Tormented by Our Printers

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Speaker 12 From the New York Times, you're listening to The Wirecutter Show.

Speaker 13 Hey, everyone, it's The Wire Cutter Show.

Speaker 12 I'm Kyra Blackwell. I'm Christine Sear Clissette.

Speaker 14 And I'm Rosie Guerin. And we work at Wirecutter, the product recommendation site from the New York Times.

Speaker 13 Each week, we bring you expert advice from our newsroom of 140 journalists who review everyday products that will make your life better.

Speaker 12 This episode of The Wire Cutter Show is called Tormented by Our Printers.

Speaker 15 Christine.

Speaker 12 Rosie. Kyra.
Hey.

Speaker 14 Can I tell you how I spent my evening last night?

Speaker 12 Please do.

Speaker 14 It started when my wife texted me asking me to fill out some forms for the twins for a doctor appointment. Fine, no problem.
But then she told me I had to print them.

Speaker 14 Oh, yeah. And that's when my tantrum began because I hate my printer.

Speaker 12 Why?

Speaker 12 Printers are the worst.

Speaker 14 Listen, they're large. They're clunky.
They have a specific power cord that, if lost, is a pain, sometimes impossible to replace. If they're wireless enabled, good luck connecting to it.

Speaker 14 Why do I have to look up on Google or worse, YouTube, how to connect the printer to the printer-specific app in order to this is 2025.

Speaker 12 Why?

Speaker 14 Why do I have to be holding the up-down color reset button until the light blinks eight times in order to reset my printer only to discover there's a jam in the back? There's no jam.

Speaker 14 There's never a jam. There's never a jam in the back.
I gave up an hour into trying to set it up and opted instead to print at the library. with coins.

Speaker 14 I found quarters to give to the people at the library so I didn't have to use this printer. Don't get me started on ink.
Inflation is high.

Speaker 14 Am I really meant to set money aside for toner or ink?

Speaker 12 Get out of here. Oh, Rosie, I thought this story was going in a really different direction.
I thought you, I was seeing the scene in office space when they're all beating up the

Speaker 12 printer and just like dissembling it.

Speaker 14 I'd be lying if I haven't

Speaker 14 had fantasies about dropping this thing off our balcony.

Speaker 12 Well, you know, I actually, you're not totally alone because we've written about this before at Wirecutter. We wrote a piece about how all printers suck.

Speaker 13 They do.

Speaker 12 I'll tell you that I used an inkjet for many, many years and I was definitely in your camp. It was expensive, very spotty in how well it worked.

Speaker 12 And then I switched over to a real cheap laser printer from Brother, which is actually like a precursor. The model's a precursor to our current pick.
And you know what? I'm pretty happy with it.

Speaker 12 And I feel like I've got the right expectations for it and it works most of the time.

Speaker 14 I'm green with envy for the piece I can see you are in just sort of mentally, emotionally.

Speaker 14 I'm tormented by my printer and I can't stop thinking about why in this modern technologically advanced society in which we live, an at-home printer has to be this antiquated. Why?

Speaker 14 And even if I did think about buying a new, better one, printers aren't cheap.

Speaker 13 No, they're not. That's why I don't have one.
I mean, there's always, you have a friend who has a printer who hates their printer. I would just say, you know, walk to the closest FedEx library.

Speaker 13 I don't know about the coin thing, but somebody else can print something for you.

Speaker 12 I mean, I get why you want to have a printer at home, though. I want a printer at home because my kids sometimes need to print stuff for school.
I like to print out my writing.

Speaker 12 But, you know, buying a printer can be really confusing. There's a lot of choice.

Speaker 13 Which is why we're bringing on the perfect person to ask all of these questions to. It's Ben Keogh.

Speaker 13 Ben is our home office and cameras editor who has reviewed printers for Wirecutter for more than six years.

Speaker 13 And he spent more than a decade covering cameras, printers, and office equipment for WireCutter, reviewed USA Today, and more.

Speaker 12 So Rosie, Ben is going to be your printer therapist, I think. He's going to walk you through all of the options and help you figure out how to solve this problem.

Speaker 14 This is the greatest gift either of you has ever gotten from me.

Speaker 12 We're going to take a quick break and when we come back, we're going to talk with Ben about the difference between inkjet and laser printers and how to decide which type of printer is is right for you.

