I have some basic laser printer (I think its 5500D) from them and it works like a charm. also added rpi with printer server so that I can print wirelessly from all macs, iphones, windows pc and from my toaster and I couldnt be more happy.
May I ask how the cartridge replacement works with Brother, and Laser printers in General?
I am quite annoyed after "breaking" two Inkjet printers in 5-6 years and want to buy a laser one this time, but am not sure how is the cartridge issue different between laser and inkjet. Do laser cartridges last longer? Is it less problematic to use non-original cartridges?
Inkjet cartridges are highly sophisticated devices, it's really where "the magic" happens. They have much complexity, not helped by the fact that the ink is drying on the printing head and so hinders its ability to print.
Laser cartridges are just boxes of fine black dust. You can buy a matching box of fine black dust from somebody else, or refill your (empty) box with a different version of fine black dust, this won't matter much at all.
Having said that, I use a Brother b/w laser for 10+ years, and — with original toner being sold on Amazon at $40 and delivered for free to my door — have never bothered with neither refilling nor using "aftermarket" toner.
Not all inkjet printers require cartridges, of course. Some have ink tanks you just fill from a bottle. They're a bit more expensive than cartridge inkjets, but still affordable.
Toner cartridges generally last a few thousand pages and are much more tolerant of infrequent use than ink cartridges. Unlike Ink cartridges, laser cartridges don’t dry out or need to waste ink priming. The image drum does need to be occasionally replaced (not often, 10k+ pages), though if you tolerate defects in prints it can last longer.
How well non-original cartridges work is highly dependent on the printer model. Some have more complex authentication of the cartridges and others it’s a simple page counter.
The main downside is color is a significant increase in cost of the printer as fairly expensive pieces need to be duplicated for each color.
I have a HL-L2340DW I bought in 2017. I've replaced the toner drum once, in 2021, for $55. You can get cheaper off-brand replacements pretty easily but I didn't bother. The amortized cost of the genuine thing worked fine for me.
I use off brand from amazon, also replacing drum unit occasionally (I think it happened like 2 times in last 7 years?). The whole procedure is 5 minutes long. Its dirt cheap, compared to inkjet
sorry, I am very bad at this, I basically copypasted some terminal commands from some tutorial (I think it was https://www.tomshardware.com/how-to/raspberry-pi-print-serve...) and also spent a lot of time fixing some of the settings (there had to be something done about spooling service) to finally make it work for my windows PC, as mac and iphone started working immediately. But even if a complete noob like me with some lame google-fu skills could do it, I think anyone can.
