Rant: Colour Laser Toner ripoff

[Cambridge PC Support]

I've had my HP CP1215 colour laser printer for about 2 years now and it's just ran out of magenta toner.

It refuses to print monochrome until it's been replaced and the yellow and cyan only have a few pages of life left in them so off I go to the web to find some replacement cartridges.

Flippin £60 a go they are! £60!

The printer only cost £140 when I bought it, and now I need to blow £180 for colour cartridges

I had to ditch my last HP laser as it needed a new imaging drum which was getting on for £200 and that's why I bought the current one

It's gonna work out cheaper to buy a brand new laser printer - ie Samsung CLP-325 for £136 - but I hate the thought of having to dump another laser printer, such a waste!

Sorry, rant over now

 

[MobileTechie]

I think you'll find that often the ones that come with the printer are not as full as the replacement ones so they do tend to last. But I know what you mean. The official toner carts are insanely expensive. There are various refill or cheaper versions available for most printers though.

My last Epsom printer lasted me about 3 years before I needed to refill it I wasn't using it a whole lot - mostly forms and letter heads but the same cost of running an inkjet for that period would have been more than double.

 

[Martyn]

It's where they make their money. I have a brother MFC which you can buy for around £60, I don't think there is much profit on the device itself. As a side note I'm pretty sure all prints are generated in colour whether they are only mono to print. I used to work with software that counted print volumes on a network and some of the drivers we had to force mono to calculate the prints because they were always in colour in the print file. The rendering was done on the device itself rather than the driver.

 

[ljtechservices]

yeah it seems like a scam.
my brother HL 4040CDN cost me about $400
the toner carts are about 60 - 80 depending on where i get them.

if i need a drum kit at the same time it would cost more than replacement.
the only thing that would keep me from totally replacing it is the thing is about 80lbs and getting down to my basement office was a pain. that and the thought of wasting a good printer.
I'd still rather have it than any ink printer.

since we are ranting!
truth of the matter is Printer's are ink/toner delivery devices. the cheaper the delivery vehicle the more they can make on supplies.
I don't know what the margin is on the toner and ink but it must be enough that most of the manufacturers have started to skimp on the quality of the output (HP!) For 15 yrs I only recommended HP printers. but these last few years (thanks Carly!) all but the high end workgroup printers have been shoddy.

 

[RedFoxComp]

That's why I only buy laser printers that are easily refillable.

It's pretty common to buy printers where a toner or cartridge replacement costs more than a new printer. The hardware has become more and more of a loss leader for consumable sales.

 

[iptech]

This is why I didn't buy an HP colour laser. I've had it three years now, but I use a Samsung CLP-300, apart from me breaking the USB connector through pushing it back against the wall :-( it's been totally reliable and the best thing is I can get a full set of four compatible cartridges for £23 delivered!

I haven't seen an compatible cartridges available for the CLP-315 though, although you can get chip resetters and kits to refill existing cartridges.

 

[MrUnknown]

It's pretty common to buy printers where a toner or cartridge replacement costs more than a new printer. The hardware has become more and more of a loss leader for consumable sales.

I am waiting for these idiot CEOs to realize, this is not a viable business platform. I don't understand how they have forced it along for so long.

If it was cheaper to buy a new vacuum than to replace the belt, why would you replace the belt?

Their platform is, like mentioned, sell the product at a loss or with very little profit, and make up the difference with consumables. This is fine if the cost of replacing one consumable was actually less than purchasing a new printer. I have one of those cheap brother laser printers. Paid $60. A refill is $80 or something stupid. Guess which I am going to choose?

 

[Corbin]

Wow I think on all 3 of my machines I drop like $200 on refills.

HP OJ K5400=New $110, Refill $60 -1400 pages
HP PS Premium w/ Fax=New $115, Refill $50 - 250 pages, 125 pictures
Samsung Laser ML-1630=New $72. Refill $50 - 1900 pages

If you dont mind Ink I would say look into one of HP High Yield inkjets my K5400 is about 3 years old, I get a good 1400 prints out of it.

 

[DarDar]

I've had my HP CP1215 colour laser printer for about 2 years now and it's just ran out of magenta toner.

It refuses to print monochrome until it's been replaced and the yellow and cyan only have a few pages of life left in them so off I go to the web to find some replacement cartridges.

Flippin £60 a go they are! £60!

The printer only cost £140 when I bought it, and now I need to blow £180 for colour cartridges

I had to ditch my last HP laser as it needed a new imaging drum which was getting on for £200 and that's why I bought the current one

It's gonna work out cheaper to buy a brand new laser printer - ie Samsung CLP-325 for £136 - but I hate the thought of having to dump another laser printer, such a waste!

Sorry, rant over now

See if there is an option to reset the page count on the cartridge? We had a hp colour laser in the exact situation and i managed to find a work around. Or it might have been an option to allow for monochrome only.... Sorry i can't be of more help but it was about a year ago and the machine was recycled not long after. I think it was a 2400 or 2600 or something like that

 

[meanderer]

Just imagine a plain Joe or Jane walks into office depot, and saw 2 printers, 1 sold for 100 and another for 50 with similar specs... guess which one gets sold?
The entire industry is based on that, someone can try break the mold but it's not going to happen soon.

as a side note, most of these companies has higher end series where printer price and consumable prices actually make sense in their ratio, but those printers starts around 1000 USD.

I always try to get compatible duplicate ink cartridges, but their quality indeed suffers. I got more stuck ink jet heads with those, and some of those are permanently stuck. I guess for the savings I got I can't complain much.

 

[RedFoxComp]

I am waiting for these idiot CEOs to realize, this is not a viable business platform. I don't understand how they have forced it along for so long.

It's viable because most (maybe all?) companies give you 'starter' cartridges. For example my new laser came with a toner cart that is good for 1500 prints. The full replacement toners are 5000 prints. So you can pay to buy a new printer with another 1500 prints in it or buy a new cartridge and get more than 3X the prints. They are doing that with inkjets now too.

 

[Kitten Kong]

Have you tried the following places for your inks?

www.cartex.co.uk - based in Jersey
Easier Inks + Service - (Not sure of his web addy, but hes based in Trafford Park (Mcr). Talk about cheap!. I know he does a full set of Epson Inkjets, for close to £10 I have his contact no, if you'd like it. PM me, as I won't give it on a open forum.