Several years ago I purchased a mid-range laser printer – a Brother HL-6050DN. My work requires that I review hundreds of documents for some projects and trying to do that on a screen, no matter how big and nice, is an awful experience. So I print them. I don’t know how many pages I’ve printed, but I’ve gone through dozens of cases of cheap copier paper since I bought it in mid-2004.

Today I got a warning message on the printer control panel:
“WARNING: TONER LEVEL LOW. REPLACE TONER UNIT.”

Wow! I had forgotten you have to do that with laser printers. I guess I thought it would run forever like some perpetual motion machine. Good thing I got a couple of spares when I bought the printer. At this rate parts will be discontinued before I have to buy more. In fact, toner itself may become obsolete.

That’s the kind of product I like to buy – works great, never breaks, and runs (nearly) forever before you have to fill it up.