Speaker 12 We'll be right back.

Speaker 1 The Wirecutter Show is supported by Rocket Mortgage.

Speaker 4 Your home is an active investment, not a passive one.

Speaker 5 And with Rocket Mortgage, you can put your home equity to work right away. When you unlock your home equity, you unlock new doors for your family.

Speaker 7 renovations, extensions, even buying your next property.

Speaker 8 Get started today with smarter tools and guidance from real mortgage experts.

Speaker 2 Find out how at rocketmortgage.com.

Speaker 10 RocketMortgage LLC, licensed in 50 states, NMLS Consumer Access.org, 3030.

Speaker 16 Wayfair loves fall. The crisp air, the cool nights, and of course, the seasonal lattes.

Speaker 16 And as your trusted destination for all things home, Wayfair's got everything you need to cozify your space, from comfy recliners to warm bedding and autumn decor.

Speaker 16 Wayfair even has espresso makers, so you can make that latte at home.

Speaker 12 You know the one.

Speaker 16 Head to Wayfair.com today to shop curated collections of easy, affordable fall updates. That's W-A-Y-F-A-I-R.com.
Wayfair, Every Style, Every Home.

Speaker 17 Paul Mescall and Josh O'Connor star in the history of sound, a sweeping and tender romance that spans decades and continents.

Speaker 17 In 1917 Boston, a chance encounter in a piano bar leads two students to a folk song collecting trip through the backwoods of Maine and an ensuing love affair that will change both their lives forever.

Speaker 17 In Select Theaters September 12th and Theaters Everywhere September 19th, visit movie.com slash historyofsound to get tickets. That's mu BI.com slash historyofsound.

Speaker 13 Welcome back to the Wirecutter Show. With us now is Ben Keogh, who is our editor covering everything from cameras to home office supplies.

Speaker 12 Welcome to the Wirecutter Show.

Speaker 15 Hey, I'm glad to be here.

Speaker 12 It's great to have you. Ben, one of our writers, Liam McCabe, years ago, he wrote this piece about how all printers suck.

Speaker 12 Rosie here also thinks that all printers suck, but she is kind of in a printer funk, admittedly. So I want to know, do you think that all printers suck?

Speaker 15 Yes, but they've gotten better. Liam's piece is still mostly accurate.
There are a couple places where printers have generally gotten better.

Speaker 15 One of them is connectivity, but the fundamental issues that he describes are still true.

Speaker 12 What are those?

Speaker 15 The main thing is the printers are made cheaply because if they cost what they should cost with the technology that is involved, they would cost more than people want to spend.

Speaker 15 So we end up paying the companies back by buying lots and lots of ink and toner.

Speaker 12 Ah, we're going to talk about that later.

Speaker 15 Basically, essentially, the manufacturers cut every corner they can cut with the build quality, with the weight savings, things like that, to get the cost down as much as possible.

Speaker 15 And the result is they break down a lot, they waste a lot of ink. They are just not great machines.

Speaker 15 The fundamental technology inside them is fantastic, but the overall product is not what it should be.

Speaker 15 And the reason is that it's really expensive to make these things that spray tiny, tiny dots of ink or little tiny particles of toner onto paper and do it in a really precise way.

Speaker 15 It's just really hard.

Speaker 13 And there are so many different printers out there, but when you wade through all of the jargon, there are really two major types of printers, right? Inkjet and lasers.

Speaker 13 Can you explain the difference between these two?

Speaker 15 Sure. So a inkjet printer uses a nozzle to spray tiny sub millimeter dots of ink onto paper in a very precise pattern.
And that is mind-boggling tech, actually.

Speaker 15 If you think about how precise they have to be to print a picture of your dog or even a tiny serif font and make it look smooth and nice.

Speaker 15 But yeah, basically those systems literally just spray tiny dots of ink really fast in a very controlled pattern.

Speaker 15 When you go to laser printers, what they do is they point a laser that basically imitates the pattern of the image or text that you're trying to print onto a drum, which is electrostatically charged.

Speaker 15 And then toner is released that sticks to that via static electricity, basically.

