I just retired a Brother MFC-6980CDW inkjet. It was designed by an idiot — the first lemon I've ever had from them. No configuration webpage, a tiny primary paper drawer, a massive secondary paper drawer — except duplex printing was only possible from the first drawer, AND the printer automatically went to the second drawer when the first was empty (who thought this design combination was a good idea?) There was also no single-page feed slot for things like label runs, etc.
Yes, it drank a lot of ink, mainly because it needed continuous cleaning the more it aged. Never had an offline problem, but the second drawer hasn't fed in three years despite attempts at roller cleaning. Still, I got seven solid years good use out of the printer, which is not shabby, and it still works pretty well (I just got tired of catering to it). And yeah, the customer service was brain-dead (e.g., rep wrote me a message telling me how to access the configuration webpage that didn't exist on that model, etc.) But I haven't seen notably superior performance from other manufacturers, either. Still, given my significantly worse experiences with HP and Epson, I replaced it last month with a color laser Brother MFC, offering duplex printing and duplex scanning. So far, life has been really good. What I've always liked about Brother is that they play well with Macs. They do things like configuration and wireless the way the Mac OS wants to do them, and not as some not-invented-here megalomaniac in the home office decrees they will be done (e.g., HP bloatware / startup daemons / configuration suites). > On Feb 21, 2017, at 8:22 PM, Carl Hoefs <[email protected]> > wrote: > > >> On Feb 21, 2017, at 8:00 PM, Macs R We <[email protected] >> <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: >> >>> Is there an inkjet printer (Brother, Canon, Epson) that can be installed >>> without phoning home? >> >> Brothers don't. They will if you ask them to update their firmware >> automatically, but you can always do it manually if you want. > > I'm game. But looking on Amazon, the Brother inkjets have fairly high 1-star > ratings, anywhere from 10%-25%, mostly complaining about how much ink they > drink, printers going offline, poor quality prints, miserable customer > service, and paper jamming issues. Sigh. > > Brother Printer MFC-J470DW: 25% 1-star ratings > Brother Printer MFC-J680DW: 13% 1-star ratings > Brother Printer MFC-J985DW: 10% 1-star ratings > > This last one (the 10%er) uses something called 'INKvestment Cartridges'. > That sounds suspiciously like 'phone home' cartridges. Stay away? Any > recommendations? > -Carl >
_______________________________________________ MacOSX-talk mailing list [email protected] http://www.omnigroup.com/mailman/listinfo/macosx-talk
