So I've recently come into the market for a good printer, or as good a one as I can find because printers are straight up evil. I thought posting here would be relevant seeing that most of the printers I have looked up are enshittified garbage (looking at you HP).

My old thrift store Brother printer does well for basic text printing, but I'm looking for something that can handle glossy photo printing with decent quality; not perfect, just decent. I don't need all the bells and whistles like fax, scanning, etc. just a simple good printer that isn't an enshittified ink subscription machine.

Things I am looking for:
Linux Compatability (Fedora Workstation)
USB or wired connection (no required internet)
Can handle thicker glossy 8.5x11
Decent photo quality , color printing
Double sided printing
(Optional) 3rd party ink compatible
(Optional) compact/small
(Optional) Under $400, preferably between $80 and $200

Any recommendations? What have you used and liked? Are there any other good brands or startups that arent the big four (HP, Canon, Brother, Epson)?

I get great printers off free CL. when ink runs out I get another free printer. there's a ton of free working high-quality printers on craigslist with all your listed features.

too big to keep around, too old-fashioned to sell, you can take ten printers off people's hands each week if you want to.

I got a secondhand Canon Selphy CP910 photo printer from Goodwill. It prints excellent photos. It requires an ICC profile though, which I think is normal for photo printers? (on Debian 13 Linux, and I had to find the magic driver that made it work.) I set it up in 2024 and I don't recall where I got the file. There are generic paper and ink refills on ebay.

Brother business ink tank printer, works driverless on Linux

Something built for business use, not a consumer grade inkjet printer. They're all terrible, barely-technically-working-5-minutes-from-landfill junk.

Mostly that means a laser printer. Canon and Brother have good driver support on Linux.

Something like this Brother HL-L3220CDW: https://ebay.io/m/7laVWS

https://www.brother-usa.com/p/laser-printers/HLL3220CDW?pid=HLL3220CDW

Friends don't let friends buy inkjets.

I personally found that it's cheaper to have color things printed at a store.

Inkjet printer ink dries up over time. So if you don't use it, it goes bad.

Even a really good home ink jet doesn't print as good as walgreens/Walmart/staples etc.

Plus the cost is way high.

I have a brother laser jet. Black and white only. And it's cost effective to use.

Everything else I go to a store and have printed.

Brother

Other brands are ass

Maybe OpenPrinter will come out one day

I have that exact Brother printer, which I love, but sadly it's not capable of doing photo printing to any reasonable standard. For general use I thoroughly agree with you though.

For photo printing at home, you sadly probably do need an inkjet for it, and specifically a photo printing one with 6 inks.

I used to use old Epson ones (I think an R200 and R2400), which are old enough to be mostly pre-enshittification. These did serve me well (accepted 3rd party ink refills, printed well, gave me no shit), but eventually I stopped using them frequently enough to keep them in good working order. I've still got the R2400, but it's back in its box on a shelf, and would need quite a bit of cleaning and maintenance to get running again.

As others suggested, if I need anything of very high photo quality doing these days, I send it to the local printers.

I do have one remaining inkjet, which is an older "Epson Ecotank", so it runs from bottles of ink instead of cartridges, and seems relatively happy to sit unused for months without clogging up, and the running costs are incredibly cheap - but it probably cost about £200-£300 new when I got it (about 10 years ago) - and it's okay for images and photos, but nowhere near the quality you'd get from sending things to a printers. So it's fine for printing a photo well enough to show someone something, for a diagram, manual, floorplan example etc - but not a good enough print for someone to buy a copy to frame and put on their wall.

There are newer ecotank printers (which include 6 ink photo versions) - though I've not tried them personally- but may be worth OP looking at? Might cost you £600 - £700 (or your regional equivalent) though. Perhaps a slightly older model could fit that price range?

[Edit] "Tankbenefit" is the Brother equivalent of Epson "Ecotank" - and some of those claim to be photo printers, for about £300

Brother laser printers

Just putting it out there: second hand dye sublimation printer.

Ooh, aren't you rich.

I haven't thought about one in years, will look to see what's out there.

But you're right, for photo quality a dye sub is hard to beat

1. Use a CUPS print server - handles both Linux and Windows print jobs using a standardized print language.

Other than that, Brother laser is the the go-to, or an old used HP.

I inherited a 2012 HP B/W laser that has wifi. Surprisingly works very well, so I kept it.

It can connect via USB, but also works well via wifi. Rarely has issues.

If you really do need color, I think laser is still the better answer, it just costs more.

I have an older Canon ImageClass color that works great, surprisingly.

A lot of newer Canon printers claim they require apps, internet, and even social media accounts on their store pages; did you run into any of that with your printer?

Friends don't let friends buy inkjets

This needs to be on a billboard.

I haven't had an inkjet in my house since about 2003. Fuck that junk. Did I mention they were junk. Or how much I hate, hate, hate those things?

Fuck an inkjet, I'd sooner let a toddler scribble a monster spreadsheet in crayon.

Louis Rossmann has a site that lists enshittified items and companies. Here is the printer search results https://consumerrights.wiki/w/Category:Printers Maybe you will find a recommendation.

That's about the only inkjet I'd allow in my house.

You're lucky.

Everyone around me thinks their 20 year old all-in-one is still worth $120

Sorry mate, only thing that's good for is the Office Space treatment

No sir! ✌️

Btw I just thought of another thing I figured I'd mention.

Have you heard of giclee prints?
https://www.prodigi.com/blog/what-is-giclee-fine-art-printing/

I met an artist at a comicon selling these beautiful prints of his work that really stood out and I stopped to talk to him about them. I thought they were screen printed because of how vibrant they looked.

That's when I learned about giclee printing.

Now I don't know if it's great for photographs. But it certainly looks exceptional for digital art or prints of artwork.

Check the link or search around online to learn more but the basics is that it's a type of printing that doesn't use the basic black, cyan, yellow, magenta inks.
Instead it uses hundreds of colors. Pre mixed.

It's why it's special. And it really does look like professional high quality, multi layer screen prints.