Speaker 15 And paper is pressed over the drum and then heat and pressure cause the toner to stick to your paper and just to clarify the toner that you're talking about that's kind of like a powder right at coats the drum yeah it's like a microscopic polymer dust yeah there's there's not a lot to it it's just really fine dust basically it sounds incredibly complicated as a machine it is very sci-fi

Speaker 14 Ben, I have to say, my great fear about doing this episode was that I would come to some sort of respect and appreciation of the technology of printers.

Speaker 14 I have an inkjet printer at home and I hate it

Speaker 14 because it very, very, very infrequently works the first time.

Speaker 14 And I'm not terribly impressed by, you know, the quality of what I'm getting. So my question is, why would anyone Why did I choose an inkjet over a laser printer?

Speaker 15 So inkjets do have certain advantages. The main advantage is they can do color a lot better than the lasers can.
Like lasers can print in color, but it's very matte, flat, dull color.

Speaker 15 Inkjets, the one thing they can do that lasers cannot do really is glossy photos. So if you want really nice family photos, you want snapshots, you want

Speaker 15 even doing like a kid's school report, the colors are definitely going to pop more from a inkjet than they would from a laser printer.

Speaker 15 But the downside is, well, I'm sure you know the downsides, having,

Speaker 14 but I'd love to hear what you think they are.

Speaker 15 The main downsides are that ink does not last quite as long as toner. It will start fading just over the course of time.
It will not perform as well.

Speaker 15 It will also dry up inside the nozzles and start clogging. And that's why printers run cleaning cycles, which sort of clean out the printheads and make it run well again.

Speaker 15 But that wastes a lot of ink also, which means you have to buy a lot of ink. The other downside is that ink costs more than toner, and it's also very tightly controlled by the manufacturers.

Speaker 15 So, while you can get third-party ink, it will never work quite as well as first-party ink.

Speaker 15 And nowadays, they've locked down printers to the extent that you can sometimes not even use third-party ink in your inkjet printer.

Speaker 13 Okay, so Ben, I want to play a little game. We're going to do a decision tree.

Speaker 13 Can you walk us through your process for somebody who knows that they want to buy a printer?

Speaker 13 What's the first thing someone should ask themselves when they're just trying to decide what type of printer to get?

Speaker 15 I think the first thing to ask is: do you need a printer at all? But if you get past that and you're sure you do, the question would be, how often do you print?

Speaker 15 If you print infrequently, and especially if you print only text, I would say a print-only black and white laser printer is the best option for most people.

Speaker 13 Okay, so what is our recommendation for that?

Speaker 15 So currently it is the Brother HL2460DW, which is a basic print-only black and white laser printer that costs around $150, $160.

Speaker 15 It can do duplex printing, so it can print front and back. And that's basically it.

Speaker 12 That is basically what I have at home. I have reached the end of the decision tree.
I reached it a while ago.

Speaker 12 But if you need your printer to do more than just print black and white, let's say, you know, you want color or you want some other kind of functionality, what's the next thing you should consider?

Speaker 15 Well, there are two options then.

Speaker 15 You probably want a multi-function printer, which means it has a scanner, if axe machine might even have a document feeder, so you can feed in like 10 pages at a time to scan.

Speaker 15 These come in both Laser and Inkjet. Inkjet has the advantage of, once again, being able to do glossy photos.

Speaker 15 Laser has the the advantage of being faster, but the laser ones tend to cost more, especially when you get into color laser printers.

Speaker 14 Ben, in 2025, what are we faxing?

Speaker 15 Good question. Most people are not, but some things like medical documents, certain legal documents have to be faxed.
And this is actually still a thing, which is kind of crazy, but it is true.

Speaker 15 Most people at home are not doing this, but small businesses especially do.

Speaker 13 For most people at home, you want to decide, do you want glossy photos or do you just need to print documents maybe in color, maybe a little scanning?

Speaker 13 And for that, you decide between an inkjet and a laser printer.

Speaker 15 Correct. But I think most people tend to go for inkjets just because they tend to be about half the price for a comparable printer.

Speaker 15 But the downside, of course, is you spend more on ink than you do on toner.

Speaker 13 And you have to care for the machine, which we will get into a little bit later.

Speaker 14 Right. So to that end, why would you pay more for a printer when you could get something relatively cheap?

Speaker 15 It comes down to what you do with it. So if you print a lot, if you have a small business and you print all day, every day, you would definitely pay more for a nicer laser printer.

