As my old toner neared the end of its usable life, I began searching for a viable replacement. While new toner for brother laser printers aren't terribly expensive (especially compared to competitors), when I came across the AmazonBasics remanufactured cartridge for less than half of the price of a new one I figured it was worth a shot. The cartridge arrived quickly and was happy to see the Frustration Free Packaging really lives up to its name, within 10 seconds of the package arriving I had it open and out on the table ready to go, without bleeding fingers or scraped knuckles (thank you Amazon!). My old toner came out and in went the AmazonBasics, a perfect fit.
Now to the important part - How well does it work? At first, i'll be honest, the first few prints were pretty smudgy and not anywhere up to par. Happily though, after printing about 5-7 pages, the smudging went away and the usual sharp text returned in full force (maybe just residual toner that leaked out from transit?). I pulled out a recipe I printed from Allrecipes.com last week and printed the same one today - Spot on, I couldn't tell the difference at all as to which was printed on which cartridge - exactly what I was hoping. I haven't had it long enough to say how many pages i'll get on this one, but thus far I am very impressed. I saw the review posted where the reviewer noted a ligher tone to the remanufactured cartridge and can honestly say that i've experienced no such issue as of the time of this review.
P.S. - A quick tip to those of you with a Brother laser printer. If you want to squeak a little more toner out of an older cartridge that is getting low 'Low Toner' warning and eventually stops printing on it due to that warning - If you pull the drum/cartridge out and look at the side there is a small/medium sized hole that the printer looks through to determine the amount of toner left. If you cut out something small and tape it over the hole, you can easily get another 200-300 pages out of the toner without any noticeable degradation in quality.
Pros:
+Excellent Price
+Perfect Fit
+Exact same quality as my original toner cartridge
Cons:
-First few pages looked bad (quickly resolved itself) AmazonBasics Remanufactured Toner Cartridge Replacement for Brother TN350 Black
The first 40 or 50 pages had this nasty big dark vertical line down the middle after I installed this toner, it eventually went away, but now i have these much more faint horizontal lines that show up at various spots on each piece of paper. Also, despite what most of the other reviews say, the print is not as dark as it should be. It looks light and just overall like less quality printing. I am a law student and I don't think that I can hand in my assignments looking the way it looks since I installed this toner. I had one of the generic toners before this, and it worked much better than this, however, I have heard there are serious problems with those too and that the dust that escapes from them is not only dangerous, but also can ruin your printer and void your warranty. I would strongly recommend that you buy the tn 350 and not try to save a few dollars with generic or refilled ones like this. If you do want to save, keep in mind that the print quality on this refilled toner is really weak.
When in need of a new toner cartridge, I was happy to see that Amazon had decided to work with a supplier to provide remanufactured cartridges under the AmazonBasics brand. I assumed that Amazon would not put its good name at risk by lending it to a sub-standard product. What a huge disappointment to find out I was wrong.
I've had two of these cartridges now and both printed with dark streaks down the length of the page. I can print with my old cartridge (which is nearing the end of its life) and get clear printing, so I know that the printer and the drum unit are still OK.
When the first cartridge arrived, I put it in the printer immediately and tried printing. The very first page had dark streaks. Sometimes, this can be cleared up by just printing a few pages, but after 100 pages, the streaks were still there.
Amazon customer service was superb as always and quickly sent out a replacement. As soon as I opened the box for the second cartridge, my heart sank again. I could see loose toner in the vacuum sealed bag. That never bodes well for a toner cartridge. Sure enough, when I put the cartridge in my printer, there were dark streaks down the full length of the page again. Printing about 30 pages didn't clear it up.
Amazon easily accepted my request for a refund and I'm returning cartridge #2. I have also ordered a different brand. I'm sad to say this has soured my trust in Amazon branded products.
This cartridge caused a large black smear in the middle of each page, which got worse every time I used it. I returned it for a replacement, which was just as bad. Don't buy this product -- it's terrible. - Brother Toner - Tn-350 - Toner - Brother'
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