Quote:
Originally Posted by Inglewood Jack
Brother or Canon laser, never worry about stupid dried up ink cartridges ever again. the only thing is depending on what you're printing, I've had questionable results using knockoff color toner, so now I splurge on genuine parts just to avoid the gamble. if you print almost always B&W, then the imitation stuff might be fine.
related, Epson recently announced they are exiting the laser segment for "sustainability" reasons. in other words, they're not able to hold your nuts hostage on frequent ink replacements, so they're not interested in laser anymore. my previous multifunction before my current Canon was an Epson PrecisionCore, and it printed ok for like a month before barfing streaks onto everything even after multiple cartridge changes and endless cleaning cycles. it's one of the few pieces of equipment I've wanted to give The Office treatment to.
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The non-OEM toners are passable in the sense that for the bad ones, there will be a significant spike in stray toner dots (like a small group of random black pixels) or light "clouding" that looks like a shadow that will show up on some of the forms you print. Most of them print like an OEM toner for quite a bit of the life of the toner assuming it's not a totally trash toner. Most 4 star plus aftermarket toners on Amazon are like this. If you print stuff that doesn't have to be perfect looking and official, go this route. I use the aftermarket ones for work purposes and then I have an OEM drum and toner combo for official prints that require signatures. If these imperfections bugs you, then pay the premium for OEM toner. It'll probably come out to something like an extra $15-20 bucks a year for cleaner looking prints based on how the average person uses printers.
Really ####ty toners will have huge clouds and shadows on the prints. It'll look like a photocopy of a page from 1990 with the thing open. Ugly, but typically still completely legible. But those are typically the unrated ones or less than 4 start review ones. The worst is when you get one that was filled incorrectly and badly aligned. Once the toner blows up, you have to clean that #### up (and you don't want to breathe it in).
If you're a few years in and somehow blow through your starter OEM toner, grabbing an aftermarket one for less than half the price of OEM is a reasonable approach. Inkfirst, V4ink and Mustache brands are both solid options for aftermarket toners and drums.
If printing is all you need, you can easily get a black and white laser printer for less than $100. I've used Samsung ones that worked great, always printed clean and had reasonable priced aftermarket toner options, but it ate toner like crazy vs the Brother (but I print insane amounts each year). But IMO, having the MFC option is great. I use mine often for applications to scan in drivers licenses, void cheques, make duplicate copies/scan a back up etc.