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A comment on Brother accused of locking down third-party printer ink cartridges. Parent comment

Re:Brother accused of locking down third-party printer ink c... by zamalek on Wednesday March 05, 2025 @12:28AM (#43263198)
I had a really shitty customer support interaction for a $60 Brother scanner: they included the wrong calibration sheet, and proceeded to attempt gas lighting me about user error despite photos showing it didn't fit in the scanner under any orientation. Replacements were $20 shipped, but out of stock anyway. Needless to say, that changed my mind about which manufacturer to make an expensive purchase from.

It was Wikipedia that reminded me Xerox even existed. All my other research led to the usual shitlist: HP, Canon, Brother, etc. No problems on Linux and Mac (printing and scanning), which is seems par these days, but no problems on Windows either: the manufacturer app was completely optional (but was straight to the point, functional, and worth the install).

Xerox color lasers have my glowing recommendation.

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Re:Brother accused of locking down third-party printer ink c... by noname120 on Wednesday March 05, 2025 @03:19AM (#43264160)
When did you buy it? After a cursory search it seems that Xerox engages in the same scammy behavior with 3rd-party consumables: artificially degrading the quality (lower DPI, fake printhead jerks), region-locking, wasting ink so it drains faster, and DRMs that blank out refuse anything that didn't pad their bottom line.
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Re:Brother accused of locking down third-party printer ink c... by account42 on Wednesday March 05, 2025 @10:07AM (#43267528)
> artificially degrading the quality (lower DPI, fake printhead jerks)

Huh, won't users just blame the printer for that?

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Re:Brother accused of locking down third-party printer ink c... by noname120 on Friday March 07, 2025 @05:59AM (#43289155)
Not if it only happens on 3rd-party cartridges combined with the fact that Xerox claims that they are low-quality and compared to their high quality genuine original cartridges™
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Re:Brother accused of locking down third-party printer ink c... by zamalek on Wednesday March 05, 2025 @11:39AM (#43268942)
Jerking print heads for laser? That's not how laser printers work. Either way, I'm using 3rd party toner in mine (6515) just fine. It looks like people who have issues purchased metered printers.
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Re:Brother accused of locking down third-party printer ink c... by noname120 on Friday March 07, 2025 @06:06AM (#43289204)
Laser heads can misalign though (not sure if Xerox does that). Your Xerox® WorkCentre 6515 printer was launched 9 years ago and is not sold anymore. It's very possible that they changed their practices since then and/or that the price point is high enough that they wouldn't do that (it's aimed at professional customers after all).

Either way after a quick Reddit search there seems to be irreplaceable parts on that printer too. For example the fuser which is allegedly not user-replaceable.

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Re:Brother accused of locking down third-party printer ink c... by skyyler on Wednesday March 05, 2025 @02:17PM (#43270956)
I love my Xerox! It's a VersaLink that I took from an office of a defunct company.

Came with replacement toner cartridges but I'm still on the set that was installed when I got it!!

Prints are crisp, fast, and it doesn't use very much power when idle. Love it!

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