That has never been true, even for the cheapest consumer printers. The "starter" cartridges that printers come with only contain about 10% of the ink of a full cartridge.
What you just said doesn't refute notatoad's point.
Those $340 refills will contain more than double the toner than the starter cartridges. The fact that the starter cartridges lasted you 4 years is more of a testament to how little you print. A refill probably would have lasted you 8+ years.
> Those $340 refills will contain more than double the toner than the starter cartridges.
The M452dn came with "introductory cartridges" all rated at ~1200 pages. For the CP1525nw, the black 128A is rated at ~2000 pages and the colors are ~1300 pages.
The new printer was ~60% of the cost of a set of replacement cartridges and the starter cartridges are 60-92% capacity of the A cartridge replacements for the CP1525nw.
So yes it cost me less to replace the printer than it would have to replace all of the cartridges.
In reality it cost me a bit more. The CP1525nw actually started jamming on me constantly when the black got to about 1% and the colors at around 5%. The diagnostic codes indicated it was a problem with the ink so I stupidly bought a replacement black which cleared one error code but not the jam. I got a quote for a diagnostic and it was more than the cost of a new printer.
My HP Color LaserJet cost me ~600. Bought the cartridges for another 175 each (x3) + 125 for the black one. The printer died at 1 year 1 month, never even got to use the $650 in cartridges. They're just sitting on my shelf as a reminder that I will never buy another HP product as long as I live.
I got a Dell MFD color laser printer a few years ago. The machine was around £150 and a replacement set of cartridges (3rd party - lasts around 1500 pages) is under £20. I’m not a heavy user, but for my occasional home use it’s great.
Last year I wanted to get another one for my office, but it turns out Dell got out of the printer business in 2016. Samsung sold their printer business to HP, so there’s now only really three companies making laser printers now: Brother, Xerox and HP.
I owned an HP Laser Printer recently (paid $250). The starter cartridge lasted me 4 years, and when I went to replace the cartridge ($50), it didn't work. The printer is now out of warranty, so I'll be buying a new printer.
That's essentially what happened to me. The cartridges got down to 1% and around the same time it started jamming. I bought a replacement Black cartridge and it continued to jam. I wasn't about to spend $200 on the color cartridges at that point so I bought a brand new printer instead.
