dominator,
sure about the things you say about the ML 1666, or just following what your dealer told you?
I have an extremely bad experience with the samsung ML1640. the printer per se is not bad, but i was promised the same things by my dealer - cheap laser toner refill cost, and 3 year warranty.
I did manage to refill the intro toner once, and the printer did its job well, but after 2100 prints, the chip/circuit inside stopped it from printing any further unless toner was replaced (and these toners are horribly expensive). I had made a bit of relationship with the dealer over the years and knew these affable guys personally, and asked him to send over the refill-wallahs, which they did. I've to add here, I've stopped believing in dealers after my 2 horrible printer experiences. This particular dealer is a fairly dubious one called sys-tech pune...these guys sit smartly dressed in their shops, will entice you with a Rs. 50 discount from other shops, and are just fishing for a quick sale....and they achieve it easily with their smooth-talk. They have no regard for customer preferences or honesty - they'll never sell you what YOU really want -- they'll just dupe you with the thing THEY want to sell and what achieves their higher commission (I guess this is the same sad story with most dealers, but then there are honest men out there too). i had in the past bought hp 4288 from them (and sys-tech again gave it to me cheaper than everyone else) -- and while the printer was cheap, the running costs turned out huge because 818 cart didnt refill after once. I had specifically reminded them of their past folly and told them the new laser should refill well, and they gave me the "samsung le lo sir, bahut acha refill hota hai, 3 year warranty hai".
Now....to get the counter to zero from 2100, you need to either change to older firmware and run a software patch (this particular technique didnt work in mine) or follow a more arduous process - short a circuit chip inside the printer (some pin 1 and 4 of a chip - i dont know the details - im daft with these things), which the refillwallahs did for me, and the printer counter went from 2100 to 0 again, and thus i was able to use the refilled toner again. They also "shorted" (if thats the right word) two more pins S5 and S9 (not sure of the names) and told me to buy a new toner with higher capacity since the intro toner had a small output. And assured me i was ready to rock from here on - no more problems wrt refilling, resetting chips and counters. And after the 800 or so pages of the 4th time refilled intro toner were done, I purchased a new larger capacity toner for 3.5k or nearabout.
then the bomb. the printer itself went out of whack, and i took it to the repair center. They said i had voided the warranty by tinkering inside and charged me another 3k for repairing it. The problem persisted one month hence - another 1.5k gone out of the window. I blasted the a*** dealers and vowed not to do business with them again.
The point is - Samsung printers are good - the ML 1610 was very good, but the newer ones arent if you're looking to refill them AND claim the 3 year warranty. Its like a bit of catch 22 situation. To get the warranty, either you need to keep buying expensive toners, or be lucky enough to reset counter through software (which doesnt work all the time, and didnt work for me). If you short chips inside the printer to reset counter, you void your 3 year warranty, and this is the game samsung is playing with the ML 1640 at least.
I dont know about the ML 1666 - hence I ask - are you 100% sure that it can be refilled (of course it can be refilled!) and theres no chip etc. tampering with which basically kills the 3 year warranty? have you specific experience of resetting chip easily (by say, a software patch..and if yes, where is it available?) without doing anything that constitutes voiding of the 3 year warranty that you got?
dOm1naTOr said:
I just got Samsung ML-1666XP for 5k.
It has greater dpi quality, 8MB buffer and can extend warranty by another +2 years for 399/- by mailing the invoice and DD/Cheque to specified address as per the BOX, which i just did
SO it will have 3 yrs onsite premium warranty.
Also this specific model's Toner can be refilled for real cheap. So cost per prints will be like 10ps
or may be buy another printer.