Printers and toner Genuine or 3rd Party?

[joshjacklin]

Hello and good morning, as I came into work this morning my bursar asked me about toner from a 3rd party company and is it any good, and cause I have never dealt with it before I said I was not sure but we will see.

 

Im just asking for peoples experiences with it and is it any good, we use nearly 100% HP printers here e.g 2600,2500,4700,4650 would it be a good road to go down?

 

Thank you

 

Josh Jacklin

[kmount]

Exercise caution.

 

If the printers are under warranty I'd say no from the outset UNLESS the toner people guarantee to replace the printer if their toner stuffs it up. (Getting this in writing is key).

 

I found the compatible black toner was fine for our needs but the colour lacked but for the cost savings we made (~40% less) it just made up for it all.

 

Different people will have different views on them but our printers were creaking along, we had very little money to spend on toner so this was OK for us.

 

Mileage may vary of course.

[Tcsltd]

Josh

 

If you want me to send you a quote for our compatibles let me know..I can also email you a guarantee that sayds the toners have 100% non quibble guarantee including covering the machine warranty!

 

Regards

[TopBanana]

I used to work for a IT reseller that sold the office basics brand of compatible toners which at first seemed great but then there return rate increased massivley so i would give that particular brand a wide bearth ,

[Tcsltd]

Office Basics have sorted out the issues they had now on the toners...we see very few returns on them now...but we sell about 5 other compat brands all guaranteed!

[Haptic]

Hi Josh,

 

I'd say the age old rule of if price is too good to be true it usually is- certified, guaranteed compatibles are on the whole worth the cost saving but I would avoid like the plague drill and fill remanufactured- rarely guaranteed and usually end up with yourself and your printer covered in a nice shade of cyan!

 

Have a look on the following link where you will find an article I’d written for Accounting Web on the matter- Guide to buying printer consumables

 

One last thing would be that toners are on the whole more reliable than ink cartridges so could be worth sticking with originals for your inkjets and trying compatibles on your lasers.

 

Thanks,

 

Mark

[MatthewL]

DO NOT DO IT. It will bite you on the backside and its generally not worth it. Because our management wanted to do it, we have just binned 10 printers and their reply was well it works out cheaper that way, no it doesn't, time spent ordering and installing new kit, disruption caused, avoid like the plague.

[FN-GM]

We use reman toners and never had a problem. The people who get them off also guarantee the printer

[john]

I get my toner requirements of Vicki at TCSLtd, and her service and support is excellent, I've had Office Basics from her (and my previous supplier) and the mono toners didn't cause any issues but the colours were pants but Office Basics swapped them no questions asked (they were not supplied by Vicki my dodgy colours before anyone thinks its her!).

 

I've recently moved onto Longbow toners from her, following on from a recommendation from Bossman on here of there good standing and product nature so will be seeing how those go in the long term as well

[pete]

We got fed up tracking down decent 3rd party toners only for quality to randomly go to pants. Now I have access to agreements which provide originals at about the same price as decent 3rd party toner, so I just do that instead.

[dgsmith]

DO NOT DO IT. It will bite you on the backside and its generally not worth it. Because our management wanted to do it, we have just binned 10 printers and their reply was well it works out cheaper that way, no it doesn't, time spent ordering and installing new kit, disruption caused, avoid like the plague.

 

I sympathise with you (you've obviously dealt with a company/brand who couldn't give a toss about quality and customer service), but branding all compat/reman toners under the same umbrella is a real shame. There are some companies out there who work their backside off to produce a top quality remanufactured cartridge who get the same classification as the "drillers and fillers".

 

The thing about compatible toners is that there is no uniform standard to how they have been produced. With an OEM I suppose you at least know they have been manufactured in the exact same way and have the exact same toner. With compats each company adopt their own approach - some are very good at what they do and can produce a cartridge at least just as good as an OEM, whilst other brands are just interested in refilling with no care for everything else that goes into ensuring a proper job.

 

Like John above, our toners have come from Vicki @ TCSltd for some years now and we also got bitten badly by some very poor QC from office basics and unfortunately my faith in them has gone. What I don't do is say "oh well all compats much be rubbish" - just try another brand/company/supplier etc with an equally good if not better guarantee. We've never had to bin a printer before because of bad compat toner and i'd say the chance of that needing to happen is negligable (unless you have been bitten by a truely awful brand/company).