Speaker 15 If you print from home, you maybe have a self-employed business, for instance, and you have to print frequently, but not all the time.

Speaker 15 A inkjet all-in-one that you can do stuff for your kids on, also photos, family stuff. That might make a little more sense.

Speaker 15 I would personally lean laser in most cases, but I understand the price aversion aversion some people have. And then what about photos? So photos.
Because you're a photographer. Yeah, I am.

Speaker 15 It's an awkward situation because

Speaker 15 a all-in-one inkjet can print pretty nice photos, but it will not print as nice photos or be as versatile as a dedicated photo printer, which do exist also.

Speaker 15 They're much more expensive, but they can print larger photos. They can print with better inks.
They're more single-minded.

Speaker 15 So I'd say for the people who want to print the occasional snapshot to put on the fridge, the all-in-one inkjet is a good choice.

Speaker 15 For the dedicated hobbyist photographer or a semi-pro photographer, a desktop dedicated photo printer is a much better choice.

Speaker 13 And that would be way more expensive, right? Like closer to the $900 range?

Speaker 15 Typically, yes, especially when you get into wide format printers, which is like the one that I'm long-term testing right now, the Canon Pro Image Graph Pro 1000, which costs, I think, around $1,000.

Speaker 12 Woo. Yeah.

Speaker 12 Oh, my gosh.

Speaker 15 And a set of inks costs like $600.

Speaker 12 You could do a lot of online printing for that. You're printing mold at that money.

Speaker 14 I could buy so many scratch tickets with that money.

Speaker 15 And here's the crazy thing. That printer has a dedicated tank for waste ink, and it weighs a lot when you pull it out of there.

Speaker 15 Like you are literally wasting, I can't put a percentage on it, but a decent chunk of your ink, which you pay $600 for.

Speaker 14 That is outrageous.

Speaker 12 Yeah. You probably need to be a pretty serious hobbyist to invest in that, right? Yes.
Wow.

Speaker 13 Wow. Okay.
So what I'm hearing here is if you really decide that you actually do need a printer, you can probably just keep it simple and just go with a basic laser.

Speaker 13 But if you want to get something a little bit more complicated, you need scanning, maybe some glossy photos, then you should maybe consider an all-in-one.

Speaker 13 And if you are a hobbyist, like a photographer, then maybe even consider getting a dedicated photo printer.

Speaker 12 Is that right?

Speaker 15 Yeah, but just bear in mind that your photo printer cannot be used to print documents or anything like that. It's strictly photos.
So that is a very specific choice.

Speaker 12 Got it. Ben, I feel like 95% of people could just get a standard, simple black and white laser and they probably will be happy.

Speaker 14 And they would find something else to complain about in life.

Speaker 15 That is correct, I think, yes. If you don't need photos.

Speaker 12 Set low expectations and, you know, just go with it. All right.
So after the break, we're going to get into the dirty details around saving money using third-party inks and toners.

Speaker 12 We're also going to throw a curveball in. You mentioned earlier that maybe you should consider whether you even need a printer, and we're going to kind of dive into that.
We'll be right back.

Speaker 1 The Wirecutter Show is supported by Rocket Mortgage.

Speaker 4 Your home is an active investment, not a passive one.

Speaker 5 And with Rocket Mortgage, you can put your home equity to work right away. When you unlock your home equity, you unlock new doors for your family.

Speaker 7 Renovations, extensions, even buying your next property.

Speaker 8 Get started today with smarter tools and guidance from real mortgage experts.

Speaker 2 Find out how at rocketmortgage.com.

Speaker 9 Rocket Mortgage LLC, licensed in 50 states, nmls consumeraccess.org 3030.

Speaker 16 Wayfair loves fall. The crisp air, the cool nights, and of course, the seasonal lattes.

Speaker 16 And as your trusted destination for all things home, Wayfair's got everything you need to cosify your space, from comfy recliners to warm bedding and autumn decor.

Speaker 16 Wayfair even has espresso makers, so you can make that latte at home.

Speaker 12 You know the one.

Speaker 16 Head to Wayfair.com today to shop curated collections of easy, affordable fall updates. That's W-A-Y-F-A-I-R.com.
Wayfair, every style, every home.

