My Lexmark laser printer started complaining about low toner in the back cartridge today. I’ve had the printer just over a year, but even so, I was surprised that it had got through 2500 sides of text (what the black cartridge is rated at) so quickly.
So I checked the statistics. The 543DN has an inbuilt web server that provides all kinds of helpful information, including the fact that my cartridges are:
- Black: low
- Yellow: 80%
- Magenta: 30%
- Cyan: 50%
There is lots of information on the pages printed, including average job length, job type, etc. It turns out that I’ve printed a total of 519 jobs, of which 474 are 1 or 2 pages long. My longest job was 23 pages.
I’ve printed a total of 312 mono A4 sides, and 499 colour A4 sides, for a grand total of 811 sides overall.
And because my “2500 sheet high capacity black toner cartridge” is nearly empty after only 811 sides printed, this is where I can point out that the old adage about “lies, damned lies and statistics” is absolutely true, and the definition of a printed side (as used by the printer manufacturers) has no standing in the real world whatsoever.
If I assume my cartridge statistics are correct, 811 real world A4 impressions costs me all of a black cartridge, 70% of a magenta, 50% of a cyan, and 20% of a yellow. A total of 2.4 cartridges at £60 each, or £144. Which is 18p an impression. Which seems expensive, but given my preponderance of colour printing, perhaps isn’t as bad as it first seems.
Richard's Blog 
Printer toner tends to settle. Have you tried giving the black toner cartridge a little shake?
In theory the printer shakes the cartridges itself. But I bet I can do it better than it can, and I also strongly suspect that the cartridge “low” indicator is set very pessimistically. So at £60 a cartridge I’m planning to continue running on the existing cartridge until the black actually starts to fade 🙂