Brother TN-241 starter toner, lots left after printer says "empty"

[Vorkolor]

So I bought a Brother DCP-9015DCW after struggling with my inkjet and deciding I needed a more reliable document printer. It came with "starter" toner cartridges with reduced capacity (stated roughly 700 pages black, 500 pages color). I printed until it indicated "black toner empty" and refused to print any more. The page counter read 850 pages. There was no indication of poor print quality on the last few pages, it was late evening, I needed to have my prints by the morning, and I didn't have a spare cartridge.

A bit of googling about the printer found this gem (different printer model, but the only difference is the document feeder and maybe a fax function)
https://printerthinker.com/brother-dcp-9020cdw/

I followed the instructions, and reset the black cartridge. I then proceeded to print another 300 pages without a hitch.

This was a little while ago, and I've printed more since then. Now the black toner indicator shows a bit under half, print quality looks fine, and I've recently reset the color cartridges as well. I wonder if I'll make it two rounds of the indicator before the toner actually runs out.

 

[Vorkolor]

Not quite two rounds of black. The indicator bar was on the lowest level before triggering the "low toner" warning when the toner actually ran out. Color still prints fine, but I haven't gone very far over with them.

The toner cartridges aren't chipped, there's a simple mechanical indicator to tell the printer that a cartridge is new. In addition, there doesn't appear to be any mechanism to prevent me from inserting the cartridges in the wrong slot. I tested this by deliberately swapping magenta and cyan after fixing a paper jam, and printing a test illustration. Printed just fine, except of course for weird colours.

 

[The Hat]

@Vorkolor, I know it’s a bit late now, but if you ever want to go back to an inkjet printer that’s reliable versatile, fast, dependable and easy refillable then you should look at the Maxify range of printers, it will even blow away the brother laser printer, it’s that good...

Don’t take my word for it, try Google and check it out yourself...

 

[Vorkolor]

@The Hat : I'll keep it in mind if/when the need for another printer arises. Do the Maxify printers do a decent job of printing photos?

 

[The Hat]

Do the Maxify printers do a decent job of printing photos?

Funny you should ask that; because the answer is yes and longevity is not a problem either...