When looking to purchase printer toner, there is a very important distinction between cost and value. Achieving genuine business value means looking beyond the headline price and yield figures.
To help businesses avoid falling into a false economy toner trap, we’ve identified three essential pillars of print value to help focus business procurement efforts.
The three pillars of print value
- Quality – Corners can’t really be cut in printing. After all, you can’t share documents that are smudged, blurry, faded or illegible. Without the full spectrum of manufacturer and machine know-how, output quality of third-party toner often declines steadily throughout the print cycle, necessitating early cartridge replacement. Reduced quality can also be evident from the first page. This very quickly unravels claims of high yield and any initial cost savings. High quality from first page to last is essential.
- Reliability – Non-genuine toner cartridges may promise comparable performance, but this often hides a picture of reduced reliability. Common issues that can arise include non-compatibility, toner leakage and maintenance issues such as jams and parts damage that create downtime. Avoid time spent fixing print problems by opting for original manufacturer toner as it is engineered and optimised for your specific print device.
- Yield – After cost, the number of printed pages available in a cartridge is an essential consideration for businesses. But if viewed alone, yield can be misleading. The true picture of print value can only be determined by taking quality and uptime into consideration. If declining quality and illegibility prompt you to change the cartridge early, it hasn’t achieved close to its headline output figures. Likewise, if the product has a compatibility issue, leaks or causes a jam, yield figures become the least of your concerns amid the rush to fix the machine.
If any of the above pillars of print value are weak or missing, the longevity of your toner cartridge will be impacted. Ultimately for businesses, this results in downtime, increased maintenance costs and a higher cost per page.
Swapping low cost for high value
To ensure the toner model you use outputs its promised print volumes, delivers on quality from first page to last and minimises maintenance issues – Brother advises opting for genuine supplies.
In a series of gruelling tests conducted Keypoint Intelligence – Buyers Lab, 10 widely available alternative toners were pitted against a genuine model for the Brother HL-L6400DW.
Where “all other brands experienced at least one fault that resulted in early toner replacement or unexpected maintenance”*, “Brother genuine toner produced both the highest total output, the highest average output”* and came top on every test metric.
“When comparing the average across all third-party brands, Brother toner produced 57% more output”*, revealing the hidden costs and quality compromise of opting for non-genuine supplies.
Brother engineers its toners to work reliably and optimally with specific printers to ensure full yield and ideal image quality from first page to last.
*All quotes taken from Keypoint Intelligence / Buyers Lab’s March 2018 Custom Test Report entitled ‘Brother Genuine Toner Cartridges for Brother HL-L6400DW versus Ten Third-Party Brands’.