Speaker 17 Paul Mescall and Josh O'Connor star in the history of sound, a sweeping and tender romance that spans decades and continents.

Speaker 17 In 1917, Boston, a chance encounter in a piano bar leads two students to a folk-song collecting trip through the backwoods of Maine and an ensuing love affair that will change both their lives forever.

Speaker 17 In Select Theaters, September 12th, and Theaters Everywhere, September 19th, visit movie.com/slash history of sound to get tickets. That's mu B I.com/slash history of sound.

Speaker 13 Welcome back to the Wirecutter Show. This episode is all about printers, why some people hate them, how to decide what you need, and how much to spend on one.

Speaker 13 Now we're going to dig into what I consider the grimy underbelly of printers, how some companies lock you into their expensive operating costs, and how you can save money on ink and toner.

Speaker 12 Okay, Ben, I have owned both an inkjet and a laser printer.

Speaker 12 And I will tell you that I chose my laser after having this inkjet for a long time, and I had been sort of locked into this expensive cycle of buying the inks and I was getting tired of it.

Speaker 12 It was just awful. What are the ongoing costs of this printer? Whether you've bought an inkjet or a laser? Let's call it like annual costs.

Speaker 12 Is there a way to figure that out if you're trying to purchase something?

Speaker 15 Yeah. So in our guides, for instance, we often list the cost per page for each printer.

Speaker 15 And it can range from as little as two cents a page for a black and white laser printer to upwards of 20 cents a page for a color inkjet printer.

Speaker 15 And the way you do that is pretty easy because the ink and toner makers put a estimated number of pages on each product.

Speaker 15 And you can divide the cost by the number of pages and you end up with how much it costs per page. And that is an estimate, obviously.

Speaker 15 Sometimes you get more, sometimes you get less, but it's a good way to like gauge what the ongoing cost is going to be.

Speaker 14 I like this idea, Christine, of you having like serious conversations with your daughters of like, all right, you wrote this essay. This is going to cost 20 cents a page to print.
Are you confident?

Speaker 12 You know how thrifty I am. You know I'm not beyond that.

Speaker 12 Really? No more edits? Okay.

Speaker 14 Ben, if I'm trying to save money on my next ink refill, because when I go to Target to buy replacements for my inkjet, I'm already so grouchy walking in. And I get to the aisle and it's expensive.

Speaker 14 They can be upwards of... 30 bucks.
I've heard about these knockoff ink cartridges, but I've been hesitant to buy them because I don't know if my printer will accept them.

Speaker 14 Then I have to deal with a return. What if it's like a car and I try to put, oh, actually, do you know what's funny? I put for a long period of time the wrong

Speaker 14 level, Ed sure did, of gas in my car. And then I was driving on the highway in Massachusetts and the car just basically stopped.

Speaker 14 And the engine was so screwed up because I had been putting unwittingly the wrong grade of gasoline in it. So rosy.
I know.

Speaker 14 It's not a story that reflects well on me.

Speaker 12 I did that once too. To bring it back to printers,

Speaker 14 so I'm wondering if the same is true for these kind of knockoff ink cartridges. If you put in the wrong one, is it going to mess up my printer even further?

Speaker 15 So my experience has been that it will not mess up your printer, but it will not necessarily print to the same quality as your printer would with the first-party ink.

Speaker 15 We actually did a third-party ink test back in, I want to say like 2018, back when Costco was selling third-party ink, which they no longer do.

Speaker 15 And we found that overall they worked pretty well when the printer allowed them, but they were never quite as vibrant, never quite as smooth as the first-party ink.

Speaker 15 Toner is sort of interesting because toner is literally just black or colored dust.

Speaker 15 It's harder for printer manufacturers to like have a, have a monopoly on that because the quality doesn't vary quite as much.

Speaker 15 So I use knockoff toner in my brother printer and it can last quite a long time. It's great.

Speaker 13 How would you know if your machine definitely won't take that? You put it in and it won't print?

Speaker 15 Yeah, I mean, that's a surefire way to tell. You can also check on the third-party toner like sale page on Amazon or whatever page you're on.
It'll probably list which printers it is compatible with.

Speaker 15 That is not a surefire guarantee. The manufacturers of the knockoff ink are sometimes a little optimistic, but often it's a pretty good indicator.

