Same here. I use a Brother wireless B/W laser, which is awesome. It cost me approx USD 300 up front but run cost is comparably lower. And you don’t have to deal with the dubious practices of HP.

I actually bought the printer after 5 years of pain with an HP inkjet printer. I had ordered two new cartridges for it, supposedly original HP. After plugging them in, the printer tells me they are not “genuine”. Speaking to support of the cartridge distributer, I’m told I need to rub the chip at the back with a soft cloth (!), which didn’t seem to work. I called HP support who told me it is a firmware error and then I need to do a factory reset. Problem is the printer is now stuck in a doom loop where it will complain about ingenuity of the cartridges and ask me to inset a new cartridge before I can access the system menu, but I didn’t have any replacements (as the empty cartridge wouldn’t work either). I ended up throwing out the printer. For the sake of your own well-being and wallet, don’t buy HP printers!

> "Prosumer" laser printers (often labeled "home office" or "small office") are pretty great.

"Prosumer" printers are pretty good, regardless of technology, I think.

I own an Epson Workforce Pro WF-5620, it's an inkjet MFP, does full duplex for both printing an scanning, wifi connected, scans to google drive/dropbox, etc.

I shed about EUR 220 (250$) for it back in 2016, and I just changed the color cartridges for the first time about one month ago (I had changed the black one about one year ago, and it's 80% full). The newer, larger ones, will probably last forever.

While it IS possible to buy compatible ink for a lower price tag, I think the cartridge price (around ~30 EUR for the XL version) is totally reasonable for the amount of printing it provides.

I must say that the cartridge price increased a bit over the years, but that seems true for most (all?) models.

I got a written off office HP LJ 2500 from 2008, around 10yrs ago for 30€. I added a RaspberryPi for wireless zeroconf/Cups printing. It hasn't required any refills/maintenance yet and is autodetected on Win/Mc/Lin/Android.

Super happy with it, I print a lot of postage labels and other stuff with it.

My 4050 with duplexer must be 15 or more years old. I once had to re-solder the JetDirect network card in the stove. Hooray for the Internet and the kind person who posted that. Apart from that it just works. Can't beat it for correspondence and everything that can be printed b/w or gray.

When the Brother laser printers need a drum change—sooner than I’d like—that plus the next toner cartridge are disturbingly close to the cost of a replacement printer.

It's annoying how much drums cost here in the US. In China, you can buy third party drum units for $15, which makes sense when the actual drum cylinder costs only $3:

https://m.tb.cn/h.fknJCKv?sm=88e645

The Amazon reviews on third-party drums don’t give me confidence. Dig into the 2- and 1-star reviews, and you see a lot of quality or longevity issues.

I've used third party drums on HP (colour) and Brother (black and white) printers. The only issue I had was printing on transparencies on the HP: the toner would smear instead of adhering. No issues printing on paper.

I've had mixed experience with brand-name drums as well.