New printers usually come with "starter size" cartridges, so you generally get a lot more ink/toner buying replacement cartridges than buying a new printer.3

Get a Brother for your next one

Even when "low toner" comes up, ignore it. I've been ignoring mine for the past year and it still prints. I think if I printed higher volume, it might run out quicker, but so far so good.

I went several months on "low toner" before it actually ran out. I almost always print on 'draft' setting, which makes it last longer in general.

Thanks everyone for the good tips.

Draft mode usually entails both lower quality for speed and less ink/toner usage. But you don't need to sacrifice both.

Try going into the Admin settings of the printer - usually via the admin web interface of the device - and look for Print Quality/Density settings. You can set the printer to use even less toner/ink than Draft without having to sacrifice legible quality. So you'll be able to print in good quality while using less ink. And you can set it to use even less ink than Draft mode usually does.

In the early days, I made the bad decision to buy an HP laptop. Must have been around 2001 or something. Worst laptop I ever owned.

After that, I never bought anything HP again. Said laptop went into the bin a year after I bought it because it wouldn't stop bluescreening.

I have a Brother laser printer and I am reasonably happy with that (as happy as you can be with a printer, I guess).

Buy ink bottles and needles and inject your cartridges.

For a laser printer?

Thanks for clarifying this — I was wondering if this was something I should be doing with my laser printer, and wasn't looking forward to investigating!

> I bought a HP laser printer [...] toner [...]

Laser != Inkjet && Toner != Ink