Speaker 15 If you have an HP printer, it gets really complicated because they are really draconian about locking down ink.

Speaker 12 I totally got rid of my HP inkjet because of that. They have like a system.
What is it called? It's like HP Plus. There's like these proprietary ink programs that HP has, right?

Speaker 15 Yeah, it's a little complicated. They have two programs.
One is called HP Plus, which gives you added security, supposedly, and

Speaker 15 longer warranty and things like that. The other one is called Instant Ink, and that is an ink subscription service.

Speaker 15 So if you sign up to that, they send you ink whenever the printer says that it's low, basically. The problem is that

Speaker 15 the software pressures you into signing up for HP Plus and Instant Ink when you start it up.

Speaker 15 And what they tell you in the fine print is that if you sign up for HP Plus, your inkjet printer is permanently locked into using first-party ink.

Speaker 15 And if you try to use third-party ink, it simply won't work.

Speaker 12 Wow. That is so annoying.
So, okay, Ben, you and I are on team third-party toner.

Speaker 12 And I'm wondering if you've had the same experience that I have, which is sometimes when I print a page, it can get a little streaky.

Speaker 12 It doesn't look quite as good as the brother toner that I had originally. So if you're going to go with a third-party toner or ink, should you just have lower expectations?

Speaker 12 It's just not going to be as high quality of a print.

Speaker 15 I think, especially with ink, yes. With toner, I have not run into that personally.
And I think if you're having streaking issues, that's probably more of a drum issue than a toner issue.

Speaker 15 That is a replaceable part. It is a little expensive, but it only happens, I'd say, once every three to five toner cartridges.

Speaker 12 Okay, well, I'll look into that.

Speaker 14 Ben, does ink really expire? I sometimes get a prompt on my printer that that says the ink has expired, and I feel as if that's a scam, but is it real?

Speaker 14 Is it a tactic to get you to pay more more often?

Speaker 15 It's a scam in the same sense that expiration dates on canned food are a scam.

Speaker 15 Like most, most often, if you eat canned food past the expiration date, it's not going to taste bad, but it might not taste like peak freshness, right?

Speaker 15 So ink is like that. Ink will gradually degrade over time, especially once you've started using it.
Dust, heat, you know, light will cause it to slowly break down.

Speaker 15 So yes, it does expire. Will it still work? Yes, probably, but maybe not as well as it did when it was fresh.

Speaker 12 What about toner? I sometimes get a prompt that says like the toner needs to be replaced.

Speaker 15 So toner, as far as I understand, does not expire. Toner cartridges will often tell you they are empty when they are not.

Speaker 15 For instance, I recently printed on a brother first-party toner cartridge for over four years and reset it twice.

Speaker 15 So there's a hack you can do with brother printer toner cartridges where the printer will tell you the toner is empty and you can go into a submenu and literally just reset it and it'll keep on printing.

Speaker 15 I can't remember the exact sequence right now, but if you look it up on the internet, it's definitely out there.

Speaker 12 Yeah, I've,

Speaker 12 I've actually spent a lot of time on YouTube looking at brother printer hacks and it's a whole rabbit hole you can go down.

Speaker 14 Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, A, B, A, B.

Speaker 12 Ben, we've already established that I'm super thrifty, but I also bought my printer refurbished on eBay. Is that okay?

Speaker 12 Since we're, you know, talking about how to save money on printing, would you recommend buying a refurb?

Speaker 15 I think it's a good idea, especially if you buy it first-party refurb. If you get it from Brother directly, for instance, they sell refurbished printers directly on their site.

Speaker 15 If you get it through eBay, just be sure you're buying it from a reputable seller. You want to buy it from a major seller.

Speaker 13 What's the difference between refurb and used?

Speaker 15 Used is just someone bought it and got tired of it and is selling it.

Speaker 15 And refurb is it actually went back to the manufacturer or a trusted third-party repair shop, basically, and it's been brought back to factory specs and it's good to go.

Speaker 15 Typically, a refurbished printer also comes with some kind of warranty. It's not necessarily the same as the factory warranty, but it might be six months.
You might get something.

Speaker 15 So if it breaks down, you have a backstop.

