497
Brother was the last decent printer company, wasn't it?
“Third party ink” existing as a phrase is the problem.
Meh, I think it's pretty straight forward. It's just a description of the scenario.
Mario games are first party content, because they're made by the same company that makes the console. This says nothing positive or negative about the game, just who developed it.
I've used printers that don't have cartridges, instead they just have ink wells you can fill with any ink. You do have more freedom with ink choices, but they're a different kind of hassle. It's not simply a better solution.
(Speaking of solutions, sometimes the ink you buy is more of a suspension than a solution, and it'll clump up and dry in the feed hoses, a real pain in the ass.)
but they’re a different kind of hassle
Can you elaborate on this? I thought they would be straight up better to work with and I was thinking of buying one in the future. Is it just about the drying up issue you mentioned or are there other drawbacks?
I mean yeah, most systems with a reservoir are going to use some kind of feed tubes to get the ink to the print head, and tubes just clog; basically, they only have 2 states of existence and one of them is "clogged". If you do very regular printing, like a full color page at least twice a week, then they aren't going to clog, but very few people actually print that consistently.
Truth be told, I'm just done with inkjet printing all together. At this point I can't recommend anything but a laser printer, you tend to pay more up front, but then it actually works and it keeps working for a decade or more.
I see. Thanks for sharing. This will be good to know next time I'm looking for a printer.
This sounds accurate based on the user reports. They're not bricking anything, they just make you do manual registration if you use third party toner.
Which is weird because one of Rossman's sources claimed that they were on the phone with Brother, asked how to do manual registration, and were told it couldn't be done unless a genuine Brother toner cartridge was installed.
That person was just plain wrong. The same source showed the manual registration sheets under their reddit post.
Customer service reps have almost the same information that a customer would have. The only difference is they have a few more tools available to them.
Asking policy questions or anything at this level would likely get no useful info.
Only if the customer service is unempowered garbage.
Welcome to the real world.
Rossman's "source" was a 3 year old unconfirmed Reddit post.
Maybe support agent was being lazy, or ignorant.
The portal the agents use should be able to bring up internal info via keywords like "colour registration"
I have a black and white brother laser printer that had 3rd party toner that worked fine for years, it was even a two pack of toner. Then I installed a firmware update and immediately it threw an error stating trouble with the toner and refused to print. Tried the unopened 2nd toner, same error. Looked and searched all over online and could not find the previous firmware to try a roll back.
I then purchased a new two pack of 3rd party toner from a different brand and it worked just fine. My guess is with each new firmware they also have a set of chips to block (each toner has a chip on it) that they bundle into to update.
I'll never install another firmware update for that printer now.
I would consider what they did as bricking my toner.
In other news: tesla bans third party gas pumps
Close: you do get banned from their supercharger network if you try to repair your own car
Fascinating. I wonder how many people are going it alone or 3rd party with Tesla repairs now.
gas pumps of any kind are banned for Tesla
this post was submitted on 05 Mar 2025
497 points (100.0% liked)
Technology
64937 readers
4285 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related content.
- Be excellent to each other!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
- Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.
Approved Bots
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS