The case for OEM printing supplies and camera batteries
The hidden costs of using cheap knock-off brands
The ink and toner racket
“Dont be a sucker,” friends keep telling me. “You’re paying way too much for that toner.” And they’re not wrong.
Yet each time a friend finally convinced me that this brand of toner will not spill onto the drum causing a permanent dark line down every page, or this ink won’t irreversibly clog my ink jets, eventually that’s exactly what would happen.
It’s just not worth it to me.
Yes, original equipment manufacturer (OEM) printer supplies are a racket. In many cases you can buy a brand new consumer-grade inkjet printer for less than a full set of inkjet cartridges for that same printer. It’s the “razor and blades” business model pioneered by Gillette: sell the printer below cost and make up for the loss by charging extortionate prices for the ink. You could theoretically just keep throwing your printer away and buying a new one each time you run out of ink, but that would be terrible for the environment, and it wouldn’t actually save you anything because new printers usually only come with a “starter” quantity. No wonder other companies have gotten into the game by recharging ink tanks and toner cartridges at a fraction of the price.
But ridiculous as it may sound to pay $80 for a few milliliters of ink like it’s Chanel Nº5, I’ve had several printers either ruined or rendered effectively useless by cheap knock-off brands. With no-name companies selling their wares on Amazon it’s a race for the bottom, and quality control is the first thing to go. So the stuff ends up plugging the jets, and even when it does work, the colors are usually off. Maybe that’s fine if you’re just printing a color flyer, but it’s unacceptable for any kind of serious photography.
And picking a “respectable” third-party brand doesn’t make much difference, either. I once purchased a set of Staples brand ink tanks for my Canon printer, and as soon as I put them in I realized it was a mistake: coverage was uneven and intermittent even after a cleaning cycle, and the colors were way off. So I returned them to the store, whereupon the manager casually remarked, “Oh yeah, don’t buy our brand, it’s crap.” Well, okay then.
Ditto with toner for laser printers. I once ordered a set of color toner cartridges for an office printer that I thought were genuine but turned out to be counterfeit, and sure enough the blue cartridge spewed all over the toner tray. It looked like someone had disintegrated a smurf. On the other hand, my personal Brother multifunction laser printer, which I purchased in 2016, is still working beautifully, requiring only a new Brother toner cartridge ($55) about once a year, and just recently a new drum ($90). I’m thoroughly convinced that had I succumbed to the temptation of $15 toner cartridges, I would have been on my second or third printer by now. You do the math.
Yes, I think it’s atrocious that some printer manufacturers build digital rights management (DRM) into their supplies — forcing users to either buy the expensive stuff or hack the cartridges somehow. I believe that everyone should be able to choose what works for them, even if there’s risk involved. But I do understand why those companies do it. First of all, the price of the supplies is calculated into the business model; the printer itself is a loss leader, so if you deny them the long-term income from ink or toner, they might not break even. Secondly, if a printer fails during the warranty period, it’s not easy to determine whether off-brand supplies were the cause, and this can be another liability for the manufacturer.
The camera battery conundrum
If you’re a photographer and have spent any time on camera-related forums, you will have come across the recurring debate about whether to use third-party lithium-ion batteries. Mind you, this is a different discussion than the one about printers, as rechargeable batteries are not consumables like ink or toner, and the price of the camera is not discounted in exchange for higher battery prices. On the contrary, pro cameras cost quite a lot of money, and the price of OEM batteries is fairly insignificant by comparison.
But when a genuine Canon, Fuji, Nikon or Sony battery costs between $60 and $80, and a comparable third-party battery goes for as little as $20, many people rightfully ask why they should pay the higher amount.
Certainly there are reputable third-party battery manufacturers who make a decent product that almost never fails, at a fraction of the cost of the original. For gigging photographers who have to stock enough portable power to keep shooting all day, this can make a big difference. Every time I see a thread on a camera group about third-party vs. OEM batteries, I notice that most commenters swear by the cheaper ones, claiming that in years of shooting they’ve never had a single one go bad. But then there are a few people with a cautionary tale of batteries expanding while inside the camera, making them impossible to remove and ruining a few thousand dollars’ worth of equipment.
How does this happen? Lithium-ion batteries are highly sensitive to temperature, and when exposed to extreme heat they can spontaneously combust. With camera batteries that’s very unlikely to happen under normal use, but modern digital cameras do run hot, especially during extended shoots or when using video features. That heat, while not enough to create a fire or explosion, can cause the battery to permanently expand, destroying or seriously damaging the camera, or at least making it impossible to remove.
Camera manufacturers understand this risk well. If this happened to one of their cameras with their own brand of battery inside, they would be required to repair or replace the camera under warranty. For this reason, OEM batteries are subjected to a rigorous quality control process, and a significant percentage are rejected. This is one possible reason these batteries are more expensive. They may also provide better shielding against heat.
That’s not to say that third-party brands are unreliable. However, the many available brands no doubt have varying levels of quality control, and even if a battery has no manufacturer’s defects at all, it may simply not be designed to handle the extreme heat that some cameras can generate. I’m not aware of any scientific study that tracks battery failures by brand, but at least anecdotally I have never seen anyone report an OEM battery that expanded inside their camera. Sadly, the same cannot be said for third-party batteries.
But let’s say you did your research, and you decided on a respectable third-party brand that, as far as you know, no one had reported any issues with. Why not save the $40 per battery?
I would answer that question with another question: considering you’re unlikely to ever need more than two extra batteries for your camera (for a total savings of around $80), why would you accept even the slightest risk of any of those batteries destroying your $2,500 camera? Even if there is no statistical difference in battery failures between the manufacturer’s own battery and your high quality third-party brand, we know that batteries do fail. If it’s an OEM battery that broke your expensive camera, you have a strong case for getting it repaired under warranty. But if it’s some other brand, well, good luck to you.
This is just my opinion, but I feel that the extra cost for an OEM camera battery is a small price to pay for peace of mind.
What about external batteries?
When it comes to batteries that are not fully enclosed in an expensive piece of equipment, I skew a bit more liberal. Things like USB power banks, removable battery grips or external battery packs for speedlights are more fault-tolerant in that, if the battery fails, the damage is usually limited to the battery enclosure itself. Of course I still choose the brand wisely, as sketchy Li-ion batteries can do an enormous amount of damage (for example, a defective electric scooter battery was recently found responsible for a five-alarm fire at an apartment block in New York City). I have a cordless electric lawnmower that runs on a 120V Li-ion battery, and I always unplug the charger from the outlet in the garage when it’s done. I shudder to think of the damage that huge brick could do if anything were to happen to it.
The bottom line
Lots of people have no issues whatsoever with third-party printer supplies and camera batteries, and I respect that. If you’re happy with the product, and it’s significantly cheaper than the admittedly overpriced name brand, good for you. But if anyone asks me for my advice, I will tell them why I play it safe and stick with the genuine product.
