) and made sure the were all correct for the job.

I took out the black cartridge to clean it a little and when I tried
to put the thing back in the printer, the cartridge lock broke and
threw pieces in random directions. How DARE it! I mean, I only bought
it back in '96. The printer was so expensive that at the time, I made
a promise to myself to, no matter what it took, use the thing until it
paid for itself.

Instead of getting upset at it breaking, I only said the full version
of "WTF?" under my breath and felt a combination of ennui, sadness and
relief that the machine was finally gone. A long time ago, it lost the
ability to print in color because the cartridges (although still
available) are so expensive and dry up so fast. It's always required
periodic roller cleaning in order to get any paper to feed correctly too.

Now all that is at an end.

Over the years, I've been watching the dismal developments with
printers, watched how printer ink has become almost the most expensive
substance on earth per ounce. Watched how inkjets have become the
industry's "loss-leader" throw-aways in order to get you hemorrhaging
money for their ludicrously over-priced cartridges.

I've also watched carefully and taken note of the way that almost all
inkjet printer reviews carefully avoid discussing the capacities of
the cartridges and confuse printing cost issues.

I would not buy another inkjet printer if you held a loaded gun to my
head. However, I still want to be able to print in color ...and
reliably. Searching on the internet has resulted in my impression that
the best color laser printer available for home use is the Brother
HL-3270CDW, which is a single-function printer. That it's not a MFP
isn't important to me because I have a good flatbed scanner already.

Does anybody have any comments about this choice, pro or con?

TIA


I have what must be the previous version of the Brother Printer, a
HL-3170CDW, and it has been flawless for the few years I've had it.

Thanks! One of my concerns about the model I'm looking at is that one of
the reviews said it didn't have a manual feed slot. Yet, when I
downloaded and read the manual, it clearly described how to use the
manual feed slot on page 13.

--
John Corliss BS206. No ad, CD, commercial, cripple, demo, nag, pirated,
share, spy, time-limited, trial or web wares for me please. I filter out
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filter out all posts from the troll »Q« and Kasey, another troll doesn't
believe in two-way firewalls.