Update on Color Laser Printer deal from Staples

If you've been keeping up, you read about my purchase of a new Brother Color Laser Printer 4040CN from Staples on this previous post. To summarize, the final price was aroud $175 (plus taxes on the original price).

It arrived last Friday and I installed it today. Here's the predicament:

• The printer came with regular toner cartridges which should be good for 1,500 pages for color and 2,500 for black/white (typical yield). Based on prices on my original post, it would cost me about $293 to replace all 4 cartridges.

So what to do in 1 or 2 years (depending on actual usage), keeping in mind that I use my black and white all-in-one for greater than 98 percent of printing "jobs." Find another deal for a color laser similar to this at $175 for the printer with new cartridges or pay $293 to replace them over time?

If the "new" one is faster and better resolution and it is cheaper overall, the answer will likely be an easy one.

Here is my initial output review after printing three pages. I can tell it is 2400x600 dpi when looked at closely. I took it off of draft print (prints at 600x600 dpi) and put it on "Vivid" output. The baseline, normal settings are a little dull.

I haven't needed to gift or use the free digital camera. If anything comes up, I'll keep you posted.