Site Links:

Home
Pricing
Computers
Laptops
Servers
Printers
Wired Networks
Wireless Networks
Disaster Planning
Web Sites
Photography
Reviews
Contacts
eBay Sales

Hosted Sites:

Andy
CAGriffin Photography
Editormum
Jennifer
Scott
Yamaha of Millington

Since the third-party toner cartridge leaked so much toner into the printer, before I could test the OEM cartridge I had to spend about as much time cleaning the printer as it took when I first started this test. With the printer clean though, I installed the OEM cartridge - being very careful not to get the toner cartridge mixed up with a different one as I removed it from the box and installed it in the printer. After confirming that I had in fact just installed the correct OEM toner cartridge I had, mere seconds before, unpacked from its box, I set the printer online. The previous toner cartridge stopped with the printer showing a page count of 1,149,699 and, since this toner cartridge is an HP C3909A with an expected page yield of 15,000, it should be about two weeks before I have to change this cartridge.

This time the printer made it about a week and a half before running out of toner. After printing a configuration page, I found that the page counter was up to 1,160,414 which means the cartridge had a page yield of only 10,715 pages. That's better than the third-party cartridge but not up to specification. After a bit of research, I found that the page yield is based on the ISO/IEC 19752 Standard Test Page and that we are printing slightly more text on a page than the page use to establish the specifications. While the OEM cartridge printed about 2,000 more pages than the third-party cartridge, I'm not entirely satisfied with the gap between performance and specifications. I'll definitely carry this test a bit further and monitor page yield for a few months. For now, on to how much or how little this OEM cartridge leaked...

After printing over 10,700 pages using the OEM toner cartridge, I could not find much, if any leaked toner in the printer. I would say this demonstrates that the OEM cartridges perform better than third-party cartridges at least in keeping the toner in the cartridge and on the paper where it belongs. While I am satisfied with the results of this portion of the test, the fact that the page yield was only two-thirds the expected yield for the OEM cartridge and nearly half the expected yield for the third-party cartridge is disappointing.

Since I have received the replacement third-party cartridge, I will run this same exact test a second time and see if there is any improvement in either page yield for both types of cartridges or in leaked toner for the third-party cartridge. More on that soon...