Brother DR200 Drum Unit

Rating:
Summary: Separate Drum = Longer Life
Review: Brother's separate drum/toner cartridge arrangement makes for a longer life of the toner output equipment overall. Having been the owner of laser printers and inkjet printers for many years, I can say that Brother's solution is very nice. Here's why. In the arrangement used by HP, for example where the toner cartridge and drum are combined, if the drum is scratched, or otherwise damaged, the cartridge is ruined. That's the end; it must be replaced. In this arrangement, however, it is possible to fix the drum. Should a splotch appear, it's possible to wipe it off and even vacuum out the drum, if necessary. Sometimes when a cartridge is about to run out of toner, for example, it burps out a little extra toner. Because you can separate the drum from the cartridge, it's possible to clean this up instead of just throwing out the whole cartridge before it's really worn out. Another advantage along the same lines is being able to remove pieces of paper that get stuck inside the drum should a paper jam occur. Now as far as the economics of laser printer versus inkjet printer go, just figure it out for yourself. Do the math and come up with the best compromise of print yield, resolution, etc. In terms of comparing the cost of combined drum/toner cartridges versus the cost of separate drum/cartridges, I found that there was little difference on a per-print basis. Add to that the convenience of recovering from problems described at the beginning of my comments, and I am forced to conclude that the Brother solution is the best.

Rating:
Summary: CompUSA has these for $128+/-
Review: CompUSA has this same product for $128.07 as of June 14, 2004. I've had my Brother MFC 4550+ since 1998. My drums go fast even though I only use the machine primarily for faxing, not printing or copying.

Rating:
Summary: New appears to be used?
Review: The product is advertized as new oem brother product. upon installing new drum the starter paper that ejects upon start-up was not present and the print quality was worse that the unit being replaced. a series of black dots are now present in right hand column. Very dissappointed. I've installed one replacement prior to this and experienced none of the problems stated above. It wasn't worth the savings. I'll need to purchase new unit at brick & mortar store.

Rating:
Summary: BIG HUGE **WARNING** about Brother laser printers.
Review: The replacement Drum unit for my MFC 6550 printer-fax-scanner served me very well. It is worth the cost compared to many other printer drums. One word of caution: It saves the life of the drum if you take multiple copies of the original at one stretch rather than copying the same page repeatedly and often. The replacement of the drum is very easy.

Rating:
Summary: Brother MFC 6550 Drum Unit
Review: The replacement Drum unit for my MFC 6550 printer-fax-scanner served me very well. It is worth the cost compared to many other printer drums. One word of caution: It saves the life of the drum if you take multiple copies of the original at one stretch rather than copying the same page repeatedly and often. The replacement of the drum is very easy.

Rating:
Summary: BIG HUGE **WARNING** about Brother laser printers.
Review: You have to replace the drum unit every 3-4 toners! They told me this at Brother after I bought my printer and it started splotching after the 4th toner. The drum unit usually costs $200 (1/3 the cost of the machine itself). I did the math (price of ink jet printer and cartridges compared to price of Brother laser printer, toner and drum unit, even if you buy the drum unit at Amazon for $127, over the coarse of a year)- IT IS CHEAPER OVERALL TO BUY AN INK JET PRINTER (the conventional wisdom is that it is cheaper per page to buy a laser printer) and at least with an ink jet you get color!