Recommendations for a color, full duplex, laser printer?
Another printer company (Brother) has fallen to the allure of “remote disable” if they object to you using your own device in a way they don’t like: trying to self-service, use third party inks, whatever. It’s at their discretion. Given printers are the sorts of devices to which you tend to want to have network access, preventing this is a lot of work.
I’ve been looking at color duplex laser printers, and Brother has been at the top of the list, until they recently announcement that they’d disable printers using third party inks.
BIFL to me implies that the company isn’t going to actively sabotage self-service, or restrict your usage of the thing, so I think this is an appropriate question for this c/.
Yeah, that’s one of the firewall options: dedicate a computer as a print server. Or, actually firewall off the device in the router. Both are often more work than just putting the device on the LAN. And then there are the firmware upgrades, which sometimes have actual benefit.
For years I used Jabra conference speakers. It was shocking just how often they needed firmware updates, and sometimes I’d discover I needed a firmware update because the speaker started acting funny. It’s a darned speaker; much less complex than a printer. I have trouble imagining what possible monetization Jabra could have been getting out of the upgrades.