Thursday, November 5, 2009

Pet Peeve #4368: Toner Warning

I use an HP LaserJet printer. It is a terrific printer, fast and almost flawless. I’ve had it for years, and have been very pleased with the performance I’ve gotten out of it.

Except for one little thing.

When the toner cartridge gets down to about 10% full, you get a warning message flashed on your screen, telling you it is time to replace the toner cartridge. All well and good, except that you really don’t need to replace the toner cartridge. At least, just not yet.

You can run for a while before you actually run out of toner. You know when you’re really low on toner because your printing starts to get blank streaks going down the page. Even then, you can pop the toner cartridge out, shake it to redistribute the remaining toner, and start pumping out documents again.

The last 10% of the toner is still enough to print hundreds of pages. If you are like me, and print about ten to twenty pages a day, that 10% can last weeks, or even months. In the meantime, though, the warning message flashes on your screen every time you hit the Print button.

Every freaking time!

This irks me. I’m irked.

I’m just saying …

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