Exactly right. The point in buying the off-brand is price in the first
place, and unless you run a lot of printers you probably want to save
a whole lot of money or not bother at all. So you'll likely buy the
cheapest cart and get rotten quality.
Instead, I just buy the genuine cartridge on ebay now for even less
than the cheapest remanufactured one at the shop (remanufactured =
refill with almost dead drum from the start).
I don't know how it degrades over time, compared to use. What I know
is with my Lexmark I can't empty them for toner transfer, they will
print paper just fine but too thin for PCBs. Using them after the
expiration date on a sealed box doesn't seem an issue so I'm hopeful
it doesn't degrade much over time. Ideally you'd use the same make and
model printer for paper printing so you can cycle the cartridges and
always have a relatively fresh one for toner transfer.
ST
On Tue, Jan 26, 2010 at 4:04 AM, Chiphead <chiphead@...> wrote:
> Jumping in on the "Genuine" vs "generic" toner cartridges, based on my
> experience as an IT Manager, responsible for dozens of laser printers:
>
>
>
> . Depending on where you live, what batch, the weather, the phase of
> the moon, sunspots, etc., your experience with any given supplier of
> "non-Genuine" toner cartridges can vary all over the place, ranging from
> better than OEM, to downright useless. And just because one batch is good,
> does not necessarily mean the next one will be. You may also be able to
> find a supplier of consistent, top quality product.
>
> . What you pay for with an OEM ("Genuine") cartridge is two things.
> 1st is consistency. Each and every toner cartridge will be very similar in
> characteristics to the next one. 2nd, and equally important, the toner
> cartridge, and it's payload, will be optimized for the particular printer it
> was meant for. This means the "right" melting temperature, the right
> particle size, right shape, etc.
>
>
>
> Are all non-OEM cartridges junk? No. Are all OEM cartridges perfect?
> Probably not, but more likely to be consistent.
>
>
>
>
>
> John
>