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Choosing a toner cartridge for your laser printer

When ordering a new cartridge, it is always best to specify the printer model, the cartridge part number and the page yield. This provides an element of redundancy that enables mistakes to be identified by cross-checking. You should also specify whether you require an original or a remanufactured toner cartridge. We charge a re-stocking fee for the return of cartridges that were ordered incorrectly.

Do not order more cartridges than you expect to need in the next 12 months. Cartridges have a limited shelf life: the OPC drum will gradually loose its sensitivity to light; toner particles will degrade the drum surface; seals and wiper blades will harden and their constituent materials will deteriorate; and the toner will absorb moisture from the atmosphere and the fine particles will tend to clump. For these reasons, do not open the sealed bag containing the cartridge until you are ready to install it in your printer.

If you have only one printer of a particular model, do not accept promotional offers for six or more cartridges at a bargain price, no matter how good the price. The cartridges may deteriorate before you are ready to use them and most cartridge warranties have a time limit. In addition, your printer may fail and you will be left with a cupboard full of cartridges that you can no longer use.

Should you buy a genuine or a remanufactured toner cartridge?

Should you buy a genuine cartridge manufactured by the company that made your printer or a remanufactured toner cartridge made by an after-market manufacturer? The answer to this question depends on what type of printing you wish to do and the size of your budget. For example, if you are a graphics designer producing samples of your work to show clients, you should probably buy a genuine cartridge. This will give you the best chance of producing high quality graphics prints. On the other hand, if you are using the printer to print invoices at a point of sale, a premium remanufactured toner cartridge will do the job and save you up to 50% of the cost a genuine cartridge.

Our remanufactured toner cartridges are made using only virgin original cartridges i.e. genuine cartridges that have been used once and are now empty. We do this because it is not possible to replace evry single component in the cartridge and the non-replaceable components will usually last at least two life cycles but not three. We also use high quality toner, OPC drums and wiper blades. Hence, our remanufactured toner cartridges are not the cheapest on the market but they are among the best. Our prices are still less than half those of genuine cartridges.

You should be wary of very cheap remanufactured toner cartridges as they may only be re-filled as opposed to remanufactured or they may have been remanufactured many times before. They are probably made using poor quality components such as drums and toner. Cheap toner contains more coarse particles and will produce poor quality prints and excessive wear on printer components. Cheap photo-conductor drums may use poor quality coatings or may only be refurbished units that have already completed one life cycle. They are unlikely to last for a complete second cycle. Cheap remanufactured cartridges are likley to be poorly assembled and leak toner. They can wreck your printer.

Do not choose between remanufactured toner cartridges on the basis of price: look at warranties and evidence of quality in manufacture and packaging. Read our articles on remanufactured cartridges: see below.

Some manufacturers such as Canon and HP market very similar model printers based on the same laser engine. They each offer new genuine cartridges for their own products that will also work in the other manufacturer's products. In this situation, choose the cheapest option.

Should you buy a low yield or a high yield toner cartridge?

Should you buy a low yield or a high yield toner cartridge? The high yield cartridges are obviously more expensive but they appear to be cheaper on a price-per-page basis. However, depending on the characteristics of your printing operation, the very high yield cartridges may wear-out mechanically and start to leak before all of the available toner has been used. This is particularly the case if you are using remanmufactured toner cartridges that have already completed one life cycle as genuine cartridges before being remanufactured. Good quality remanufactured toner cartridges always incorporate a new photo-conductor drum but, even in new cartridges, the quality of the photo-conductor drum will also degrade as it prints more and more pages and this will lead to a deterioration in print quality.

If your printing operation involves mostly small jobs of say ten pages or less, your cartridge will experience more wear and tear than if you were to print a smaller number of large print jobs of say 100 pages or more. In the former case, you would be well advised to buy say a 21,000 page as opposed to a 32,000 page yield cartridge. The reason is simple: the 21,000 page yield cartridge will exhaust its toner supply before the mechanical seals in the cartridge fail and start to leak toner into the printer. Leaking toner will not only produce dirty prints but also will destroy the fuser and result in expensive printer repairs.

Your choice will also depend on the number of pages you expect to print per year and the expected coverage of toner per page. The rated capacity of a toner cartridge is based on 5% coverage of toner on an A4 page (estimate for an average business letter). If your coverage is 10%, you will use twice as much toner and get half as many printed pages. If your toner coverage ratio is high, it may be appropriate to choose a very high yield cartridge. However, as described above, cartridges do deteriorate over time. You should choose a cartridge that will last you two years or less: if you do not do much printing and your toner coverage ratio is low, buy a low yield cartridge - in the long run, it will be the more cost effective option.

Should you buy a special purpose toner cartridge?

The third issue is whether you should buy a standard or a special purpose cartridge. Lexmark, for example, makes a special cartridge for use when printing labels: it incorporates a special fuser cleaner that helps to prevent labels from sticking to the rollers in the fuser. It is also possible to buy (from us and others) special cartridges for printing cheques: these cartridges use a special toner and are referred to as Magnetic Ink Character Recognition (MICR) cartridges. MICR is a language used by bankers on cheques. It consists of Arabic type numbers printed on the bottom of each cheque. The special toner used to print these numbers provides a magnetic signature that facilitates scanning and processing. Call us to enquire about the availability of MICR cartridges for your printer.

More information about remanufactured toner cartridges

If you would like to gain a greater understanding of some of the issues involved with remanufactured toner cartridges, you should click on some of the links below:


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