Speaker 12 That's so, wow i've been buying all my electronics wrong off of email yeah no i mean you can do this for you can do this for a lot of of small appliances i that's how i got my vitamix from vitamix i i mean you can this is always worth a look if you're willing to get something used but that's refurbished okay another hot tip yes well then i had a question i don't know if you've seen these but they're all over my instagram They're called portable inkless printers.

Speaker 13 They kind of look like a little futuristic bar that'll just like zap out something on a page. Have you seen those? Do they work? And if so, how?

Speaker 15 Yes, I've seen them. We haven't tested them yet.
These are mostly thermal printers, which is similar to like, if you've seen like a label printer for UPS or whatever, they print really fast.

Speaker 15 They don't take ink. They don't break down quite as much as inkjets, lasers, more complicated printers.
The downside is they print in pretty low quality.

Speaker 15 The prints are susceptible to heat and will fade really fast. So it's not good for anything where you need to like keep a document long term.

Speaker 15 If you've seen like a UPS label that has been left out in the sun, that's what your prints are going to look like in like a year or so, basically.

Speaker 13 And they require a special paper, right?

Speaker 15 Yeah, it's it's a special paper that doesn't quite feel like regular printer paper. It feels kind of slick.
So they're good for some things. You can use them for like stickers and things like that.

Speaker 15 For the sort of everyday printing that most people do, I would not recommend it.

Speaker 12 All right, Ben, we're going to get to the real counter argument of this episode. If people are listening in and they are just thinking, a printer at home, this sounds like too much trouble.

Speaker 12 It's going to be too expensive. Do you feel like there are good options if somebody doesn't want to get a printer at home?

Speaker 15 I would say for most people who live in a metropolitan area, even if it's not a city, just like a suburban area, if you have access to like a library, if you work in an office, you can print a lot of stuff for free or very cheap without owning a printer.

Speaker 15 You can even go to a FedEx Kinko's and print there for relatively cheaply.

Speaker 15 I think a lot of people think they need a printer when they really can get by on that kind of printing, but it is a pain when you have to go to the library to like print something.

Speaker 15 So I totally understand it also.

Speaker 12 What about other things that people might think they need a printer for, like scanning or printing photos?

Speaker 15 So we have a guide to scanning apps for your phone, which are these days extremely good.

Speaker 15 If you do it right and take your time, you can get scans from your phone that look just as good as anything from an all-in-one printer.

Speaker 15 Sometimes better just because all-in-one printers tend to pull pages through the document feeder a little bit sideways, they can not look great sometimes.

Speaker 15 I think we recommend Adobe Scan, which is great, and it's free. It will take really beautiful scans of documents.

Speaker 15 For glossy photos, if you don't want to have an all-in-one inkjet, you can send your photos out to a photo lab. We recommend one called Nations Photo Lab,

Speaker 15 and they will print your glossy photos probably better than a home printer could for quite a bit cheaper, frankly, especially if you print quite a lot of photos at one time.

Speaker 13 And we also, by the way, have a guide to photo printing on the website if you want to check that out. No need to take notes here.

Speaker 12 All right, let's do a quick lightning round.

Speaker 14 I'm going to ask you if I need a printer for the following tasks, Ben. And if so, what kind you would recommend.
Ready? Cool. Okay, I want to return a pair of shoes.
They don't fit.

Speaker 14 I need to print the label.

Speaker 15 So lots of returns nowadays come with a QR code that you can take straight to a FedEx store, UPS store, to a Whole Foods even and drop off without a label, which is great.

Speaker 15 Or you can take it there and they will print the label for you. If you needed to print it at home, I would say a black and white laser printer is the best option.

Speaker 14 Okay, but how about I need to print a photo for my kids' school project?

Speaker 15 Most school projects do not require glossy photos.

Speaker 15 And I would say if you have a color laser printer, that's great. If you don't, take it to FedEx.

Speaker 14 I want paper copies of bills I paid, even though it's 2025. I insist.

Speaker 15 Black and white laser printer.

Speaker 14 How about I need to just occasionally print important documents like passport application, medical doc?

Speaker 15 Same thing, black and white laser printer.

Speaker 14 I am a budding photographer, I wish, and I want to print my exceptional work.

Speaker 15 Either send it to our Photo Lab Dick

Speaker 15 or invest in a dedicated photo printer, even though it's quite expensive. Printing is a hobby in itself that is quite enjoyable if you can afford it.

