My old printer broke and I am now looking for a new printer. With the help of a local shop, I have narrowed down the selection to the following 3 models:
Epson L6290 for 10000 twd (~333USD)
Brother T920DW for 9000 twd (~300USD)
Canon G7070 for 9500 twd (~316USD)
They look pretty similar in terms of specs so I don’t know which one to go with.
I have a mixed environment of Windows, Mac, Linux and iOS devices that may want to print. Windows should generally be a non issue and Mac and iOS clients should be handled nicely by Airprint which all 3 support. I am looking for the following:
Linux Support. How is the Linux support on each model?
User Experience in general. How is the user experience for each brand/model? Do they have some stupid design or some common issue?
Please do not comment about region specific things such as support, availability of ink, etc. unless you have first hand experience about these things IN TAIWAN SPECIFICALLY.
The lower end Epson seems to have nasty shenanigans and forces you to get “scheduled maintenance” because of their “waste ink pad” being full. Not entirely sure with your specific model.
I have no recent experience with Canon but last I’ve heard few months ago, they have ink cartridge issues because the DRM chips in their cartridges has run out and they are on a low priority queue to restock
Brother works with minor tinkering if you wamt to plug it via USB. Print works without drivers if used via network (vs via USB). Cant recall if I had to install drivers for scanning. Either way installing drivers isnt so hard if you are already familiar with Linux and other OSes. Also ink tank is awesome. I am your neighbor down south of your border .
I have had nothing but GREAT experiences with Brother, while having terrible experiences with almost everyone else
I have an old Brother HL-2270DW that I’ve had for just over 10 years now, and it is the most uneventful device I own, it just works. Drivers for MacOS and Windows are just there
Toner is cheap, no cheap tricks they pull, and it doesn’t look like a space ship
I think Brother is typically the best overall. I can’t speak from experience though. It’s just what I’ve heard practically everyone say.
I have an Epson WF-4833 that I’ve been very satisfied with, aside from the ink running out pretty quickly. But it’s not laser, so that’s not surprising. Works with Linux.
@felix920506 if you are going for Epson, try to find their WorkForce line. Its their enterprise printer with none of the consumer bullsh*t.
In retrospect, if had the chance to go back in time I probably would’ve gotten a color laser printer from Brother (none was in stock). We dont really need color accuracy for printing for my kid’s school work.
The spouse also has a personal printer at work but its HP. Those also tend to work ok across different OSes.
I wouldn’t recommend anything but color laser printers these days, except perhaps for dedicated photo printers (e.g. dye sublimation). Pictures out of my cheap old color laser still look quite good, just not perfect / exact.
Laser printers are far more reliable (mine is a decade old now and working fine), the cost of consumables is much lower, you don’t have problems with ink leaking, splattering or heads needing cleaning, and the printouts are impervious to water/cleaners and other chemicals as much as the paper itself is.
For printing, I always get a printer with ethernet port and which supports/emulate one of the common/standard languages: PDF, PS (postscript), or PCL.
That’s not just to ensure Linux support, BTW. Many times I’ve had to show Windows PC Support folks that they aren’t stuck just because the manufacturer’s installer package with drivers only works on Windows 7/8 and they have Windows XP, 10, etc., systems that need to print… Microsoft includes plenty of PDF/PS/PCL drivers in the OS.
Scanning support is a bit more complex, but you can find the list of supported scanner models on Linux here:
I’d second what @rcxb said however I wouldn’t bother with SANE support at all, just make scan do some kind of file server share (Samba, FTP or whatever) and you’re all set. Be however very careful about picking one as toners can be very expensive. For example a Kyocera M5525CDN is about 14000 TWD it seems, that thing will work with everything you throw at it. Laser MFPs are bit more expensive but well worth it, avoid the cheap crap by HP and Canon it’ll drain $$$ fast. Not a fan of Brothers MFPs personally but I guess they work too.
I’ll echo other’s sentiments about Brother. I recently picked up one of their larger laser MFPs, and I would describe the setup process on Windows, Mac, and Linux as ‘blissfully trivial’.
If the computer didn’t find the printer all by itself when I asked it to add a new printer (most did), it was as simple as pointing it to the IP address and the rest of the setup was basically automatic.
I have yet to test this, but I’ve also heard that Brother is very forgiving about 3rd-party cartridges, in addition to just having reasonably priced toner to begin with.
11/10, strongly recommended. It’ll take some serious convincing for me to buy anything but Brother moving forward.
I’ll also add, that although I strongly recommend their laser printers, we did also pick up one of Brother’s smaller Ink-Jet printers for another purpose, and the setup process was similarly trivial for Windows, Mac, and Linux. They seem to just ‘work’ from a software perspective. (feels weird to say about a printer, but it’s true!)
.