How Long Should Samsung Original Toner Last ?

[JustAnotherFarang]

Hi guys

I recently bought a Samsung scx 4200 mono laser printer. The first cartridge lasted approx 1500 pages and even though it would tell me that the toner was empty after 1000 prints, it just kept rolling on so I was quite happy as the original cartridge is only a starter cartridge which is good for about 1500 pages.

I bought an original replacement for 3000 bht and have been using that for about 3 months but now it warns me that the toner is empty again and moreso the print quality looks like is beginning to degrade as well. I checked how many prints I have done in total which 1167, mostly scan and printing of books of English books with simple line drawings so I cant understand why the replacement cartridge would run short of toner

Anyone any ideas why this........ does anyone else have this printer and how many printouts would you normally expect from a new cartridge ?

cheers

JAF

[Guest Reimar]

The normal printout is app. 2,000 - 2,500 pages if the amount of printed area is app. 5%!

If you use alot scanned pics, even is just text and lines, you'll need much more Toner as usual because the printer will print the whole page and not just the typed letter and/or drawed lines. That's because the scanner also recognize all the dots and even the surface of the scanned paper as picture and print that as well. Take a very close look, best with an magnifier glass on some printed paper and you'll see what I talking about. So the amount of printed pages will be much more less as usual!

[Firefoxx]

Don't trust the page count too much. It's only an approximation, just like the fact that the specs for the toner cartridge are an approximation. You never use the same amount of toner for each page. If it were a large discrepancy, like printing 200 pages and the toner's gone, then that would be worth looking into. Many toner cartridges will, when they are nearly empty, start to print with varying intensity on each page. You can take the toner out and shake it a bit to fix this.

You can the economics of a small laser printer in this case. You pay around 3000 baht per cartridge and get around 1000-1500 pages, which comes out to roughly 2-3 baht per page in toner costs. I have an office workhorse laser printer, that, although the printer itself is more expensive, it will print 4,000+ pages per cartridge, which costs 4,000 baht, and this is roughly 1 baht per page (in toner cost). If you plan to print a lot, getting a laser that has lower TCO (total cost of ownership) is much cheaper, even if it does translate into higher initial cost. If, however, it's only a few hundred pages a month, then the personal lasers are fine. In my case, I've gone through 8 cartridges, which means roughly 32,000 pages for 32,000 baht (toner cost). If I had used your printer, it would have cost me 60,000-90,000 baht for toner. All cheap printers are cheap because the manufacturer gets their profits from selling consumables.

[Guest Reimar]

Firefox is right about the cost of the printer pp.

The manufacturer counting an area print of 5% per page to the amount of pages to be print with one catridge. Sure it differs because of the amount of printed opercentage per page. That's the meaning what I wrote because of the scanned and later printed pictures.

All pagecounts to be printed with one catridge you'll read are based on the 5% per page. That's it!

[paveet]

my page average coverage is at 17% as rated by my Samsung CLP-300.

[JustAnotherFarang]

Cheers guys, it makes sense when someone explains it so well. Guess I have got to bite the bullet and accept the cost of consumerables

much appreciated

JAF

btw what about toner refills, is this something worth considering

[Firefoxx]

The answer is, "it depends". Sometimes you can't do it because the toner cartridge won't allow it, physically or electronically. Sometimes it's not advisable because it might make the printer jam.

I tried a refurbished cartridge on my "workhorse" (really expensive) laser once (it wasn't my idea, it was someone else's idea to save a little money). The result? It melted a transparency (that worked fine with genuine cartridges) inside the printer, and it had to be sent to the service center for a week. Luckily it was within warranty.