A cheap toner that works, February 15, 2007

I went with this toner cartridge based on the great reviews. However, maybe it was just a unique incident, but the toner cartridge I received did not have a solid working drum. It could print out a solid black page fine, but normal text came out uneven. And yes, I shook the toner cartridge plenty of times to spread the toner. The toner looks to be fine. I ended up having to transfer the toner back to the original HP cartridge and I'm back in action. I did not contact customer support since I could not afford to be without a working printer for more than a day.

HP asked me $70 to replace my toner so I ordered this one. It worked well for a few days before I noticed some uneven grayness at the center of the page. I shaked the toner again and the problem disappeared.

HP charges about three times more for a new cartridge of this type. I have now gone through 3 of these cartridges with my LaserJet 1018, and I have had no problems. The cartridges last about 2,000 pages each, so the price-per-page is only a little over 1 cent (as opposed to 3 cents per page if you buy the official cartridges from HP). I also buy my paper by the case from Staples, so my total price-per-page of printing is about 2.5 cents. Very good deal, considering that I used to pay over 10 cents per page with an HP inkjet printer and official ink/paper supplies.