Printers, bah!

[elizilla]

The black cartridge in my color laser printer is running low. Or at least the printer manager software thinks so, and thinks I need to be reminded of this with a pop-up every 30 minutes or so. I can't find anywhere to turn this warning off. I wish the software would just shut up about it until I try to print again. Especially since my past experience of printers has been that they start whining about ink when you still have plenty left.

I guess that printer companies make more money, if they can coax you to buy more cartridges. This particular printer cost only $25 more than a full set of four replacement OEM cartridges. And on the Amazon reviews, people are reporting that most of the items that claim to be genuine Brother cartridges, aren't. Since paying the inflated price for the genuine cartridges doesn't get you genuine cartridges, I am going to just buy a cheap aftermarket cartridge. I'm reading the reviews trying to find a highly rated aftermarket choice, but I'm suspicious of the reviews, too. With so many shady vendors, I'm sure some are filling their Amazon pages with sockpuppets.

Oh well, at least it's only the black, not all four cartridges. I ordered a $28 aftermarket black and we'll see how it turns out.

Comments

[bigblued.livejournal.com]

Also google to see if there is a way to reset your cartridges. On our Brother laser printer, we undo 2 screws, remove an end cap, rotate a cog 90 degrees and then put it all back together. The printer is fooled into believing it is a brand new cartridge. We can typically do this twice on a cartridge before the printing gets weak.

OTOH, there is no way to reset the cartridge on our Dell laser printer. We buy aftermarket tomer for that one.

[elizilla]

I had a Brother ink jet where the printer driver would announce it was out of ink and park the cartridge in the spot where it would let you replace them. If you pulled the cartridge out and put it back in, it would continue to print just great, for hundreds of pages more. However, it would eventually get weak printing, and then you were in trouble, because if the printer driver didn't think it was time, it wouldn't park the cartridge in the spot where you could replace it. I would end up printing hundreds of blank pages until "out of ink" came around again in the printer driver's memory. And it would only take the same few sheets of paper so many times before they were too curled to feed without jamming. You had to either replace the ink early, or waste tons of paper to replace it late. Stupid software.

[bigblued.livejournal.com]

Horrible design.I can't think of any scenario where the engineers on that project would have thought that was a good idea.

[the-rigger.livejournal.com]

Kath, what model is the color laser? There may be a trick like I pulled with that B&W Brother laser you gave me, to trick the printer driver into thinking it's still full of toner...

[elizilla]

Yeah, probably. I'll fiddle with it this weekend.

[the-rigger.livejournal.com]

And yes; it's common knowledge that printer makers don't make any money off selling you a printer. They make their cash - and loads of it - by selling you the printing ink/toner/cartridges.

[elizilla]

And then all these chinese knockoffs fill up Amazon and swoop in to grab a piece of that pie. I say more power to 'em, except for the guys who are claiming to sell the OEM product when they're not. I don't know if the OEM is truly any better, but if you choose to pay the big bucks for that, it ought to be what you get.