Speaker 14 What if I find out I'm a Wonderkin? I think I'm too old to be a Wonderkin.

Speaker 12 Never too late, Rosie. This could be your time.

Speaker 13 Before we wrap, we usually ask our guests one final question. What's the last last thing you've bought that you've really loved?

Speaker 15 So as I mentioned, as you mentioned, I'm a photographer. My most recent purchase is actually an item that was made before I was born.

Speaker 15 It is the Nikon F3, which is their third pro camera, basically, but it's a film camera from 1980. I got it in beautiful shape with a beautiful 50 millimeter 1.2 lens for $250,

Speaker 15 which is

Speaker 15 probably

Speaker 15 $500 below market at the bare minimum. So I'm pretty happy about that.

Speaker 13 Ah, we love a good deal. Bam!

Speaker 12 After my own heart, this is amazing. I also know that you have a deep knowledge of how to buy a used camera gear, and that might be a good idea.
Yes, I do.

Speaker 13 Well, I don't know what kind of photography you do now.

Speaker 15 I live in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where we have beautiful landscapes. So I spend a lot of time doing that.
Take a lot of photos of my dog because she's the best. Oh, I kind of like it all.

Speaker 13 You do it all. I love it.

Speaker 12 Love it.

Speaker 14 Ben, thank you so much for joining us. Really appreciate all your insights.

Speaker 15 Yeah, it's glad to be here, guys.

Speaker 12 so rosie we've we've worked through all of the printer questions all the printer answers how you feeling we're coming up on time um

Speaker 12 i feel a couple of ways

Speaker 14 i am

Speaker 14 shocked to say i have some real brand new respect for the technology involved in creating these machines laser printer and inkjet i'm still very very interested in throwing my inkjet off of the balcony.

Speaker 12 Which we should totally do a YouTube and get into the video. Yeah,

Speaker 12 I'm gonna do a YouTube.

Speaker 14 Honestly, my main takeaway is I probably should get a laser printer when I'm really ready to get serious about having something in my home. I can pick one up for $160.

Speaker 14 And I actually think for the types of things that I'm doing at home, it's going to be the easiest one to get and maintain.

Speaker 12 Yeah, I think that's, you know, my takeaway is that I'm right.

Speaker 12 I made the right choice.

Speaker 12 Yeah, I would also say, like, I've had a good experience with refurbs. So if you're looking for something a little less expensive, make sure and look for a refurb that is from brother, ideally.

Speaker 13 Yeah, I really don't have a dog in this fight, and I'm so happy for myself about that.

Speaker 13 But I will say, it was surprising for me to hear that if you don't use your inkjet enough, then the ink will dry. Maybe that's common sense, but what?

Speaker 13 What? Why? So use your printer enough to make sure that the ink doesn't dry.

Speaker 12 Yeah. Love it.

Speaker 15 That's a wrap.

Speaker 14 If you want to find out more about Wirecutters coverage, or if you want to check out the products we recommended today, anything Ben recommended, please go to nytimes.com slash wirecutter or you can find a link in the show notes.

Speaker 14 That's it for us. Until next week.

Speaker 12 Here's what's coming up next week on the wire cutter show. And you know what I think the most powerful thing to do is? If you're the akimbo loader, just let the other person do it.

Speaker 12 Make sure you're following the show on your favorite podcast app so you don't miss it. The Wirecutter Show is executive produced by Rosie Guerin and produced by Abigail Keel.
Editing by Abigail Keel.

Speaker 12 Engineering support from Maddie Mazziello and Nick Pittman. Today's episode was mixed by Catherine Anderson.
Original music by Dan Powell, Marion Lozano, Alicia Baitoup, and Diane Wong.

Speaker 12 Wirecutter's deputy publisher and interim general manager is Cliff Levy. Ben Fruman is Wirecutter's editor-in-chief.
I'm Kyra Blackwell. I'm Christine Sear Clissette.

Speaker 14 And I'm Rosie Guerin.

Speaker 12 Thanks for listening.

Speaker 13 You know, we love to read the.

Speaker 12 We do love to read. Yeah, we like to read.
We just like to read. Sometimes it's questionable if I can read, but.

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