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Joined 7 months ago
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Cake day: August 24th, 2024

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  • You might have to consider buying used.

    Even older HP printers are fine (and I know people love to shit on them, but they too used to be perfectly safe and reasonable choices). More or less the safe/unsafe divide coincides with the switch from printers with 2x16 character displays to ones with full colour screens.

    I’ve got a 2012-designed (but mine is 2017-built) HP Colour Laserjet CP5225dn, it has none of the modern lock-in shenanigans.

    Just gotta find one that’s new enough that consumables are still readily available (fortunately this usually isn’t too difficult), and in good physical condition.


  • My general advice to people when shopping for used printers is if it’s new enough to have a colour LCD, it’s too new. Ones like this with a 2x 16 character display are predominantly safe.

    This rule holds for more manufacturers than you might expect.

    For my sins, I did end up with an HP. But it’s a 2012 model (my specific one was built in 2017 however), well predating HP’s bullshit. It’s a colour A3 laser with Ethernet and automatic duplex, so I’m happy enough with it.