Stop Battling Anti-Consumer Printers and Just Buy an Epson EcoTank

For the past two years, The Verge‘s Editor in Chief Nilay Patel has recommended the same Brother laser printer as the best option on the market, even going so far as to renew that guide with an entirely new story that includes a very funny AI-generated text section. However, I disagree with Patel and Brother’s anti-consumer practices are making the publication doubt that choice, too.

Author’s Note: No, this is not sponsored. We just really like these printers and can’t think of a reason not to get one. Seriously. Epson did not pay us to write this. This is a real opinion.

Before getting into Brother’s anti-consumer choice, it’s worth pointing out that I have disagreed with Patel that the Brother is the best printer for home office, schoolwork, and just about everything else based on the merits of the product alone. While it’s affordable and easy to use, it can only print in black-and-white and while that’s fine for packing labels and high school essays, there are a lot of things that everyday folks, and especially photographers, would want the option to print color for.

But now there is another reason to second guess a Brother printer purchase. According to Tom’s Hardware who cites YouTuber Louis Rossmann, Brother has reversed course on its previous stance of allowing third-party toner usage and has “implemented firmware updates that deliberately degrade print quality” when using toner that isn’t from Brother.

“Firmware updates retroactively remove previously available features, such as automatic color registration, for users using non-OEM toner. Printers continue to function with third-party toner but print at degraded quality unless OEM toner is installed. Firmware updates cannot be easily rolled back, preventing consumers from restoring lost functionality. Printers do not outright reject third-party toner but instead engineer a failure, misleading users into thinking their toner is defective,” Rossmann outlines on his Wiki.

According to ArsTechnica, Brother denies these claims. If they’re true though, that stinks and this same practice is exactly why HP printers are so unpopular; well, that and the CEO says that if a customer doesn’t use HP ink, they are a “bad investment.”

Readers may now feel exasperated: printers already often feel like a ripoff, with cartridges seeming to be designed to need constant replacement and other companies enacting anti-consumer policies to squeeze the most money out of customers.

There is an easy answer: just use a tank printer.

Epson EcoTank Printers Are the Best Printers for Home Use in 2025

For over a year, I’ve been using an Epson EcoTank ET-8550. I don’t print every day — I don’t even print once a week — but I have been so happy with the performance of this printer that I bought an ET-2800 for my mother last March. PetaPixel‘s Jeremy Gray also has the ET-8550 printer and, independently of my choice to do it, also bought an ET-2800 for his mother based on his positive experience. Both mothers report nothing but thumbs-up experiences with their Epson EcoTanks.

The best part about these printers, and Canon makes some great ones too, is that — at least right now — they are impossible for a manufacturer to stop you from using third-party ink. Unless they somehow put some new hardware into both the tank filling area and the caps of the replacement inks (which sounds like a technical and logistical nightmare), as long as there is ink in the tank, the printer will use it.

Yes, the startup cost of one of these tank printers is more than what Brother asks for the Verge-recommended HL-L2305W, but they can do more, too. Epson’s lowest-end ET-2800 costs $200 (at the time of writing) but it also has a scanner/copier option, features I find myself needing on occasion.

Over a year of use, I’ve printed countless shipping labels as well as two full tabletop RPG books (two-sided prints) in full color and I have not had to replace my ink yet. Imagine if I tried to do that with a cartridge printer — I’d be thousands of dollars in the hole at this point. Instead, I have about 25% capacity left on all but one of my ink levels (I have over half of that remaining one left). When I run out, I’m not going to panic because EcoTank ink, both OEM from Epson and from third-party options, is reasonable. For $100, I can replace all of the colors and, provided I don’t plan to print out two more thick books worth of prints (I don’t), that should last me even longer than the year I’ve gotten out of the first fill.

The biggest complaint against a tank printer is the fear of clogging. Most experts will say you need to print something at least once a week to prevent the nozzles from getting stopped up but I have found this to be an ultra-conservative approach. For example, I mentioned I don’t print once a week and sometimes I don’t even print once a month. Despite this, the printer has never had a clog issue in the year I’ve had it. Gray, his mother, and my mother also have reported no clogs.

I won’t sit here and tell you that if you buy an EcoTank, it will never clog. I’m just saying it’s not as big of a problem as some people make it out to be.

Gray has noted that he did have a feed issue once, which caused his printer to no longer work correctly with one of the paper feed options, which forced him to seek a replacement. I will also say that if you plan to print two sided and there are large illustrations on those prints, the paper can get too wet and it will cause a jam. I have not experienced permanent damage from such a jam, however.

Finally, it’s worth noting that while I and most people will use their home printers for mundane purposes like labels and homemade thank-you cards, these are actually surprisingly good photo printers. Epson, being a photo printing company at its core, made sure that its EcoTank printers are capable of producing lovely photo prints.

“The Epson ET-8550 may not promise the archival longevity or fantastic print quality of the company’s professional printers, which I also own and have used extensively, but the ET-8550 delivers print quality that is plenty good enough for hanging on the wall,” Gray says. “The big advantage of the ET-8550 for photographers is that it is much more economical to use than an Epson Stylus Pro inkjet printer, and significantly more streamlined — no fussing over clogged printheads here. You do give something up, but you get a lot, too. For all but the most demanding applications, it’s a tradeoff I’m happy to make.”

The lower-end Epson EcoTank printers — like the ET-2800 — won’t do as good of a job with photo prints, but will be better than what HP and Brother can offer.

I’m not going to tell you that an Epson EcoTank is the perfect printer for you and that you can stop looking now for a great alternative to your cartridge printer, Brother printer, or HP printer, but I will say that if you’re willing to spend a little more upfront and want a system that seems implausible to have any anti-consumer annoyances added into it and works exceptionally well, then an Epson EcoTank comes with our highest recommendation.

Image credits: Bad photos by Jaron Schneider. Good photos by Jeremy Gray.