Re: [PLUG] Off-topic Rant: Don't Buy Brother Products!

[Steve Litt <slitt@troubleshooters.com>]

On Sun, 27 Dec 2015 13:15:31 -0500
Casey Bralla <MailList@nerdworld.org> wrote:

About the subject line: I'll keep buying Brother: They work for me, and
they work with Linux, and they even have some drivers you can download.

> A month or so ago, my Brother DCP-7065 printer started giving me
> "Toner Low" error messages.    I was pretty sure the toner was still
> good, but the printer refused to work and would only flash the toner
> low error.
> 
> I considered buying a new toner cartridge, but hesitated because (as
> we all know) a new cartridge is almost as expensive as a new printer.
> 
> I concluded that the printer was likely dead and a new cartridge
> might not fix the problem.  If this theory was correct, a new
> cartridge would not fix the problem and would be a waste of $100.
> Instead, I bought an HP. (Brother's Linux support is hit or miss,
> anyway, although I generally like their equipment.)

So you did an incomplete fault analysis and concluded it would be
easier/more cost effective to buy a new HP. That's fine, but you can't
blame Brother for that.


> This morning, I was reading on-line about laser printers and how they
> play games with the cartridges.   They mentioned that a hard reset
> might clear the low toner, and even listed the button sequences to do
> the reset for a different Brother printer.   A little googling and I
> found the sequence for my printer.
> 
> Luckily, I had not yet thrown away the printer (it was sitting in my
> e-waste pile).    10 minutes later, my old printer came back to life.

Instead of starting a boycott of Brother, I'd *really* appreciate your
posting the link about button sequences, so I can do the same thing.

I should warn you though, I've had cases (with my HP4050) where, by
going past where the printer turned off on a low toner alert, I printed
100 pages of illegibly light print and didn't even know it.

> 
> I am really ticked at Brother.  The only good news is that they
> outsmarted themselves and lost a customer.   They tried to trick me
> into buying another expensive cartridge, and instead I bought a
> competitor's product (that has aftermarket toner cartridges at half
> price).   
> 
> So, to my friends at Brother, I say "Good riddance to bad rubbish"

You don't say what Brother you bought and how much you paid for it. If
it was a $98 special, of course it will instantly run out (or say it's
run out) of toner. So will a similarly priced HP.

Consumables cost money. They cost more every year. There's a reason
consumables are estimated to be 3 to 5 cents per page. My Brother
MFC-8810 is one of the cheapest to run, per page, of anything currently
available. I pay about $130 for a toner that produces about 9000 pages.
At 309 pages per book, the consumable cost for my $49 book is roughly
$4.00. No printshop or duplicating service will do it cheaper, even if
you supply the PDF and the paper.

By the way, every printer repairman I know says HP is a shadow of their
former selves. I've been inside a couple HP 4050 laserjets (printer
repair people tell me those were the last good HPs) and a whole lot of
the parts and chassis is plastic that can bend, melt and break.

SteveT
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