Update on Brother’s PICOCHARGE Service

Got a reply from Brother earlier today regarding some of my questions about their new PICOCHARGE service which was announced earlier last week.

Here’s a summary of my questions and the response from them:

• Do the pre-paid allocation expire after a certain time?

  • No. Any pre-paid print allocation can be used any time after purchase without an expiry or duration limit.

• Are replacement ink cartridges free, or only shipping costs for the ink cartridges are free?

  • Replacement ink cartridges are free and included in the pre-paid print allocation. This is a new model that we are creating so that instead of having to purchase ink every time it runs out, customers purchase print allocation instead and we will provide the necessary support. Strictly speaking, the ownership of the ink cartridges still belongs to Brother.

• Does printing a full color A4 photo on a photo paper count as 1 page only?

  • Yes, a single page of printing is counted as 1 page of your print allocation regardless of size, color or monochrome settings, or amount of text or images.

    While auto-duplexing is not available, it is possible to print on both sides of a paper manually, and would count as 2 pages.

So with these answered, now this seems like a feasible option for my use case, and is honestly really tempting.

Now I just need to find out more about the print quality when it comes to photos. Wonder if it will be displayed in the upcoming CP+ show.