benos Posted January 13, 2009 Share Posted January 13, 2009 The 3 color toner cartridges for my Brother Laser 4070CDW printer are almost empty. This is the first time I'll replace toner in a laser printer. (My last inkjet finally hit the trash can.) I don't want to mess around refilling them. (Found that by searching.) Should I buy factory brand cartridges, or are "replacement cartridges" okay for a laser printer? Does anyone have a favorite site for buying toner cartridges? The site where I used to buy inkjet refills has: http://www.inkgrabber.com/models/BROTHER_HL_4070CDW.html In searching, I found quite a variance in the number of pages a cartridge will print. Any vibes on whether the high capacity cartridges are worth. We do print a shitload of pages from this printer. be Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JThompson Posted January 13, 2009 Share Posted January 13, 2009 (edited) I make a lot of money cleaning up after people who use the refills... I"m sure you'll get many stories of how they never had a problem with them, but the failure rate is at least five times higher with remans. I only buy HP for my HP and that's what I do for a living. I usually just hit ebay cause people have an extra 1 or two on hand when their machine dies and they want to recover a few bucks. I get an unopened genuine HP for less than half what they sell for in stores. Some of the newer stuff isn't there, but I use mostly older stuff people have upgraded from... free is good! Edited January 13, 2009 by JThompson Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nik Habicht Posted January 13, 2009 Share Posted January 13, 2009 Toner cartridges for my B&W HP are either $75 or $100; the bigger cartridge delivers about 50% more pages than the smaller one, so it's what I buy.... I get about 6000 pages out of one cartridge.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Franklin D Wolverton Posted January 13, 2009 Share Posted January 13, 2009 (edited) Get the hi-cap. Same cartridge... they just put more ink in it. Frank Edited because I'm a GM in the DA division... Edited January 13, 2009 by Franklin D Wolverton Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeff686 Posted January 13, 2009 Share Posted January 13, 2009 Brian, Which inkjet printers did you have, and why didn't you like them? You can PM me if you don't want to post you comments. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
benos Posted January 13, 2009 Author Share Posted January 13, 2009 Brian, Which inkjet printers did you have, and why didn't you like them? You can PM me if you don't want to post you comments. I had an Epson 900, a couple Epson 740i's, and a Canon of some sort. They all worked great for a year or two, then eventually I ended up spending all day cleaning the print heads to get them to print. Way too often. Factory cartridges are just ridicously expensive, so I either refilled them or bought cheap replacement cartridges. Which probably was responsible for the majority of problems. But since the factory cartridges are just so expensive, I don't consider them an alternative. So I'll never own another ink jet. At least the lasers always print, every day, until they run out of toner. be Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
benos Posted January 13, 2009 Author Share Posted January 13, 2009 I make a lot of money cleaning up after people who use the refills... I"m sure you'll get many stories of how they never had a problem with them, but the failure rate is at least five times higher with remans. I only buy HP for my HP and that's what I do for a living.I usually just hit ebay cause people have an extra 1 or two on hand when their machine dies and they want to recover a few bucks. I get an unopened genuine HP for less than half what they sell for in stores. Some of the newer stuff isn't there, but I use mostly older stuff people have upgraded from... free is good! By "refills" do you mean refilling the cartridges yourself, or buying non-factory cartridges? Or both? be Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
George Posted January 13, 2009 Share Posted January 13, 2009 Buy OEM, always! get the big stick option if they offer it. That is all, over and out :-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
benos Posted January 13, 2009 Author Share Posted January 13, 2009 Buy OEM, always! get the big stick option if they offer it. That is all, over and out :-) Got it - thanks, on my way... It just took a bit to understand / get used the fact that I paid $350 for the printer, and now I'll pay $300 for three, brother color high-cap toner cartridges. But if that's how it is that's how it is. be Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
George Posted January 13, 2009 Share Posted January 13, 2009 at 6000+ pages per cart set you are paying .05/per page That's still cheaper than the average .11 to .15/per page cost of an inkjet. My HP lasers are getting me about .03/page for color and .015/page for B&W Also, a lot of laser printers (HP specifically) are set in their software to report low cartridges at 8-10% left and to stop printing at 5-7% left. This translates to as much as 1000 pages of available toner wasted if you believe them and change them out when the printer say to. I go into the control panel and reset the warning level to 5% and the no-print level to 3% to get 500-750 pages of my hard earned toner money back from this bean-counter driven toner stealing default specification. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nik Habicht Posted January 13, 2009 Share Posted January 13, 2009 I typically need to snatch my toner cartridge at some point (when the printer delivers white page in the middle of my text), shake it gently side to side to redistribute the remaining toner, and then I can get another few hundred pages out of it.... Each successive shaking produces fewer pages before a repeat is necessary --- the first one really yields a lot as well as letting me know I need to go buy a new cartridge; I've stopped doing it a second time because time and paper are worth something too.... If you've got the space --- a B&W laser is considerably cheaper to run than a color; though you'd need to deal with two different printers on your network.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
benos Posted January 14, 2009 Author Share Posted January 14, 2009 I typically need to snatch my toner cartridge at some point (when the printer delivers white page in the middle of my text), shake it gently side to side to redistribute the remaining toner, and then I can get another few hundred pages out of it....Each successive shaking produces fewer pages before a repeat is necessary --- the first one really yields a lot as well as letting me know I need to go buy a new cartridge; I've stopped doing it a second time because time and paper are worth something too.... If you've got the space --- a B&W laser is considerably cheaper to run than a color; though you'd need to deal with two different printers on your network.... Thanks Nik. I do have a B&W laser, which is now our main printer until the new cartridges come in. And I'll try the shake gently trick on the 4070 tomorrow. be Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
benos Posted January 14, 2009 Author Share Posted January 14, 2009 The shake worked - she's printing without the magenta band across the page again. Yesterday, I ordered 3 high-capacity, Brother toner cartridges from: http://www.amatteroffax.com/ Even though they charged about $20 for shipping, I still saved about $60 compared to most of the other sites I checked, some of which had "free" shipping. And the kicker is - the cartridges were delivered today! So +1 for amatteroffax. be Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nik Habicht Posted January 14, 2009 Share Posted January 14, 2009 The shake worked - she's printing without the magenta band across the page again.Yesterday, I ordered 3 high-capacity, Brother toner cartridges from: http://www.amatteroffax.com/ Even though they charged about $20 for shipping, I still saved about $60 compared to most of the other sites I checked, some of which had "free" shipping. And the kicker is - the cartridges were delivered today! So +1 for amatteroffax. be I'm glad that worked --- especially when you're shelling out close to $300 for toner.... I said gently --- because toner has been known to fly around the room when vigorously shaking the cartridges --- don't ask how I know this.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now