Shoutbox

My thoughts are exact the same as yours and as so many others.

You are completely right that they aim at selling consumer model printers and get their profit from there, not from the supplies which are relativly speaking rarely sold.

It's true that the average consumer doesn't print that much, and their printer will be broken or become obsolete*, before they run out of toner.

* eg: consumer buys a new PC and these days they often come with a printer as a kind of promotion.

It is indeed different with professional printers, for the same reasons: businesses print quite a lot in a short time, and as such need more replacement toners before the printer actually brakes down or whatever.

It's all a question of supply and demand I guess; demand for consumer model printers is high so the price drops. Demand for consumer model toners is very low, so they are expensive.

There is probably also a packaging factor into play, among other things. Packing and shipping one thing is relativly more expensive than packing and shipping the goods inside the box of a bigger thing. And packaging in general is very expensive.

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As for white branded inkt and toner: they usually are of lower quality though.  Sometimes they are produceed independantly of the big brands, sometimes they are the leftovers or B-line products which didn't pass the quality test of the big brands. But the average consumer wouldn't notice this (because sometimes the difference is minimal, even a pro sometimes doesn't see a difference).

But always buy it at your own risk. eg: it might be that the inkt is slightly thicker or thinner than what the printer is designed for, with all the troubles it could bring. Or it could be that the white branded inkt doesn't dry as fast. Or that there are some more contaminations in the toner powder. Or that, over a longer period of time, the inkt/toner looses color faster under the influence of UV light (eg: daylight), etc, etc...

All stuff which is hardly noticable and usually it wont do any damage or whatever. But there is always that small chance it does give you problems though. And using white branded products sometimes also brakes the warranty.